TUMMALAPALLI RAMALINGESWARA RAO
A.
S. RAMAN
Tummalapalli
Ramalingeswara Rao. Indeed a tongue-twister. All South Indians bear
tongue-twisting names. That is why they are known either by their initials or
by their surnames. The Tamils by their initials and the Andhras by their
surnames. The famous Tamils known by their initials are many (CR, TTK, CS, CP,
EVR, OPR, GP, TVS, GNB, MS, MLV, etc.). Among the familiar Andhra surnames are:
Chellapilla, Sripada, Viswanatha, Kattamanchi, Rallapalli, Rayaprolu, Dwaram,
Nandoori, Kasu, Neelam, etc.)
Who
is Tummalapalli? I ask the Andhras I know. No reaction. Who is he? They counter
casually. Isn’t he that Kamma poet? Some ask, meaning Tummala Sitaramamurti
Chowdari. No, assert the Andhras with claims to a literary reputation of sorts:
Tummalapalli is a reactionary Brahmin writer of no consequence, because of the
desperate attempts he makes to set the clock back, not by a century or two, but
by millennia.
Frankly,
I myself have never heard of Tummalapalli Ramalingeswara Rao: I don’t find him
mentioned in any literary context whatsoever. No references to him either in
literary essays or anthologies or in encyclopaedias on Andhra culture with a
literary bias. So, one day, when a friend, whose judgment I value, sends me Tummalapalli’s
novel, Dharmanirnayam, along with a
souvenir, containing tributes to him in superlatives from the Andhra literary
elite of the century, such as Kasi Krishnacharyulu, Chellapilla, Viswanatha,
Pingali and Katuri, to mention only a few, and deeply felt words of affection
from His Holiness Jagadguru Sri Sankaracharya of Sri Sarada Peetham, Sringeri,
and Dr S. Radhakrishnan, among several other saints and savants. I don’t know
how to react: I’m intrigued, amused, excited, intimidated by turns. Is he
really so good? Or is he just an overrated nonentity? I ask myself cynically.
After going through the novel and the souvenir critically, I feel an
irrepressible urge to read more and more on him and by him. Some Andhra writers
no doubt grudgingly concede that Tummalapalli is a scholar, novelist and poet
of some merit. But they have no idea at all of the quality of his scholarship
and imagination. I am not surprised
to note that romantics, marxists and the self-styled avant-garde are not among the contributors to the short
felicitation volume.
Tummalapalli
is a fearless upholder of the sanatanadharma
which, to him, is not a mere talking point but a way of life. He is a
champion of revivalism in its subtler nuances and with his penetrating insight
into our sacred Sastras and scriptures, such as the Vedas, the Upanishads, the
Puranas and the occult sciences, he is best equipped for the role both
intellectually and spiritually. He had his initiation into the Mantrasastras, i. e., Sri Vidya, by such
an august sage and scholar as His Holiness Jagadguru Sri Chandrasekhara Bharati
Mahaswami, the Sankaracharya of Sri Sarada peetham, Sringeri. To inject
chauvinism into one’s creative idiom is bad enough, I admit. But to see
internationalism where it just doesn’t exist is worse. Conformity, held
together by the strong umbilical cord of classicism, is better than rootless
modernity. Today, modernity in the context of Indian art or literature, is
wishful thinking. Tummalapalli not only propagates his faith heroically in the
evergreen norms of the sanatanadharma but
makes them come alive through his own life which is exemplary. By reaffirming
the perennial relevance of traditional values with apostolic fervour, he
succeeds in demolishing modern myths based more on fashion than on faith.
Tummalapalli’s
novel Dharmanirnayam, which bears the
prestigious Triveni imprint, is a disquieting work. Did I say, disquieting?
Yes, disquieting, but not depressing or demoralising. Disquiet of the spirit is
what it causes in the reader. To quote Andre Gide: “I could not greatly admire
a nature which had never known disquiet; but I admire above all the nature
which over comes its disquiet and recovers its peace and its equilibrium, with
nothing remaining of the Gehenna through which it has passed–nothing, that is,
but an enriched and subtler understanding of man and his possibilities. No one
can describe that Gehenna who has not himself had to find the way out of it.”
Indeed, Dharmanirnayam is very tough
reading. Though not in language, which is more or less in the spoken dialect,
but in nuances. It is a very demanding book: The emphasis is on the quality of
the reader’s receptivity and not on his casual interest in fiction. The
esoteric cant, of which it has a heavy dose, is likely to scare away the reader
in a hurry, who dismisses as metaphysical Mumbo
Jumbo what lies beyond his limited comprehension. Those who are interested
in the extension of the frontiers of man’s vision, perception and wisdom,
beyond the reach of scientific investigation, empirical experience and
ratiocination, can, never be anti-Tummalapalli. But others find him a bore. Dharmanirnayam gives the reader a shock
treatment only to make him feel all the better in the process. Having liberated
himself from the coils of the ego, he is now ready to soar higher and higher.
