Month: October 2020

The word romantic poet does not convey the correct picture as much as the term “Sringaar ras ke kavi” (a poet who uses sringaar ras). Normally any song on gods and goddesses abound in bhakti ras or the feeling of devotion. For Bharathi, it is Sringaar ras that dominates Bhakti Ras even in such songs.

Bharathiyaar always addressed gods and goddesses in very familiar terms; many a time using words of endearment rather than supplication; words like  காதல் , மையல் ,மோகம் and so on,that are generally used in love songs. That’s the tone of his poem,”மூன்று காதல் ” or three love affairs. It’s only too apt to talk of these ‘love affairs’ during navaratri celebrations  .

The poem moonru kaathal  (மூன்று காதல் )has nine stanzas; four on Saraswathi, three on Lakshmi and two on Parashakthi.  

It goes without saying that for Bharathi, his first love had always been Saraswathi or the goddess of learning. That’s how he earned the title Bharathi at a young age of eleven years. In a way, Saraswathi resided in Bharathiyaar’s home and Bharahthiyaar himself was a manifestation of the goddess Saraswathi.

When he talks of Saraswathi, it’s clearly love at first sight.  As a young child hopping along the street, he sees her waiting for him at the street corner reading for him from her books; when he is sitting alone at the river side all by himself, the goddess  brings him some wonderful poetry . He constantly keeps hearing the lilting melodies from Saraswathi’s Veena everywhere.  It was her words of wisdom and knowledge that nourished him . Probably he was totally enchanted by Saraswathi in his childhood which lasted till he lost his father at a young age of 15 years. 

May be it was only then he longed for Goddess Lakshmi. It is not that he did not sing in praise of Lakshmi or that he was averse to wealth; but his love for Saraswathi and  Kali was so intense that Laksmi kept away from his home barring a few short periods. He was always on a kind of self imposed poverty. His pride did not let him go after money and his well wishers had to be extra cautious in providing for him without hurting his ego. On one occasion he threw away money on the street, lamenting that people respected only money and not his learning.

 For Bharathi , grace of Lakshmi meant not having to bother about day to day issues so that he could spend his day fruitfully, wooing Saraswathi or praising Parashakthi. He never could find favour with Lakshmi . He says in the poem ,”for whatever fault of mine, you are ignoring me”. Then he reconciles that it was only the homes of kings and and their henchmen that Laksmi visited.

As for his third love, Kali or Parashakti, it became more and more intense with time. Bharthiyaar loved physical strength and energy, attributes through  which Parashakti manifests herself. Though  he was a bundle of energy, physical strength , definitely, was not his forte. He could not participate , leave alone excel, in activities like swimming , wrestling or sword-fighting;  he would keep watching with admiration , people engaged in such sports. In his appeal to Parashakthi , he says,

நல்லதோர் வீணை செய்தே – அதை நலங்கெடப் புழுதியில் எறிவதுண்டோ? சொல்லடி சிவசக்தி – எனைச் சுடர்மிகும் அறிவுடன் படைத்துவிட்டாய். வல்லமை தாராயோ, – இந்த மாநிலம் பயனுற வாழ்வதற்கே?

Will anyone make a beautiful veenai and throw it in the dust?

You have given me extraordinary intellect ; wont you give me the physical strength to serve the society.

Later, in many of his songs  he perceived Parashakthi as the all encompassing primordial energy  that sustains the whole universe, as he says “யாதுமாகி நின்றாய் காளி ! எங்கும் நீ நிறைந்தாய்” You are everything and your are everywhere O Kali”

There are a number of lovely songs on Saraswathi  , the most popular one being “வெள்ளைத் தாமரைப் பூவில் இருப்பாள்”  and  “வெள்ளைக் கமலத்திலே ”  .  Here I have given the song rendered by Raj Kumar Bharathi, a great grandson of Bharathiyaar.

 The most popular poem on  his second love is malarin mevu thiruve (மலரின் மேவு திருவே ) . I like the song as rendered by Seergazhi Govindarajan   for the crystal clear lyrics. The humanist in the poet says with Lakshmi’s grace he would wipe out the words “not available”   from this world. His idea of progress was a world where no one would ever be wanting for basic necessities.  

