Page:Gandhi - Young India, Viking Press, 1924-1926.pdf/737

Rh -ship has no relation to the poet’s undisputed position. It is time to realise that our fields are absolutely different and at no point overlapping. The Poet lives in a magnificent world of his own creation—his world of ideas. I am a slave of somebody else’s creation—the spinning wheel. The Poet makes his gopis dance to the tune of his flute. I wander after my beloved Sita, the Charkha and seek to deliver her from the ten-headed monster from Japan, Manchester, Paris etc. The Poet is an inventor—he creates, destroys and recreates. I am an explorer and having discovered a thing I must cling to it. The Poet presents the world with new and attractive things from day to day. I can merely show the hidden possibilities of old and even worn-out things. The world easily finds an honourable place for the magician who produces new and dazzling things. I have to struggle laboriously to find a corner for my worn-out things. Thus, there is no competition between us. But I may say in all humility that we complement each the other’s activity.

The fact is that the Poet’s criticism is a poetic licence and he who takes it literally is in danger of finding himself in an awkward corner. An ancient poet has said that Solomon arrayed in all his glory was not like one of the lilies of the field. He clearly referred to the natural beauty and innocence of the lily contrasted with the artificiality of Solomon’s glory and his sinfulness in spite of his many good deeds. Or take the poetical licence in ‘It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven’. We know that no camel has ever passed through the eye of a needle and we know too that rich men like Janaka have entered the Kingdom of Heaven. Or take the beautiful simile of human teeth being likened to the pomegranate seed. Foolish women who have taken the poetical exaggeration literally have been found to disfigure and even harm their teeth. Painters and poets are obliged to exaggerate the proportions of their figures in order to give true perspective. Those therefore who take the Poet’s denunciation of the Charkha literally will be doing an injustice to the Poet and an injury to themselves.