KABIWALAS 349 Kesta Muchi but also by a youngling like Ram Basu ' ; or how Antony was attacked by Thakur Sirhha but paid him back in his own coin.? But this necessity of poetical rivalry, in which quick and witty retort played a great part, and this contamination of popular applause which readily followed such cheap display of ingenuity went a long way in debasing the quality of Kabi-poetry until these poetical extemporisations degenerated into something even worse than the wayside verses that are hawked about and sold for a penny. The later Kabiwalas fell into the vital error of imagining that the sole end of poetical existence consisted in abusing and throwing mud at each other. Over the dull obscenities into which they entered it is better for the eritic to keep silence ; but we may here recall, for illustration, one or two instances of these retorts, although they do not always display either sobriety or good taste. At a certain sitting at the Sobhabazar Palace the parties of Ram Basu, then an old veteran, and of Nilu An instance of a Thakur (a disciple of Ram Basu’s old witty retort quoted. রি নু rival Haru Thakur) met. Nilu was dead but Ram-prasid Thakur was then the leader of the party. Ram-prasad began the attack নাইক রাম বোসের এখন সেকেলে পৌরোষ এখন দল করে হয়েছেন রাম বোস-_রামকামারের * * ॥ But immediately Rim Basu retorted তেম্নি এই নীলুর দলে রামপ্রসাদ এক্টান্। যেমন ঢাকের পীটে বায়! থাকে বাজেনাক একটি দিন ॥
- Nabyabbarat, 1311, pp. 477-79.
2 Raim-gati Nydyaratna, Bangabhaga O Sahitya bigayak Prastab, 3rd Ed. (1317), p. 196, footnote, quoted in Bangabhaga O Sahitya at pp. 598-9. For notice of a fight between Antony and Bhola, see Bharati, 1303 p. 59 et seq.
