A POET’S CREDO
D.
V.
(Rendered
from the Telugu original by HEMALATA)
[Mr.
Devulapalli Venkata Krishna
Sastri, who died in
The
following is a slightly condensed version of the poet’s presidential address at
the Progressive Writers’ Conference in
I wonder why you had invited an old and dumb man like me to preside over your function.
Was
it not W. B. Yeats who said: “Old and gray and full of sleep.”
Old
age is bad enough. But, coupled with dumbness, it can be terrible, like
darkness in a deserted temple.
“Can
you imagine how it feels when speech gurgles in the throat, struggling to come
out?”
Likewise, the light behind the blind man’s eye, trying hard
to pierce through.
Once
I visited a blind girls’ hostel. In a song composed for them, I wrote:
“We
know darkness, we know light,
Our
ears have eyes,
We
see with our hands.”
The
eye that sees not is mute. The voice that speaks not is blind. My voice is
stone; my voice is still and dark.
My
voice is the Ahalya, with no hope of the Lord’s
touch. But I blame no one. Nor weep nor wail. An optimist with a deep-rooted
faith in man can ill afford to do that.
What
of the millions worse off?
John
Wesley, the Methodist, had a friend who always bemoaned his lot. One day in the
Wherever
we find poverty, pain and suffering, blindness and dumbness, it is our duty to
relieve it–yours and mine.
When
we are dead and gone, even if a single soul mourns for us, besides our kith and
kin, we are still alive!
Man
is an eternal traveller.
His
journey continues from the days of Adam.
Else,
we won’t be here.
Nor
can a poet stop. He can’t say: “Thus far and no further.”
He
keeps the experiences of the past; the truths of aeons
in his rucksack, as bread and butter, throwing away the worn-out and the
worthless.
He
can’t walk backwards, like a man with a mote in his eye. Nor
sideways like the crab.
The
man who comes from afar, it seems, is the one most likely to go fat again. “He
can’t stay away here”, we are led to think.
In
his bag remain things which are whole, true and useful. He discards the rest.
In
the words of Tagore:
“Light
is young–the ancient light. Shadows are of the moment. They are born old.”
Hence,
light, youth, and truth are identical.
Youth
spells luck. That’s why I say, I follow the youth – even to the grave!
Youth
represents the future. And future is but another name for man.
But
you can’t quite cut asunder from tradition. Why? Because light is not only
young; it is also ancient.
Wonderful
indeed it should have been for the primeval man to stand beneath the endless
sky and wave to the breeze like a young tree, gazing at the countless stars!
But,
if that primeval man had stayed out, we should all be roaming about naked,
eating leaves for food.
Science
is great; it has wrought miracles. No science–no clothes to wear, no house to
live in. Science means progress.
Now
I come to the writers.
The
Telugu language is of two kinds–the poetic language and the spoken language.
The writer must be thorough with at least one of the two.
If he knows both, so much the better; He should know the idiom. The
spoken language that most of us write is our own–personal. In Gurazada’s Kanyasulkam,
it is the spoken language of the people in general.
The
writer must have a close contact with the common people. From them he should
pick up the language of life. They are the inexhaustible reservoir, from which
he should fill his life with experience. They are the dynamo from which he
should charge his batteries. He needs raw material from the living world. He
needs the compassion that makes for creativity.
High-sounding
exhortations to the masses from a safe distance, be it
He
should immerse himself in the ocean of human life. Only then does he get the
needed warmth. Otherwise, his word will be devoid of life, though pretty
in form.
Another thing to remember. A poem cannot be woven around a single phrase, a word compared or an image, that attracts one’s attention. That image or phrase might pass muster for the time being.
Likewise,
a poem may happen to have a series of beautiful images and phrases. But that is
not enough. They should form an integrated whole. A collection of beautiful
windows and doors does not make a good house. If you remove any of them the
whole house will collapse. Those images quarrel among themselves,
says Cecil Day Lewis.
The
works of many poets do not appeal to me. For one thing, they lack the warmth of
life. For another, the words and images fail to have the inevitability to make
an integrated whole. To recall the words of Tagore: “The whole universe is a
lyric, in which every part or thing must agree with the other parts or things.”
Of
all forms of literary art, poetry is the most subjective; the lyric is even
more so.
An
incident or an anecdote touches a poet’s heart and moves him to his depths. It
then becomes his own experience and through the alchemy of his art emerges as a
lyric. The heart is more important here than the mind and the brain. The lyric
expresses the truth of the emotions.
