KAILASAM,
THE POET AND THE PLAYWRIGHT
PROF.
K. R. RAJAGOPALAN
Christian
College, Madras
During
the late twenties and early thirties of this century, there was a great
awakening along the Kannada-speaking people with regard to the dramas that were
being staged. As everywhere else in this country, the Kannada stage too had
only the mythological or historical dramas being enacted in large numbers.
Social themes and topics of current interest rarely were sought to be
dramatised. In such circumstances there arose a new star in the Kannada
firmament who boldly wrote skits and plays only on social topics and
staged them with a good measure of success. The language adopted was also of
the “colloquial type” only–with a good mixture of Kannada and English–just as
in ordinary life. Kailasam was that person and his path was followed with more
effect by a host of young playwriters who revitalised the Kannada screen with
their works based on everyday problems of the common man, pinpointing the
social evils and suggesting remedies.
Apart
from being a dramatist of no mean eminence in Kannada, Kailasam has also
written a number of good poems and a few dramas in English also. His name is a
household one with Kannadigas but his English works are, perhaps, very little
known. It would be the endeavour of this article to fulfil that void.
Most
of his Kannada works are satires based on social problems only. He has not only
dramatised the HEN-pecked husband, the COWED-down wife, but also has
tackled the problems of the prostitute and of the young widow. His awareness of
the several evils of the society and his intense
desire to highlight them could be noticed in his poems also.
Let
us first see what Kailasam thinks of the poet’s work and purpose itself. A sort
of introductory blurb in his book “Little Lays and Plays” says:
A
poet’s guerdon is not gold
Not
Parian bust, not trappings brave!
A
tear, a titter from young and old
Is
all the meed 1 meekly crave!
These abort four lines
set the tone to this poet’s musings.
The
poem “Truth Naked” has five stanzas of four lines each and is about the
hierocracy in our daily life. The picture is as relevant today as it was when
the writer wrote it more than four decades ago! Whenever it serves our purpose
(as perhaps, at the time of elections!), we call the “scavenger”–brother,
friend, hero at times. The poet is quite emphatic in his condemnation of our
lip-sympathy to those of the downtrodden sections of the community. Would we
dare, he asks, set our kindred on the task that is the lot of the scavenger? Do
we care that his home ‘reeks’ more than the latrines he cleans? He
apostrophizes–“believe us not, we lie.” Unless and until we stop subjecting
these men to do the work of Swines, unless these men open their eyes to their
own manliness and assert themselves, our talks would only be empty platitudes.
“Until
we callous callid brutes
For
dread of wrath Divine
Desist
from crime of Coz’ning thee
To
play the human swine;
Until
thy sodden eves do awake
to
thine own manliness
Our
cant of ‘brother’, ‘hero’, ‘friend’,
Is
balderdash, no less!”
The frequent, but
nonetheless not laboured, rhymes are noteworthy. It is always essential to have
a good sized dictionary by our side if one were to understand Kailasam’s poems
fully.
A
similar social theme is sought to be tackled in another of his poems “Sixth
Columnist”. All of us have heard of a fifth columnist, but who is this
sixth columnist? Kailasam has given a good portrayal of this individual–the
placid, phlegmatic self-centered person for whom his personal comfort and life
is the be-all and end-all of everything under the sun; who is unruffled by the
upheavals around him and who cares little for the sufferings of many an other
hapless being.
This
sixth columnist (Me) has a guaranteed job (with pension also guaranteed!) and
is assured of his food, his bed and his domestic bliss. In short, he is content
in his own small haven and thinks the oft-quoted Tamil proverb–“What if Rama
rules or Ravana rules!” The lack of social consciousness and awareness of the
sufferings around; the complacency in the midst of strife and struggle at home
and abroad–is all vividly portrayed. Things have not changed much with passage
of three decades and more;
“Let
patriots pop in and out
Of
cabinet and jail
Let
shibboleth and slogan shout
Down
the ryots wail”
–are still too true
even today.
“...‘Parties’,
‘wings’, ‘sabbas’ and ‘blocks’
Revel
in plots and cliques;
Let
congressites pull up their socks
At
risk of bursting breeks”
–continue now also.
India still remains “in fatal clutch of ... pest and beast” and the common
man is quiesant in his own ‘personal raj’–worrying only about his own sweet
self!
But
land surroundilig Me
My
food, My bed, domestic bliss
My
job with guarantee
Of
pension when I’m old and gray
Are
all that Me Worry!”
The Poet aptly
concludes that “..whichever way this world may sway, on velvet is this Me.” That
is the Sixth Columnist.
