R.
SUBRAMANIAN
Sri
Subramania Bharati occupies a unique place in the galaxy of the twentieth
century Tamil poets. He heralded a new era in the history of Tamil literature.
His poetical greatness was the result of the synthesis of three great
cultures–Tamil, English and Sanskrit. His originality was unique, candour forbidding, presentation attractive and success
phenomenal.
“Poet
Bharati has fulfilkd the true mission of a poet. He
has created beauty not only through the medium of glowing and lovely words, but
has kindled the souls of men and women by the million to a more passionate love
of freedom, and a richer dedication to the service of the country. Poets like
Bharati cannot be counted as the treasure of any province. He is entitled, by
his genius and his work, to rank among those who have transcended all
limitations of race, language and continent and have become the universal
possession of mankind.”
In
these words, did Poetess Sarojini Naidu, the Nightingale of India, paid glowing tributes to Bharati, when the Bharati Memorial
at Ettayapuram was raised by a devoted Tamil public,
the year after the nation became free.
Bharati
was truly great and he was easily the greatest of the modern Tamil poets. With
him came the flood-tide of renaissance, as a part of national upsurge for
freedom. In his hands Tamil recovered its naturalness, clarity, vigour, vitality and flexibility. He turned to colloquial
vocabulary and rhythms and brought the written Tamil closer to speech. Apart
from a remarkable output of glorious poetry, he also helped to fashion Tamil
prose. He attempted every branch of literature and surely adorned it with his
writings.
Bharati’s
“Kuyil Song” is a sustained fire of emotion; his
imagination curiously welds together all the scattered materials of the
human world and builds through an alert imagery of the magnificent potency of
human love, peerless, stainless and all-pervading. Lovers dream deeper dreams
of permanence in this fantastic world, and their higher feelings float on
ethereal poesy, in endless harmony of song. The lovers’ souls flutter in
rapture, bill and coo, and realise the earthly paradise.
Bharati’s
song of the cuckoo is indeed the crown of all his achievements in the domain of
poetry. Bharati in his song of the cuckoo pours out his heart. It is indeed a
day dream of the poet.
Kuyil’s
Song (Kuyil Pattu) is
a narrative poem in nine parts, totalling about 750
lines. It may be called a fable, because the principal character is a Kuyil and two of the other characters are a monkey and a
bull. It may be called a dream-sequence, for some of the events partake of the tantalising quality of dreams. A fable and a dream poem, it
is also a sort of vision seen or imagined by the poet.
Kuyil’s
Song is unquestionably the most audacious, the most
original and the most enjoyable of the creations of Bharati’s poetic
imagination.
Bharati
has a keen observation and has the capacity of identifying himself with what he
creates. As one author observes, an artist has no character of his own but he
becomes what he creates. This aspect of the negative capability is stressed
while pointing out the essential greatness of an artist. His vivid description
of the monkey and the bull give us a rare insight into his artistic skill. The
cuckoo under the magic spell of love, goes into
ecstasies over the lovely features of the monkey and those of the bull.
The
framework of the story is rather simple. It is neither tangled nor complex. The
story which is narrated is in keeping with the traditions and beliefs of our
race. The transmigration of souls, the relentless pursuit of love down the
ages, the overwhelming power of fate which shapes even the course of love, all
this is traditional and having this as an effective scaffolding, he has raised
an immortal palace of art.
Bharati
has poured in this poem all the wealth of his poetic imageries and experiences.
Great poetry appeals not only to our imagination but also to our understanding,
feelings and emotions and Bharati’s song of the cuckoo may be considered as a
supreme example of great poetry.
This
is the story. One morning the poet finds himself in a luxuriant garden in
Love,
love, love;
Love
ending, love ending,
Death, death, death.
The
whole point is the repetition of contrasting words in the first and third
lines. The kuyil’s ‘ku-ku-ku’
becomes a three-fold repetition of one word after another–in all ten pairs of
contrasting words are used for this purpose–while the middle line purposively
links the contrasted key-words of each stanza. Love–death; joy–misery;
harmony–discord; fame–shame, etc.,–out of such antinomies the kuyil fashions her music. The keynote, of course, is the
hunger for love; and failing love, the inevitability of death.
When
the song ends, the poet approaches the bird, and asks her what’s wrong that she
should be pouring forth her heart in such sad sweet ecstasy. “I seek love–or
death!” answers the kuyil, and entreats the poet to
come again on the fourth day, making it clear that he is the object of her
frenzied longing. The poet too–in defiance of logic and commonsense–is now
madly in love with the kuyil, and the hours pass out
slowly for him!