“I
will fly to thee on the viewless wings of poesy, though the dull brain
perplexes and retards,” said Keats. Every word in a lyric has its own colour
and fragrance. It has no synonym. It is the inevitable word that matters. No
other word has a place there. Can a true poet use a synonym at all?
In
a lyric, the words are intimately linked to one another–like personal friends
and family relations. These words attract one another. They move hand in hand
and in one another’s footsteps. Together they have one body and one soul.
A
lyric need not necessarily be a geya or
song, sung to a tune. It can be in verse or in prose. As Tagore observed, “The
expression and the expressed are one. Separated, they are mutually hostile.
They have to be integrated, after overcoming their natural hostility.
Otherwise, the result will be second-rate poetry.”
In
some writings, ideas are smothered by the embellishments. Some other writings
fall flat for want of style.
Some
do not know how to say a thing. Others may know it, but
they have nothing to say.
There
is need for co-ordination for any creation, not only that of the poet. There
are before us, many mutually hostile forces, whose interaction we seem to
ignore. This is not good for creativity.
The
whole world, the entire creation, is in itself a wonderful lyric. Our life is
like listening to its song. One need not wail till the end to enjoy the beauty
of this song. The song itself is there.
When
the song opens one does not at once look for its closing. The listener proceeds
with the song, enjoying every minute detail of its modulation. So also, in the song of life. The details do not tire us.
The more we get at the underlying unity, the better we enjoy it.
More
than in words themselves, poetry lies in the music arising from their
combination and transformation.
You
cannot throw a violet in a crucible, to analyse its
colour and smell. That was why Shelley dismissed as futile all efforts to
translate the poetry of one language into another.
“The
tree has to grow from the seed; else it will not bloom,” he said.
“Charmed
magic casements, opening on the foam of perilous seas in the fairy lands
forlorn.”
These
lines represent the high watermark of the art of the English lyric. Each of
these words has endless powers of suggestion. They somehow draw tears from our
eyes, said a noted English critic.
How
to translate them into another language?
No
problem if it is only the meaning. But each word here is a casement. It opens
out on of perilous seas in the fairy lands forlorn.
Such
magic lines abound in our poetic classics too. More so in the Mahabharata of Nannaya.
There is no lyric poet like Nannaya in Telugu. There
is no dramatic poet like Tikkana, in the entire range
of Indian literature, it seems to me.
Are
not our Andhra Mahabharata and Bhagavata only translations, you might ask.
Well, I don’t know. Nor would I like to. They will do for me.
Their
authors are poets of uncommon genius. They are seers (Rishis)
as well.
Every
word and line of these mahakavyas (or
great classics) is part and parcel of their culture. Every incident is for them
an eternal truth, as their own life and society is suffused with those
incidents and truths. That is why these mahakavyas
are like trees that grow and flourish in the soil. So the plant has again
sprouted from the seed.
To
sum up, I go back where we started from.
Man
the eternal traveller goes forward–he has to; the
poet even more so.
In
this age of speed, the world changes faster than ever.
If
we happen to be slow, we only fall by the wayside.
We
cannot, therefore, afford to hug the dead past to our bosoms. Nor can we
discard the living past.
Sympathy
is very important. It is also unwise to reject anything good, simply because it
is advocated by an opponent or by an opponent’s party.
The
writer is always on the side of right, irrespective of caste, creed or party.
The writer should never lose sight of humanity, love, compassion and the
commitment to life.
All
the writers should unite and forge ahead. I cannot see eye to eye with those
who see all the good only in the past. We unite not only to write, but to
work–to work with our bands. This is good for the mind as well.
My
mind goes back to 1914 and the years that followed, marked by my youthful
enthusiasm for social work, the resultant excommunication and other forms of
social persecution.
The
Progressive Writers’ Association should not rest content with writings and
conferences. It should plunge into the field of action and march ahead, in
response to Sri Sri’s call to go “forward and onward!”
Coming
now to my old age, I was only joking, when I spoke of it. No dotard am I.
Listen now to this song of mine:
Keep
off the cold
Kick
out the winter!
Never
let go the spring
Never,
never!
Beware,
beware, beware!
Beware,
beware, beware!
Even
if scorching sun
Of
summer attacks you,
Or
weeping rain-cloud
Bursts
upon you.
Keep
off the cold,
Kick
out the winter!
Growing
desires of spring,
Floating
dreams of autumn!
Drowsy
sleep of December,
Decay
and death in winter.
When
old age knocks
sharply
at the door,
Say
‘Not at Home,’
Shout
‘Not available.’
Keep
off the cold!
Kick
out the winter!