Just
as the fruit which is got out of a tree begets another tree, so toe would the
weal or happiness of man which was got out of woe (of his own or somebody
else’s) will in turn, only beget woe. This is the theme of the poem on the
“Eternal Cain.” Cain is called the brute-divine and spills the
blood of his brother man in order to set right a wrong. According to Kailasam,
“it is not the work of man to do this; the God in him should only
see the right from the wrong.” That is, he should be perceptive; but he has no
business to try to set it right. If it is done, it would amount to the stifling
of the voice of God in man. The whole poem is worth quoting in full:
“If
luscious fruit begot of tree
Beget
but its own dam the tree
May
weal of man beget of woe
Beget
aught else for him but woe?
Since
blood-red dawn of fateful day
This
brute-divine saw light of day,
Whilst
God in man, sees right from wrong,
“Tis
brute in him, to right a wrong,
That
spills the blood of brother man
And
stills the voice of God in man!”
Of
course all love is blind. But ‘Mother’s love’ is much more so. In a small poem
of six lines only, Kailasam gives a perfect picture-portrait of this blind and
also mad type of love. His very balanced antithetical phrases (he uses them in
many of his works with telling effect!) leave the reader gasping for breath and
once it is regained make him rush to the dictionary to look up the meanings of
some of the words used! Mother’s love is “certes, weird and wonderful.” It is
able to see in her “uncouth croaking raven”s sooty chicks rainbow plumed dulcet
warblers!”
Kailasam
has not only pictured this part of a woman’s life but also has dealt with the
other aspects of a woman’s life–from childhood to old age and death. For him,
the woman is the “eternal sufferer and man the eternal consoler”. The poet warns
us in the beginning itself that–“these scenes, these words you have seen, you
have heard”. Let us see how he portrays the various stages of a woman’s
suffering and how the man comforts her through them. The whole poem is in the
form of a “monologue.”
The
man consoles a little child weeping over her broken headless doll: such
childish pleasures as dolls will soon give way to books and pictures. The child
leaves and a little girl enters–sobbing over a broken slate and torn picture
books. The soothing words of the man are again there pacifying her that
such school-girl days would soon pass off yielding place to better things like
“silks and gems”. This girl also leaves the stage and a maid enters sobbing
over a broken necklace. She is again comforted that such tinsels were made to
be rough-handled after a time and that she would soon have “taste of life and
love.”
The
maid’s place is now taken by a young woman who has lost her husband;–her
“rainbow gleams of loves young dreams” are all things of the past; Fate has
made her “tread this darken’d world alone, hapless and desolate”. Love and life
for her, is only a “memory of a star eclipsed.” Is the Man taken aback
at this calamitous happening to her? No, he commiserates with her that it is
not given to everyone to enjoy
“the
brilliance of the dawn and
to
revel in the splendour of the noon
of
the day of our life!”
But,
everyone of us will soon find a “sweet calm sunset” at the end of our life. It
would be peace, no more but peace”–if only we have the desire
to seek it. Well, alter that, what is the query. The Poet has a fitting answer:
“...
… … … Why!
Heaven
holds all for which you sigh?”
Do
not lose heart at all; all of your unfulfilled wishes are certain to be
satisfied in the Heavens! In spite of the undercurrent of pessimism right
through the poem, Kailasam shows clearly that he is an optimist–at least in the
concluding lines.
As
if to tell us that he is quite at home in lyrics too, Kailasam has a long poem
of forty-two four-lined stanzas on The Lake. The lyrical imagery and
poetic excellence are really of a high order in this poem. Perhaps, if he had
continued as a poet we would have had many more of such sweet outpourings from
him. The loss to the world of poetry has been a gain to the world of
dramatists! A few samples from that poem:
“…thy
love doth mount the East
and
lures us from the moon
To
light and warm earth, plant and beast
And
free you too ere noon!
“When
night had wav’d her magic wand
And
bid the moon awake
The
moon beams highted hand in hand
Upon
a lonely lake.
“And
as their tiny twinkling feet
Did
trip and skip in glee.”
Kailasam
has written a number of sonnets–on Gandhiji, Krishna,
Karna and so on.
While
all his plays in Kannada are on social themes only, his plays in English are
only on mythological subjects. He has written about the “Burden” that
fell on Bharata after the death of King Dasaratha and
abdication of Rama. He has another play on Karna and one on Ekalavya also. He
has treated the mythological characters with concern and reverence; and
has not cared to tarnish the image of this or that character in the
epics. These would merit another separate article. But this
much could be easily said-whatever he has touched, he has adorned.