D. V.
D. ANJANEYULU
The
death of Devulapalli Krishna Sastri marks the end of
an age–the Romantic age –in modern Telugu poetry. This age came into public
view sometime in the early ’Twenties. Minor problems of chronology and
individual priority apart, Krishna Sastri remained its most picturesque and
popular leader for over half-a-century. He was justly reputed to be one of the
most eloquent of contemporary Telugu poets.
A
highly sensitive and articulate person, he had a lively involvement with words
as well as images and ideas. Generations of lovers of poetry in Andhra learned
to cherish his words, whether he recited a poem or intoned a song, his own or
another’s, or made one of his inspired speeches on the platform or just relaxed
over a cup of tea, recounting the odds and ends of his personal experience to
an intimate circle of personal friends and admirers.
That
was, of course, when he had his voice intact. For, as luck would have it, he
lost it in a surgical operation in the decades of his life.
Few
would, however, challenge the statement that by his example and precept,
Krishna Sastri wrought a virtual revolution in people’s attitude to poetry.
Time
was not long ago in Andhra, when poetic merit was hardly distinguishable from
metrical skill and the parade of classical scholarship. The forms and modes of
Telugu poetry were so much under the overpowering influence of the Sanskrit
models that unflinching loyalty to the latter, with a flair for close imitation
and wholesale adaptation were all that were required of the Telugu poet for
attaining public recognition, which practically meant the royal patron’s
recognition. Apart from the time-honoured practice of
translating and adapting the Sanskrit epics, the prabandha
tradition became so well-established as to leave
little room for new experiment or even the un fettered expression of the true
personality of the poet.
As
Wordsworth and Coleridge found it earlier in the
The
modern age in Telugu poetry could be said to have begun with the work of Gurazada Appa Rao, whose poems
and songs might be few in number, but were remarkable as a new departure from
the beaten track. The simplicity and directness of his appeal to the heart of
the common man was telling, though his output was limited. In another sense, Rayaprolu Subba Rao was also a
pioneer in that emotion of love in all its aspects was purified of the dross of
baser elements in the crucible of his mystic muse. If Rayaprolu
is the forerunner of the Romantic Movement in Telugu poetry, Krishna Sastri has
been its most powerful exponent and popular exemplar.
Krishna
Sastri was indeed a poet in every sense of the word–a poet with a distinct and
vivid personality of his own, who stood for the poetic way of life. For at
least a generation and more, from the ’Twenties into the ’Forties, he was the
Andhra young man’s dream of poetry come true. He not only wrote poetry, but
lived it. There used to be in Andhra any number of budding poets and others who
affected his manners and mannerisms with varying degrees of success, but none
at all who could rise to the same heights as he did on the parnassus.
Born
on 1 November 1897 in Coastal Andhra (at village Chandrampalem,
near Pithapuram), not far from the banks of the
In
the field of poetic composition itself, Krishna Sastri, who had his roots in
the classical tradition of Telugu poetry, was soon drawn to the new-found
wonders of Keats and Shelley and other voices of the Romantic Revival in
The
volume of Krishna Sastri’s writing in prose and
verse, is comparatively slight, i.e., when compared to the output of his
contemporaries like Viswanadha Satyanarayana or his
own intrinsic potentialities. All of it, including his later work, comprising
musical plays for the Radio and film songs (since the early ’Fifties), as well
as his early poems, which form the hard core of his poetical work, had been
brought out in six handy volumes in 1975 (to mark the golden jubilee of his
literary career).
Of
these six, Krishna Paksham and Pallaki represent his earliest and best-known
verse. The first is in three parts,
Of
Krishna Sastri, it could be said that he was both a born poet and a poet by
training. After playing the sedulous ape in his youth to the classical models favoured by his elders, he found his metier,
before long, in the lyric poetry that we now associate with his name. Krishna
Paksham (literally meaning a half portion of
Krishna Sastri, as well as the dark fortnight), covering fifty odd poems, was
about his earliest published work, which is also his most characteristic work
and chief title to fame. The dominant note here and in Pravaasam
(Exile), a collection of fifteen pieces, is one of pathos, as also in the
rest of his work. The mood of melancholy that pervades these poems is not, on
its surface, derived from the agony of the world, or “ Viswa Vedana, as
in some of the other great poets, who tend to identify themselves with the
plight of the world as a whole. It is intensely personal here; for this poet
seems to identify his personal anguish with the state of the universe.
Though it is possible for the less sympathetic critics of the biographical school to trace this feeling to some glaring vicissitude of private life, like the death of a wife, unrequited love or other disappointment in personal life, it would only be fair to concede that it is something more fundamental, with a spiritual dimension to it. It may be a result of the yawning gap between the ideal and the actual, between one’s own aspirations and the hard realities around us. When the vision of beauty is found hard to capture and the goal of happiness eludes one at every step, sorrow and self-reproach become inevitable. But what happens with this poet is that this mood catches on and like Keats, he finds some happiness in the company of sorrow and some consolation in the act of self-reproach. He amply demonstrates the truth of the statement that the sweetest songs are those that tell of the saddest thoughts.