செல்வ மெட்டு மெய்தி - நின்னாற்
செம்மை யேறி வாழ்வேன்
இல்லை என்ற கொடுமை - உலகில்
இல்லை யாக வைப்பேன் .

Incidentally , though he could never ensure availability of provisions at home , he ensured that the words “not available ” was never ever spoken. So, at times his  wife Chellammal had to use code words to convey to him that there was not a single grain of rice at home!

The song Yaadhumaki ninral (யாதுமாகி  நின்றாள் ) is quite popular among many great singers. I have given here a version by a great admirer of Bharathiyaar and an accomplished practicer of Carnatic Music  Vijayalakshmi Subramanian, rendered without any accompaniments, during these covid times. 

It is difficult to do a word by word translation from Tamil and yet preserve the beauty of the ideas.  If you can follow the words , it is absolutely bliss when passionately rendered by a Bharathi Bhakt

 

Most of us  have come across many of the  popular works of Subramanya Bharathi in books, Music albums or Movies. But  that  gives  very little idea of the great man he was , for he was not just  a poet but a philosopher,  a freedom fighter  and a social reformer  and most importantly, a thinker far ahead of his times. As a polyglot with a very broad world view , he has also read up a lot on other languages including English and French and has done a lot of translation work. His personality was too multifaceted to be understood through studying a few of his works.

When you read a book of compilation of his poetry, nicely ordered, indexed and printed , it gives a feel of having been composed in an orderly way.  That probably is the case when a novelist starts writing a book. He may take a year or many years to complete the novel, but there is some kind of order . That is not the case with poets, particularly Bharathiyaar .

Subramnaya Bharathi lived in tumultuous times. His compositions were constantly shaped by the political and social events of the times, national and international. There were many poems that never got printed and the manuscripts never survived. Some compositions were abandoned or lost half way through. The manuscript of his witty and insightful autobiographical work was completely lost and he could recreate only six chapters . The fact that he spent long years in exile as a fugitive hounded by the British Indian Govt, did not make anything simpler.

Poverty was another issue the poet was constantly battling; though it’s a different matter that he was more inclined to give away his meagre possessions rather than  seek help from the well off or to build up financial security for himself and his family.

So any study of the great man would mean an attempt to track his  life  and works chronologically to understand what prompted him to write the way he did. Unfortunately , there are very few copies available of the magazines he wrote in or edited. There are just five photographs of him available. He held regular correspondence with many including national leaders like Balgangadhar Tilak and Bipin Chandra pal, but very few letters are available today.

Fortunately , he left behind many admirers. Very few dared to support him openly when he was alive  and only  post-independence, his readers and  fans  came out in numbers.

So, we have many accounts of what it was to be in the company of Bharathi, what he believed in and what kind of vision he had for future of Bharatvarsh .

Despite spending most of his life as a journalist, the great poet’s life is not chronicled at all, though there is a lot of random information available on the net. In this digital age, information available expands to fill the time available. The more I read about Bharathi , the more the net throws at me to read. If someone wants to cross-check and verify every bit of information, it would be very difficult proposition indeed. Where do you start verification when you come across a statement like :-

“Bala – Bharata was a monthly magazine and Editor was Subramanya Bharathi. He wrote a lot for this magazine without mentioning his name. His Gurumani Sister Nivedita wrote for every issue without fail without mentioning her name “

How many people are aware that Bharathiyar also used pen names like Kalidasan and Sakthidasan while working for Swadesamitran. His English works were published in Annie Besant’s Commonweal, New India and  The Hindu.

It was mostly anonymous or pseudonymous. From his writings, one could guess that  he was greatly influenced by Swami Vivekananda and Sister Nivedita. He has also written about Rabindranath Tagore and has been a close friend of Sri Aurobindo . On political issues he was clearly on the extremist faction of the Congress and considered Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Bipin Chand Pal as his leaders. He did respect Mahatma Gandhi as a great mass leader but both on political and social issues he had differences and didn’t hesitate to express them vocally.

 He led an absolutely extraordinary life and I wish we had some kind of day  to day recording of events then, as we have today , in the era of social media. Whatever be, it’s a wonderful exercise figuring  out the time, place and context regarding all his writings.