By exposing the emptiness of the so-called realities of life–which in fact are
only illusions–that motivate one’s endeavours from the cradle to the grave, the
book brings one closer to the stuff man is made of: The inner craving for
something beyond words, beyond even dreams: The state of staying at peace with
one’s Creator and of preparedness for one’s final blissful reunion with Him.
There is no doubt that the author succeeds in imparting to our traditional
beliefs a new relevance and dimension, beliefs which everyone of us secretly
cherishes but openly repudiates, under the impact of the wave of
pseudo-modernity. Modernity should take one forward, not backward: Today, it
has assumed the dangerous form of neo-conformity which is worse than
stagnation. Imitation never leads to progress.
Dharmanirnayam deals
with a marathon spiritual odyssey: ’Tis the saga of Fatima’s inner struggle.
The unequal struggle is between religion and love. Eventually, the weaker side,
love, triumphs, but it fulfils itself only negatively: Not through carnal
togetherness which is only illusory but through the annihilation of duality
itself. By merging totally into Narayana Rao with the finesse and finality of a
true Vedantin, she makes herself wholly acceptable to him. He is also involved
in an unequal struggle: Between religion and love. But in his case the stronger
side wins! The father, Parameswara Rao, and the son, Narayana Rao, follow
different paths, but arrive at the same destination. Ultimately, they release
themselves from the gravitational pull of desire: The father through
self-denial and the son through his love for a girl outside his faith. Thus
they find harmony in chaos, synthesis in antithesis and joy in anguish. Narayana
Rao is passionately devoted to Fatima, while his father never deviates from the
path of the sanatanadharma. But
Fatima is not Fatima at all: She is ready to make any sacrifice in order to
make herself acceptable to Narayana Rao. When she realises that he can’t marry
her, because his passion for the ideals he has inherited from his ancestors is
deeper than his love for her, she sublimates herself into a mere symbol of bhakti, assumes the name of Sumati and
dedicates the rest of her life to the worship of the godhead of her own
creation, Narayana Rao. Fatima is the central character in the novel and she
endears herself to the reader, the moment she arrives on the scene for the
first time. She is the picture of womanhood at its sweetest. She is utterly charming
and credible.
Tummalapalli’s
prose is worthy of the theme. The language employed is of the easy spoken genre, though, predictably, vullgarisms
and colloquialisms find no place at all. The style is firm, stately and
pellucid. I don’t know about his other works, because I haven’t read them. But,
it appears, his poetry is even better. Judging by the quality of Tummalapalli’s
writing in Dharmanirnayam, one feels
that Vyavaharikabhasha (the spoken
word) has been seldom more effectively used. His prose has the impact of
incantation on the reader. According to the souvenir, he is a prolific writer.
He has already published 19 works in prose and verse and 11 are in preparation.
The themes are all lofty: And they are treated with humility, dignity and
integrity. From all this one is apt to conclude that Tummalapalli must be a
frail, feeble-minded nonagenarian with one foot in the grave. No. He is only 56
(born, February 7, 1921).
Here
are some details of his early life. He was born at Gudivada in Krishna District.
His father, Jwalapati, was a clerk in the local District Munsiff’s Court. It is
said that he was born after his father performed Mahanyasapoorvaka Ekadasa
Rudravarabhishekam to propitiate the local deity, Sri Ramalingeswaraswami,
because Jwalapati’s earlier three children were all daughters and he would have
been happier if he had had at least one son. Tummalapalli had brilliant
schooling, after which he joined the Government Arts College, Rajahmundry,
where his academic record was even more dazzling. His father died. Naturally he
had to seek employment in order to support the family. He went to Bangalore
where he secured a temporary job. While there, he had the unique fortune of
coming into contact with His Holiness Jagadguru Sri Chandrasekhara Bharati Mahaswami, the Sankaracharya of Sri Sarada
Peetham, Sringeri. Later, he returned to the Andhra districts where he worked
in different Government offices for bread and butter. He even became a leader
of the Non-Gazetted Officers’ Movement, but the sordid and stifling nature of a
Government job disgusted him. He resigned. In 1961, he proceeded to Madras
where he decided to live in peace–writing, praying, meditating and doing
whatever pleased him. Earlier he had a brief spell in a managerial capacity in
a private firm at Cuddapah. Today, he lives in Madras.