A POET WHO NEVER PANDERED TO
POPULAR
TASTE
V.
NARAYAN RAU
The
most admired, the most criticised
but never neglected Viswanatha Satyanarayana
bestrides the Te1ugu literary scene, a gaint that
either provokes derogation or compels admiration. Though dressed in the orthodox fashion of a gentle
Brahmin, with a shaven head and a tuft of hair behind, the contours of his face
show a defiant attitude. Reckless in his likes
and dislikes, highly provocative in his words, he has always faced the Telugu
literary public with a strong sense of conviction of his eminence,
that sometimes looked arrogance.
A
very prolific writer and the only one in Telugu who made money from his books,
he never cared to write for popular taste, but his books sold like no one
else’s in modern Telugu literature.
Satyanarayana
came on to the Telugu literary scene along with the other writers of the
romantic period in the 1920’s. Like Rayaprolu Krishna
Sastry he wrote poems in praise of the past Telugu and Telugu culture. The early works showed a
poet that was to become far greater than could be limited to a narrow romantic
age. He had even in his early works a very individual voice with a sharp
ability for imagination and an independent phrase that indicated a strong
personality in the making. His short poems that are found in “Vaitalikulu”, the famous anthology of Muddukrishna,
are but the beginnings of a stream that was to grow into a mighty river. In “Kinnerasaani Paatalu”, the song
of a rivulet named Kinnerasaani, he wrote a highly
sensitive lyric beautifully reflecting the music of the river and its many
moods in deft syllables and metres chosen with a
magic skill. It was a miracle in poetry in flowing Telugu. All the poems he
wrote in this period were romantic with a chiselled
expression, yet not over-polished to rub the individual tone into the
smoothness of emotional anonymity, as was the fashion with many poets of
1930’s.
Soon
he was to grow into a traditionalist with a great passion for the classical
modes of literature and a determination to spread the Vedic message. The same
change came about in his novels too. His early novel, “Ekavira”
is a romantic poem in prose set in the historic times of Madhura
Kings. Worked on a small canvas, it depicts a tale of forbidden love. But in “Veyipadagalu”, he has changed into a realist and a
revivalist. Writing in classical prose with tightly packed lengthy Sanskrit
phrases, he captured in his style the vigour of
native idiom and the virility of human passions. Permitting himself a free flow
of his personal opinions in lengthy speeches, he spread the story on a vast
canvas of three generations in the social history of Andhra, with soaring
imagination in making the plot and a deep insight into human nature. The result
was a human drama depicting the varied phases of individual passions, conflicts
and social forces written with a nostalgia for the
past that was fast decaying and an irrational hatred for the changes that were
coming on the social and political scene under the foreign influence.
Throughout the novel there is a note of tragic fatalism with an attempt at rationalising and supporting every aspect of the ancient
life, including the child marriages and the four-caste system.
In
the novels that followed, he tirelessly continued his theme of the battle
between the Vedic and anti-Vedic forces, writing in a language that is neither classical nor modern but all the same compelling and
vigorous, passionate and picturesque and making a story that always
gripped the reader. A man with a lust for life and passion to see world in all
its varied actualities, he has been able to make the characters in his novels
live with ardour and gusto.
His
tirade on modern historical outlook touched new heights in the 16 novels he
wrote entitled “Purana Vaira
Grandhamala”, depicting the ancient enmity between
Vedic and anti-Vedic forces in creation. In these novels he has something to
say about everything, from the creation of the universe to the styles of
women’s dress, from the efficacy of Mantrasastra to
the advantages of mango pickles. But what is interesting is his genius in picturising the fantastic and the plausible alike. He has a
way of saying that even if one hates the idea one reads the passage.
A
bundle of idiosyncracies, his style both in prose and
poetry has abundant archaisms, aching twists and inconvenient “sandhis” that earned for him the name of stone-hard
stylist. He never paused to improve his phrase or polish his expression, he
never in fact wrote, he dictated and never looked back into what his scribes
wrote. But behind all this rough exterior is the power
of his towering personality, his erudite scholarship, his genius in
story-making and the sensitivity of a great artist.
If
through his novels he reached a wide reading public he reached greater literary
heights in his poetry. He left a mark of individuality on the Telugu verse that
it has not had since Srinatha. He used the same metres that have been in use since Nannayya
in the traditional literature but gave them an imprint that is unmistakably
his. His mode influenced every contemporary writer of verse worth the name,
including his bitterest critics, barring perhaps Krishna Sastry
who, however, has not published much verse in the past 20 years. He not only
has a very individual way of writing verse: he has an individual style of
reading it too. Endowed with a metallic voice with a slight nasal twang in it
that gave it a peculiar beauty, Satyanarayana sang
verses to spell-bound audiences all over Andhra with a feeling and emotion the
author of the verse alone could give.
He
started work on his “Ramayana Kalpavriksham” as early
as 1940. Preparing himself for the task of the great work he is said to have
done vast amount of devoted exercise in verse-making until he mastered it with
unsurpassed felicity. Ramayana is not a new story. Nor one
that was not worked by earlier Telugu poets. But why does he write it
again? The poet has an answer in the very first volume.
You
ask me why Ramayana again?
People
have been eating the same rice.
Each
one has his own taste.
People
have lived through the same life.
Each
one has his own experience.
This
is the story that has become a part of the life and consciousness of the
people. It is never old and never stale. It has a message for every generation
and a meaning for every individual. Poets create it in thousand different ways.
It is the creativity that answers one’s thirst for beauty.
Taking
the basic story from Valmiki, like any poet that
worked the Ramayana theme, Satyanarayana said it in a
way that is highly classical and yet modern, very traditional, yet novel. The
most brilliant aspect of the work is his way of telling the story. The tone of
the poem is the same as that of traditional Purana,
established in Telugu since the time of the three poets of Bharata
(Kavitrayam). But Satyanarayana
combines the technique of the modern short story and the novel in it. In the
process he has given new life to the characters which are divine and yet very
human. His genius as a novelist finds full play in the Ramayana. Every
character, every incident, is brought to life with the minutest human feelings
worked in detail.
The
imagery in the Ramayana is strikingly original and yet has roots in the
tradition. His long Sanskrit phrases, often the target of attack from his
critics, are but the inevitable manifestations or his unique imagination.
Compact and deep, they extend the limits of our experience. If he lacked
restraint and equanimity that are the qualities of epic writers of the past, he
has imagery and insight, rarely achieved in any literature. Traditional Telugu
literature has not known a genius of his stature in the past several hundred
years. If he has to be compared with earlier writers, they are Nannayya and Tikkanna but none
else, in the past one thousand years of Telugu literary tradition. He is the
greatest genius thrown up by a dying culture in its desperate struggle to
establish its continuity against all odds.
A
writer of unparalleled versatility, Satyanarayana welled
with equal ease every form of literature. Novel, short story, drama, essay,
literary criticism, poetry, epic, every literary form flowed from his pen,
marked by a distinct individuality of his own. His essays in literary criticism
are essentially the poet’s study of the other great poets. His contribution to
the understanding of Nachana Somanatha
amounts to a rediscovery. His essays on Nannayya show
him at his best in unravelling the intricate
mysteries of the great author of Telugu Bharata.
While
tradition has been the stronghold of Viswanadha, it
looks as if his zeal to uphold it made him lose sight of some of the most
important directions of the modern age. In his 76th year Viswanadha
is still a force. He has merits. He has defects. Both are mighty. If he has
received a Gnan Pith Award, few are surprised.
–By courtesy The
Mail