BHARATI’S LIFE AND POETRY

By K. CHANDRASEKHARAN

Subramania Bharati, the Tamil bard, has greater need in recent years to be saved from his aggressive admirers. If once, as has been too often deplored, he suffered from too severe a neglect, he suffers even more acutely today from excessive attention from all and sundry. Rabindranath Tagore said in one of his epistles: “It is far better for a poet to miss his reward in this life rather than have a false reward or have his reward in an excessive measure.” No profounder observation is required to bear out a similar fate for Bharati at the hands of the Tamil enthusiasts of today.

In the case of Bharati his active participation, though for a short time, in the political struggle for freedom and his early upsurge of patriotic songs have gained him readier response and the consequential wider popularity which, perhaps, had he remained a mere poet and writer of distinction, he could not have received in an equal degree. Even after so much of recognition and honour done to his memory, as evinced in the annual celebrations and in the raising of monuments for him, there is hardly any serious study of his poetry and his writings with a view to assessing him honestly and with profit to literary criticism. It is in this context that we feel a sense of deep gratitude to Sri P. Mahadevan for his venture of a critical appreciation of Bharati, his times and his writings. ¹

Within a compass of one hundred and eighty odd pages Sri Mahadevan has compressed material pertaining to the incidents of the poet’s life and achievements, the history of the times, critical appreciation of his works and a representative collection of Bharati’s writings in English translation (Appendix I). The agreeable surprise is that the author has succeeded within a narrow span in supplying us with not only good matter gathered with diligence and discrimination from various sources (mentioned in the Bibliography), but also fresh criticism which makes for the present volume’s special attraction. There have been books already from experienced writers on Bharati both in Tamil and in English, but few have really chosen to measure true merit with adequate equipment and judgment. Sri Mahadevan has done real service, therefore, in providing us a penetrative study and a sound appraisal of Bharati’s claim to be ranked among the immortals.

At the outset we are indebted to Sri Mahadevan for his chapter entitled ‘Poet and Patron’ in which he has narrated with consummate brevity how Bharati’s genius received recognition as early as the year 1907 from a discerning publicist of Madras, the late V. Krishnaswami Aiyar. Perhaps, there is not much merit in a later generation’s discovery of Bharati after his attainment of an established reputation. It redounds to the lasting glory of that early patron to have not only predicted a great future for the bard but to have suspended all narrow prejudices against a political opponent in adjudging of his poetic merit. There were, no doubt, a few contemporaries of the poet like the late Dr. M. C. Nanjunda Row of Mylapore not finding any reference here but who deserve, under any circumstances, notice in any narrative of the poet’s times. “Police Krishnaswami Aiyar” referred to in this book is none else than Rao Bahadur A. Krishnaswami Aiyar of revered memory whose appreciation of Tamil devotional songs led him always to help Tamil singers and poets, however unknown they may be to the world. It was he who in a great measure was responsible for Bharati’s escape from the clutches of Government spies and C. I. D. dogs. There are certain minor points requiring slight correction such as Bepin Chandra Pal’s addressing gatherings at Tilak Ghat. For, during those years, we are told beach meetings that he addressed were opposite a hotel on the marina adjacent to Mani lyer’s residence.

On the whole, Sri Mahadevan has faithfully followed accounts in recognized books on Bharati’s life, and if there should be slight variation in details here and there from stories that are current, his responsibility for them is negligible, if not nil. Again, should there be any difference in present-day inferences and estimates of what Bharati’s exact motives were in particular situations and contexts, Sri Mahadevan may have to be totally absolved of any personal bias or predilection for any representation made by him, as everything that he has given us traces its source to the extant literature on Bharati.

The chapter on ‘Bharati’s Circle’ is prefaced carefully with the remarks: “It is a misnomer to speak of a Bharati Circle, for it implies that he was the centre of it. Just as Goldsmith belonged to the Johnson Circle, and yet had a personality and individuality of his own, so did Bharati succeed in preserving an identity not merely separate and unimpaired but also in developing it creatively under stimulating conditions.” The chapter promises interesting prospects of a fruitful study. But, no doubt, even as the author himself has devoted more pages to the poet’s exile in Pondicherry, the significance of episodes connected with the Poet’s inspiration is only found in that chapter.

Nearly fifty pages have been set apart for dwelling upon Bharati’s works and, legitimately too, much criticism that Sri Mahadevan has levelled is in effect more at the analysis of his poems by the early publishers, which bears no relation in fact to their chronological order or, for that matter, any recognised method of classification. But as the author has owned without hesitation that the main corpus of Bharati’s works in a clean text is available, there is no bar to a searching examination of it from a critical or expository standpoint. Bharati’s prose has also received from the critic a succinct but illuminating chapter. The remark, “A poet’s handling of the prose medium–that other harmony–will carry tell-tale marks of fancy or imagination no less than of the arresting word or phrase,” contains enough to suggest the quality of Bharati’s numerous short articles in journals supplying ample sidelights on various aspects of life in an age of political serfdom and social inhibitions. Bharati’s prose-poetry as well as his English writings have also received significant reactions from the pen of Mahadevan. He says: “Pride of place should be given to Bharati’s rendering in English version of a few of his own poems. Some of them are in wonderfully compact verse forms, not merely without a flaw but with a polished brilliance which is a joy to contemplate.” We can vouch for such a satisfaction awaiting us always, when authentic poets with a capacity to express in another language take to rendering their original works in it. Have we not had similar examples of Tagore’s own English translations from his Bengali writings?