The
next day the poet is inexplicably drawn to the garden and receives a shock when
he sees his kuyil shamelessly flirting with a monkey!
The poet makes a wild movement to kill the monkey, but both beast and bird
escape his wrath, and are nowhere to be found. The unhappy disillusioned poet
spends a wretched night, and the next day again he makes his way to the garden.
This time he finds his kuyil flirting no less
shamelessly with an old bull. As on the previous day, he makes a dash for the
intruding rival lover, the bull, with the same exasperating result.
On the fourth day the poet goes to
the garden, not so much to keep his appointment with the kuyil, but to be
revenged on her for her wantonness and perfidy. The sight of the kuyil, however, softens him a little, and he restrains
himself. Marking the arrested stroke and his distorted face, the kuyil asks him not to judge her in haste but be patient and
listen to her story. Kuyil though she is in form, she
is endowed with human understanding and human speech. How could that be? The
mystery was once explained to her by a certain Muni
or Rishi. The kuyil had been the lovely
daughter of a Chera chieftain of the hills–and “kuyili” had been her name. Her cousin Madan
(the name means “bull”) loved her, and she agreed to marry him out of pity for
him, not because she loved him in return! But her parents decided –as parents
often do – that she should marry another chieftain’s son, Kurangan
(meaning “monkey”). About the time of the marriage, while kuyili
was in the woods, a charming prince met her and declared his love and offered
marriage. This was true love indeed, and while they were lost in their love
oblivious of their surroundings, Madan and Kuraugan surprised them there and made a murderous attack
on the prince who counter-attacked them in self-defence.
All three died, but the prince before dying assured kuyili
that they would meet again and achieve the fulfilment
of their love. The Rishi further told the kuyil that
the prince was now a poet, Madan and Kurangan had become a bull and a monkey respectively, always
following her, and they would also try still to prevent her longed-for reunion
with her prince, now the poet. From all this it is clear to our poet-narrator
that he is the prince, and that the events of the two previous days were but
mere make-believe fashioned by the vengeful bull and monkey. The poet now
seizes the kuyil in mad rapture to kiss her–and lo
and behold! she turns a woman again, flawless in her
beauty. But the rapture fades all of a sudden, the poet wakes up with a start,
and he sees only the bettered mat, the crumpled papers, and the other usual
concomitants of his study room! (Dr. Prema’s “Bharati
in English Verse”)
The
machinery employed is subtle and intricate, for the main story is encased in
crystal spheres of other subordinate or continuing stories within it. The
recurring theme is love and its perpetuation through a series of
transmigrations of hero and heroine of humans, birds and beasts. Narration and
description are beautifully matched and humour and
pathos and high adventure are intertwined in a living and throbbing whole.
Traditional poetic diction in Tamil had for long degenerated into obscure
struck out of ordinary, even colloquial speech. It is the only poem of Bharati
which speaks the universal language of love and can appeal to all, unburdened
by literary or critical conventions. By the same token, it would be more
difficult to translate it into any other medium with the bouquet intact. In the
end, the poet unveils himself as the Prospero of this cold-capp’d
edifice and brings us down to the earth without a jar or hitch.
This
poem reveals to us Bharati’s intense love of nature. The opening lines begin
with the splendour of the morning sun arising out of
the deep. Its flame shines all the more bright against the dark background of
the sea. The echoing seashore and the glove are all lit in the freshness and
glory of a dream. The song of the innumerable birds touches the heart of the
poet
Bharati’s
“Kuyil Pattu” discloses the
splendour of human love with a keen sustained undercurrent
of allegory; the material love with a spiritual glow pervades the entire poem
in an exalted diction; simple words, hurled by the poet’s creative spell, speak
lofty truths from height of emotional excellence, and candour.
Music,
O sweet music;
And
when music fails,
And
when music fails,
Only cacophony.
Beat
the rhythm, beat the rhythm:
And
when rhythm fails,
Mere confusion.
Divine
the poetic voice;
But
when poetry fails,
Only the dross of the earth.
The
song of the cuckoo is indeed an extraordinary poem. It is not only a poem of
escape but also a criticism and interpretation of life. It satisfies the
three-fold aspects of poetry and it may hold its highest place among the
artistic creations in the realm of poetry.