In a way , when you have time,  it is a blessing to be spending your days reading up everything, authenticated or not, about the great poet.

PS

here  is a news item, published exactly five years before, that says ,noted Bharathi scholar Shri Seeni Viswanathan would  be bringing out a complete collection in chronological order. I could not find any follow up news after that.

Here is the story of Seeni Viswanathan’s  research on Bharathi.

 

Bharathiyaar was a great nationalist, philosopher and a social  reformer far ahead of his times. What most people miss out is that he excelled in romantic poems. Kannan Paattu contains some of his best compositions. In this collection of poems the poet visualizes Kannan or Krishna in many forms; his king, his guru, his servant, father, mother, sweetheart and lover. Despite the different manifestations of his Kannan, it is his songs on Kannan as the divine lover  that stand out.

This poem talks of the intense longing for Kannan , that Kannamma goes through , followed by a description of the absolute bliss she attains on experiencing His presence .

A short distraction ;

Thirvalluvar also has devoted a complete chapter on this kind of suffering .

116. பிரிவாற்றாமை

one of the most insightful couplets, I found  in the chapter:-

துறைவன் துறந்தமை தூற்றாகொல் முன்கை
இறையிறவா நின்ற வளை.

The bangles fall off her arms giving away how thin she had become

These are times when not many read poetry but everybody listens to music particularly when there are fancy visuals that go with the lyrics. The background music often  drowns the lyrics and most people don’t miss the lyrics anyway.

As an old fashioned Bharathi bhakt, first, I would  love to read the poem in full , unedited and unaffected by any sound or visuals. So, here’s the full version, all fifty six lines set in seven stanzas.

In 1948, the song was first popularized by AVM productions through the golden voice of  DK Pattammal in the film Vethala Ulagam. Eldest of the Travancore sisters, Lalitha dances to this song. The song is full of similes, a delight to any Bharathanatyam dancer. As always , a film can popularize a song but can never  do full justice to the genius of Bharathiyaar.

Generally Bharathiyaar bhakti runs through generations and there is a recording of DK Pattammal singing  many Bharathi songs along her grand daughter Nithyasree Mahadevan.

Obviously, the poet did not write for films where any song has to fit into a pallavi, anu pallavi and 2-3 charanams.  I feel Bhartahiyaar’s  songs should  be listened to , in full, with minimum accompaniments  even if it takes half an hour, so that one can soak in every word and every line and be immersed in bliss with  the after glow  lasting  for an hour or so .

The first half of the poem talks of the girl suffering the pangs of separation and longing.  There is a series of similes to describe her suffering ; heart trembling like a worm in an angler’s hook or a flame exposed to winds. It goes on and on  to the the agony of sleeplessness and lack of appetite. Everything that was supposed to taste great tastes so bitter and nothing at all interests her in life;  she cannot even tolerate simple joyful activities, leave alone, enjoy. She cannot bear the company of her friends or her mother trying to cheer her up. The doctors and astrologers, to whom one goes  in such times , have also given up all hopes.

When she  had become a complete physical and mental wreck and when everyone had given up all hopes of any redemption, something wonderful happens. She, in her dream, goes through a kind of experience that leaves her absolutely ecstatic.

On waking up, the world around her becomes extremely beautiful again. She is trying to figure out what had caused this  total transformation. She is musing  aloud “Who was that in my dreams who touched my heart? Every time I think of his presence, and I feel a strange sense of peace pervading through my entire being ?”

Thanks to the internet and the audio /video editing software; I have a short clip of a line rendered in the soulful voice of Bombay Jayashree.

It’s so soothing  whenever  I listen to .

The word than or Thanmai in Tamil  used to mean cool and probably even the hindusthani word Thand has originated from our Than. Today we have lost a cool word to chill about as a youngster would say today.

In the last stanza, as she keeps reliving her blissful experience , mulling on it over and over ,  it finally dawns on her that it was indeed Krishna who had appeared in her dream!

Here are some video clips not in any order

The singers : Bombay Jayashri, S Sowmya, DK Pattammmal and Nithyasree Mahadevan