King Porus Fought For Freedom: A
Poetic View
Indian poet Michael Madhusudan Dutt looks at Maharaja Porus
as a legendary freedom fighter of Inida.
A great scholar who was as good
a writer in
English and Persian as in his mother tongue Bengali. He was born on 25th January 1824
in Jessore District of Bangladesh and passed on June 29, 1873 in Kolkata. He served as a teacher of English in
Madras. His nickname was Timothy
Penpoem.
Dutt was a revolutionary poet. He had modernistic mindset, interested in
throwing away some of the old social baggage which kept people superstitious
and cowardly. He was a patriot and it is
because of this quality of his own that he admires Maharaja Porus and calls him
---- A Legendary Hero --- in his poem on King Porus.
Dutt believes that Maharaja Porus
fought for Freedom: “Loudly the midnight tempest sang. /Ah! It was thy dirge,
fair Liberty!”
The hero of Dutt’s poem is a true
valorous king. Describing the invasion
of Alexander and the readiness of Maharaja Porus to defend himself and his
soldiers, Dutt says:
Then lion-king, each warrior brave
Rushed on the coming foe,
To strike for freedom – or the grave.
Thousands of
soldiers of soldiers lost their lives in this battle. But, says Dutt, before the Macedonians
driven’ fell India’s hardy sons.’ Proud mountain oaks by thunders driven, that
for their country’s freedom bled – and made on gore their florious bed!
How did Maharaja Porus in this terribly destructive batter?
According to Dutt: King Porus stood their dauntlessly, towering ‘midst the
fore’, like a Himala-peak, with its eternal crown of snow, and on his brow did
shine the jewell’d regal diadem. His
mil-white elephant t was deck’d with many a brilliant gem.
Unfortunately Maharaja Porus got wounded and started
bleeding. Alexander noticed it and quite generously ordered his men to
“Desist-desist!” and wonderfully exclaimed: “Such noble blood should not be
shed!”
The words that follow hint at peace and patriotism. “Stood,
‘midst the dying’ and the dead, King Porus, boldly, undismayed: ‘Hail, brave
and warlike prince!’, thy generous rival bids thee cease – behold! there flies the
flag that lulls dread war, and wakens peace!”
Maharaja Porus is chained but boldly goes to the place where
‘midst the gay and flittering crowd, sat god-like Alexander. Michael Dutt
uses this
scene to highlight the indomitable spirit of Porus to shun slavery and make the
strongest possible plea for freedom. In
Michael’s words: “While ‘round’ Earth’s mightiest monarchs bow’d, King Porus
was no slave; he stooped not – bent not there his knee , but stood, as stands
an oak in Himalayan majesty and when asked by Alexander how he should be tread,
Porus replied: “As a King”.
India should be grateful to Michael
Maduhusudan Dutt for interpreting the war between Porus and Alexander as an
Indian’s war for freedom against a
foreign invader.
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