64 SOCIAL SCIENTIST Nandy should know that the time for poetry can never be over and that it is always time to act. The current tragedy is that we have neither the one nor the other. Maybe, it is just a passing phase. After all, lulls precede storms. In a brief but closely argued article Bhisham Sahni has emphasized the need to analyze the concrete conditions of our living instead of indulging in generalizations about the "human predicament", "absurdity", or "over turning of values". He is perceptive enough to distinguish between authentic protest based on progressive values and phoney protest based on trivialities. Lokenath Bhattacharya's contribution to the same section is rambling, verbose and pointless. There is no point in refuting another^s pointlessness. But as Bhattacharya is an important functionary of the National Book Trust—he is the deputy director—his views should be known to the intellectual community: "Any protest, if at all it is intended, is bound to lose its edge in works of fiction and drama, primarily concerned as these latter have to be with the unfolding of a plot involving characters and actions".4 According to him, poetry, beingf'totally subjective", ^the purest and most individual utterance" may express protest. Even here he has important qualifications: But I/believe that poet's essential job is to write, to give artistically valid expression to his feelings and experiences which in the very nature of things will have to be personal and can in no case be collective. I believe that the poet must first belong to his room in order that he may come down to the street and later, again return to his room. The poet must have his room and also the sky—in that order; that is, he cannot belong to the sky [sic] unless he has his room998 Some people wonder why the National Book Trust is so ineffective. Let them meditate on the symbolism of the quoted passage. Looking at Society The subject pf "Social Realism and Change" is inadequately covered by Khwaja Ahmed Abbas, Rajendra Yadav and Kailash/ Vajpeyi. Abbas and Vajpeyi make a cursory survey of progressive writing in Hindi, Urdu and Panjabi. Rajendra Yadav feels that the younger contemporary writers do not entertain any illusions and do not suffer from any hangover of an e^arlier idealism. He seems to reduce social realism to an honest and unsentimental portrayal of man-woman relationship which, in his view, constitutes the nucleus of all social changes. I believe that man-woman relationship is an excellent indicator of social changes; but it can hardly be called their nucleus. ^ The book also contains a section entitled "Literature and Divisive Tendencies". Prabhakar Machwe makes the inevitable appearance with his invariable inanities. He is no doubt keen on combating divisive tendencies based on narrow chauvinism. But his programme for- achieving this laudable objective is nothing more impressive than quoting sententious wisdom from Sanskrit, Tamil, Bengali and Marathi to the effect that