The last chapter ‘Conclusions’ strikes a sound note before finishing: “Bharati was in a grand tradition because of his familiarity with the mighty minds of old. Even if he should be deemed a Tamil classic by the coming generations, a full appreciation of the formative influences on his genius would involve a pretty close knowledge of a considerable body of Sanskrit Literature.” Sri Mahadevan makes this observation with characteristic restraint. Let us add, without any fear of offending interested circles, that many of Bharati’s ideas were born of an intense appreciation of Sanskrit literary masterpieces and an unusual taste for Vedic poetry. If present-day zeal for Bharati would consider

his lines,

Thou to me the flowing light

And I, to thee, discerning sight;

Honed blossom thou to me

Bee enchanted I to thee

Thou to me the inner thought

And I, to thee, the word it wrought etc. etc.

as teeming with originality both of form and content, we have only to remind people, of the Vedic Mantras during the sacrament of marriage in this holy land of ours, when the following, among other passages, is usually uttered:

Thou to me the rik

And I, to thee, the sarna (song);

Thou to me the earth

And I, to thee, the sky;

I to thee the retas

And thou, to me, the bearer of retas;

And I to thee the mind

And thou, to me, the word.

We can also point out that Bharati’s ‘Panchali Sapatham’ is more or less a faithful rendering of the original Mahabharata, though stanzas describing nature’s beauty here and there find their birth in the poet’s own imagination. To prove Bharati’s adoration of Sanskrit, we need make no apology for quoting one passage from his prose writings:

“There is a word Dhairya meaning courage in Sanskrit. Courage is the natural quality of the brave. If we examine the root of the word Dhih it will connote also intellect. The Sanskrit language bears the same root for both the courageous man as well as the man of intellect. Hence Dhairaya means also intellectual. Thus it becomes creditable for a language that it should retain expressiveness in a single word for two ideas.

“No other language in the world has a word in its vocabulary for expressing two distinct ideas. As it is a language of great minds who had examined everything to the very fundamentals, it is no surprise that it contains the same root for two words.

“From this it is also evident that our ancients deemed a man of courage to be one also of real intellectual power.’

Let us refer to some other points made by Sri Mahadevan. He has clearly indicated how in India the poet, seer and philosopher are not quite different, how the poet easily transforms himself into the mystic, and how religion and poetry are one and the same experience. Need we demur at this none-too-early exposition of India’s spiritual and poetic traditions commingling, as it were, into one stream from the hoary past? This land of Alwars and Nayanmars, the quintessence of whose poetry easily revealed their God-intoxicated experiences, this land of the ecstatic outpourings of a Suka Brahmam, alchemising every bit of lead and iron into pure gold, needs no fresh guidance for a poet to burst into devotional songs. That well-established conceits, so far as aesthetics are concerned, like the Rasa Theory too have influenced Bharati, evokes little or no surprise from us. What if aestheticians in other countries have not, in the abstract, analysed the source of enjoyment of art and arrived at Rasa as its basis? They would reach the same conclusions, provided they also probe into the very source of enjoyment resulting from the mind’s impact with art or literature. The wonder is not so much that our ancients have divined the cause of enjoyment as Rasa, as that they should have classified enjoyment itself into eight or nine main facets of the same Rasa. It is only on a par with the analysis and classification of sound itself into seven notes (Saptasvaras).

Sri Mahadevan’s opinion of Bharati’s ‘Kuyil Pattu’ as having reached the peak of his poetic art will be shared by many others. Even the statement that “the artistic soul freed from the urgencies and conflicts of mundane existence floats on a sea of unalloyed happiness,” will receive instantaneous agreement from many others. But one would just like to make a gentle observation by way of criticism of that poem that, however delightful it may be, however happily wedded may be its unforgettable melody with deep meaning, still there is a kind of vagueness in the poet’s inability to sustain the continuation to a finale of the story of the Bull and the Monkey, whether you call it sheer allegory or symbology.

Sri Mahadevan has done his task so ably that we will be paying the least tribute to his literary judgment if we recognise it as a very important landmark in the Bharatian literature that is growing.

¹ Subramania Bharati: Patriot and Poet. A Memoir by Sri P. Mahadevan. (Atri Publishers, Madras-17. Price Rs. 3.)

Back