Part,
at least, of the sadness is traceable to the poet’s vital attachment to the
values of freedom and a continuous protest against the stuffy, cramped
atmosphere he finds himself in. His constant play with the images relating to
the birds of the air, clouds, hurricanes, the stars and the sky indicates his
preoccupation with the idea of freedom. He gives expression to it in clearer
terms in his Song of Freedom.
Let
them laugh if they like,
Why
not I do just as I please?
I
shall float on the wings of singing birds
And
like a star amid the stars
Vanish
in the Sweetness of my songs!
Let
them laugh if they like.
The
poet’s conception of Romantic love is best illustrated in Urvashi, a collection of two dozen lyrical
pieces, apostrophizing the celestial damsel of Hindu mythology, who takes a new
birth in his mind. Krishna Sastri’s Urvashi may have a family likeness to Tagore’s Urvashi and a nominal reference to the heroine of classical
tradition, but she is distinct from both, a trifle loftier and grander than any
other creation of Nature or poetry. Maybe she is psychologically less complex
than Dinkar’s Urvashi - a
later creation. She is neither wife and mother nor courtesan and mistress.
She is not even merely a fascinating woman. She is woman as she ought to be, an
eloquent representation of the female principle in man and
God, with whom a union is possible only in the poet’s dream.
From
love for the beloved to devotion to an Unseen Power is a natural transition. Krishna
Sastri’s romantic love was always full of mystical
undertones. In Mahati (now included in his Pallaki volume), he breaks into a devotional ecstasy
that may be reminiscent of the emotional fervour of Madhura Bhakti as in Meera and Jayadeva, Chaitanya and Chandidas. But it is not a personal God that he addresses
by name and surrenders to, as some of the devotional poets
of old were apt to do. His God is impersonal and nameless, but with a presence
felt by the poet and reader alike with a convincing immediacy. Krishna Sastri
is a confirmed humanist, for whom denominations make no difference
in man’s approach to his Maker.
The
musical feature is a form in which Krishna Sastri found himself delightfully at
home. In his hands this form reached new heights of melody and meaning, with
his characteristic lyrical touch. AIR owes him a lot for some of the finest
pieces he had contributed to this genre. By the same token, he owes AIR
no less for serving as a catalytic agent to make him work in this medium. Sarmishta is a play in which the poet gives
his own interpretation to an old theme of Indian mythology. Age and youth, love
and spring are seen in a new light. Innocent, unsophisticated love is presented
against the sylvan background of the Andhra countryside in some of the other
pieces. In Dhanurdasu and three other
plays, the triumph of devotion to God over the love of woman is depicted in an
artistically convincing manner.
Tiruppavai
is familiar to every Hindu household in Tamil Nad. It represents the high watermark of devotional ecstasy
in Vaishnavite literature. Krishna Sastri has been
able to capture the spirit of those morning songs in his free and simple
musical rendering in Telugu. He is temperamentally attuned to this mood of
self-surrender because of his own Brahmo and Tagorean background. As for the film songs, collected in Meghamaala, suffice it to say that the best
of them are remembered, long after the films are forgotten, because of their
lyrical quality and poetic merit.
Krishna
Sastri’s comparatively limited output as a writer in
prose or verse is often attributed to his constitutional indolence and
aristocratic ease. The criticism is not altogether unjustified, though it must
be said in his favour that his genius is for the
lyric rather than for the epic. He usually shines in his shorter pieces in any
branch of writing. His is essentially the art of miniature, not the grand
full-length portrait.
That
apart, it is possible to see that Krishna Sastri’s
range as a poet is rather limited. There is not enough variety, even under the
romantic impulse, when we think of the great masters like Keats and Shelley or
Tagore nearer home. There is also sometimes a much of a muchness
of what is sweet and fragrant. The favourite turns of
phrase and pleasant imagery tend to recur a trifle too
often. To the result that the reader feels the need for
something more vigorous and refreshingly different.
As
a prose-writer, Krishna Sastri has proved that good prose is not inferior to
verse as a medium of expression, nor less difficult to write for a writer, who
is conscientious. His prose is almost as untranslatable as his verse. It was
his settled belief, that there could be no real synonyms for the words used in
creative writing. He was fond of saying that every word has its colour, taste,
smell and flavour as well as its sound, meaning and
association. He had realized, ever since he began to write, that a line of
prose or verse “connects” only when it gets the “feel” as well
as the “concept” right. Some of his prose pieces, which had
their original inception as skits or sketches, essays or musings for being
broadcast over the air, are now available to us in three, slim volumes entitled
“Pushpalaavikalu” (Flower-girls), Appudu Putti Unte (Had I been alive then) and Bahukaala
Darsanam (Ages since we met!), published by Visvodaya, a literary-cultural organisation of Kavali in Nellore District.
The
prose works, referred to here, could be broadly classified under three
categories. The first of them, roughly described as “sketches,” partake of the
spirit, if not the form, of the personal essay that we are so familiar with in
English literature. This about the city and the village,
...It
is a pity, but I am lost in the crowded city. It leaves me severely alone. It
is selfishness incarnate. Maybe there are more brick walls here than in
the village. Anyway, I have become an exile here. Between man and man, man and
tree, tree and bird, and bush and field, there is a kind of family tie over
there in the village.
It
is not merely the vivid contrast between the city and the village, between the
stark realism of the present and the roseate hues of the past that grips his
attention. The village had meant something positive and intimate to him, a
cherished way of life. The poet’s imagination is fired by many scenes of
village life, especially the one relating to the Puranic
discourse by the village Pandit Rama Sastri (who could, for aught I know, be
his father or uncle, both of whom were scholar-poets of the old school). The
Pandit sits with an ancient copy of the Mahabharata spread on the
old-type book-rest, mildly aglow under a flickering wicklamp.
...The
stars twinkle from above in the canopy of the sky, like the watchful eyes of
departed heroes. From a corner of the listeners’ gathering comes alive the buttend of a cigar like a star from the firmament. In the
enveloping dark, the voice of Rama Sastri comes forth from the age of Dwapara and on his winged words the listeners’ minds travel
far beyond into the aeons gone by. By the livelong
day, the eye reaches only as far as its sight can go. At night it reaches the
age of the Ramayana, The wicklamp listens to the Puranas and nods approval, too, in a visible flicker of
delight. I was witness to that.
A lyrical imagination like that of Krishna Sastri’s is not usually expected to co-exist with an earthy
sense of humour. But the number of skits broadcast
by him during the ten years of his association with A I R reveal unsuspected
reserves of the kind of talent that could easily spot the incongruities in
everyday life with the mellowed eye of a sympathetic observer and chuckle at
the foibles of human nature with an avuncular indulgence that has no touch of
patronage about it. In Bahukala Darsanam, we run into an all-too-familiar character, a
one-time freedom-fighter, his occupation now gone after the attainment of
political independence, a voluble, breezy, hail-fellow-well-met
sort of old man, buttonholing the well-to-do acquaintances (who are not too
eager to see him) for a much-needed fiver or tenner
(given ostensibly for flood relief or aid to earthquake victims, or what you
will) and living largely by his wits, about the only thing that he could claim
to be his own. He cannot but touch the pockets of others, but he is a lovable
fellow all the same. The character of Subbammavva
(Granny Subbamma), the grandame
of a fast vanishing tribe, who is equal to any situation, is convincing as well
as amusing.
He
was one of the best read among the practising poets,
though he preferred to wear his learning ever so lightly. His innate courtesy
and deep humility (hiding a supreme self-confidence) might give a misleading
impression about his scholarship, modern as well as classical. The range of his
knowledge, covered the youngest Telugu poets (including
the Digambara Kavulu)
as well as Ghalib and Tagore, Pant and Nirala, Bendre and Kurup, Bharati and Yogi, in this country and Yeats, Eliot
and Pound, Spender, Day Lewis and others abroad. The masterly, non-academic
survey of 25 years of Telugu poetry (from the early ’Twenties to the late
’Forties) made by him decades ago (in a lengthy article contributed to Bharati)
shows him at his sympathetic best in the critical appreciation of contemporary
verse. His adventures in criticism, few and far between, are full of rewarding
insights.
When
his voice was intact, Krishna Sastri used to recite extracts from the verse of
his brother-poets, before taking up his own in his illustrated talks at public
gatherings. He was particularly en rapport with Nanduri
Subba Rao’s Enki Paatalu and
the Geyas of Basavaraju
Appa Rao. The latter’s line Illu
khaalee chesi vellipoyaadu (Vacating the house, he went his way) is Basavaraju’s poignant line (which does not quite come off
in the translation) in referring to the death of his baby boy, which Krishna
Sastri considers as one of the most touching lines of poetry for all time. He
had done equal justice to other poets like Nayani, Vedula, Viswanadha and Sri Sri.
After
he had lost his voice in 1964, his pen was as alert and active as his tongue
used to be. His observations on men and things, which he scribbled so readily
and so neatly on the pages of the pocket-book that he invariably carried with
him, were as sharp as any he had written for print, earlier. If someone takes care
to collect all these scrap-books and print them for posterity, he would be
giving the Telugu readers the benefit of a brilliant commentary on life and
literature in Andhra and elsewhere.
That
is the least that is expected of the friends, followers and admirers of Krishna
Sastri, who would like to perpetuate his memory in a meaningful way. It would
give succeeding generations an opportunity to study his poetry and personality
in the proper perspective.