Universality of T.V. Reddy’s Poetry

THE UNIVERSALITY OF T.V.REDDY’S POETRY

Prof. Y. P. SINGH

T.V. REDDY entered the poetic arena in the eighties, he has suc­ceeded in carving for himself a place among the Indian poets in English by virtue of his keen perception, psychological insight, socio-cultural con­sciousness, natural simplicity and a spark of Indian sensibility. The melody of his lines may be compared with that of Tennyson and his presentation of nature with that of Wordsworth. The quiet movement of the lines and their pensive charm reminded the American writer Dr. Edith Kaltovich of the lines of Frost. Though his poetic output is limited to four collections, qualitatively the poems stand at a high level. Some of the senior poets, often failed to present Indian scenes faithfully as most of them let themselves be up­rooted from the Indian soil. Perhaps their living long in the West has condi­tioned their attitudinization as well as the very process of their thinking with western outlook and consequently their poetry betrays a growing distance from Indianness. In this aspect T.V. Reddy has the natural advantage as he lives in a tiny village unaffected by the din and bustle of the busy urban life. As such he is influenced neither by the artificiality of the town life nor by any mechanized way of the Western life. Indian sensibility permeates his liter­ary work.

Dr. Reddy belongs to the teach­ing profession and in these days when the creative urge is almost extinct among teachers of colleges and universities which have been witnessing a steep fall of values, human as well as academic, it is a matter of joy to find Reddy relentlessly pursuing his crea­tive activity. While criticism requires intellectual labour, patience and analytical power, creative writing is the offshoot of originality of mind, holistic approach and an in-built flame of genius. He is a genius. He is at once creative writer and critic. He is a poet, novelist and critic of the high order and whatever he has attempted he tried to perfect. That is why Prof. David Kerr of Monash University. Australia, having gone through his poems, remarked, “T.V. Reddy is a poet of real eminence with a commit­ment to perfection.”

The poetry of Vasu enables the reader to relish the homely feast of Photograhic presentation of rural scenes. Reddy is a keen observer of nature as well as human nature and his love of nature is as intense as Wordsworth’s. The objects of nature irrespective of their consequence or utility, such as the woods, lakes, fields (fertile or fallow), trees, flowers etc. are all the worthy subject matter for him. Nothing escapes from his gaze and in the process of poeticizing his experi­ences he probably adopts the principle of selectivity and gives expression to some of the impressions charged with the intensity of emotion. Even the kite, snake or sparrow or ant doesn’t miss his burning imagination. The poems ‘Lake at Night’ and ‘The Wood is Calm’ may be compared with the nature poems of Wordsworth, and Reddy’s poems maintain their original­ity and poetic vigour in the thematic conception and its execution in poetic terms. The lines such as

Yonder the moon, an orb of cheese
Blanches the earth with her milk - whitefleece
And is bright with a flood of tender light.

show the wealth of nature. All the rural sights and sounds such as the sparrow, the pensive farmer or the corn reaper are re-created in vivid terms full of flesh and blood, and we feel their warmth as well as their pain. There is a natural mixing and the balancing of nature and human situ­ation. In this context it will be quite appropriate to study the lines quoted (from the poem ‘Dharmashala’) by the reputed scholar Dr. Atmaram in the Tribune (Oct. 14, 1989):

A tranquil place for lofty thoughts
An unearthly spot on the heights of the earth
A ‘tapovan’ for sages to meditate.

What is striking about the po­etry of T.V. Reddy is the natural flow of the lines as well as the remarkable ease and felicity of expression. There is little strain and the lines flow sponta­neously with the natural music of the running stream. The melody and music of his lines often resemble those of Sarojini Naidu. His poems reveal the music of words; and we see the har­monious blend of sense and sound. In other poets while creating the sono­rous effect, words lead to lightness, whereas in the poetry of Reddy, lines create not only symphony but density of meaning and feeling. No wonder Dr. Rosemary Wilkinson, a noted poet from America, Writes: ‘Listen to the rhythm in these lyrical lines so pleasing to the ear. He writes with a natural flow .... and the lines come to him          unbidden.’

Besides, his poems enable the reader to see the socio-cultural con­sciousness of the poet. Being a son of the soil belonging to the middle-class of Indian rural society, he thoroughly knows the conditions of the Indian society and the problems and suffer­ings of the rural folk. Acquainted with an admirable knowledge of the people and their plight, he presents his deep experience in his poetry. The poems that deal with the social life show an undercurrent of irony and satire ­irony at the miserable lot of the poor and satire at the exploitation at all levels and in all fields at the village level by the land-lord and at the level of the university by the so-called intel­lectuals, professors and political lead­ers. The poems are charged with in­tense humanism, as the poet bemoans the loss of values and strives to pro­mote the human values so as to dream for a better harmony. His feeling heart overflows with sympathy for the suffer­ing people. The spectacle of the leper is as holy to him as that of a temple and his heart aches at the misery of a leper which is evident from his poem of the same caption. The sight of the Tajma­hal reminds him not only of the im­mortal love of a Moghul emperor for his consort but the sweat of thousands of poor workers that had gone into the making of the magnificent tomb. ‘Thousand Pillars’, a moving poem written on a ruined Temple near War­angal in Andhra Pradesh is a marvel­lous piece of poetry that makes one’s hair stand on their ends:

They cry in mute agony
with their limbs mutilated
the sight sears the welled eyes
and pierces the chilled spine
with thousand swords

The poem is a living example of pensive charm and melancholy music.

Dr. David Kerr, the eminent Australian Professor and scholar, in his Foreword to T.V. Reddy’s fourth volume of poems MELTING MELO­DIES, has rightly remarked: “T.V. Reddy is a poet of real eminence with a commitment to perfection. “The authenticity of the above words of Prof. Kerr articulated with his intimate knowledge of Indian writing in English bears much significance. Irrespective of the thematic range and variation, whatever Reddy has written, whether lyrical or satirical, social or spiritual, reveals his instinct for the poetic ex­pression, his earnestness of purpose and his natural creative talent.

With his roots firm in Indian soil and Indian culture and tradition, Reddy’s poetry gives us the feel of Indian sensibility. In the poetry of A.K. Ramanujan and R Parthasarathy, we often get more of Western culture and attitudinization than the feel of Indian sensibility which is essentially rural. One wonders how much truth is there in Ramanujan’s oft-quoted poem ‘The Last of the Princes’ which is in fact a grossly exaggerated account of the life of the ex-Indian Princes. In other words it is a picture of horrible imagi­nation stretched to the point of ab­surdity. As a matter of contrast, consider T.V. Reddy’s poems such as ‘Thousand Pillars’ or ‘The Fort’. Both are good poems, reflective and moving, preaching the gospel of the eternity of art and sculpture and the ephemerality of human pomp. In fact they can be compared with Shelly’s immortal sonnet ‘Ozymandias’. They enshrine the moral as well as human values. Again Reddy’s poem ‘Cloud’ can be compared with Shelly’s poem of the same title, while the latter takes us aloft on the wings of romantic imagi­nation to the skies, the former is equally enchanting with its undeniable spirit of contemporaneity by blending the airy realm with the human world. ‘The River’ is a beautifully composed poem that traces the natural course of the running stream with apt words producing the natural effect of onomatopoeia. The uniqueness of Reddy’s poem lies in the embedding of human element.

Reddy’s poetic rendering of woman’s plight, the misery of the common Indian women, especially women of the village, and the pathetic plight of the marriageable Indian girls, haunted by the dreaded demon of dowry, has the stamp of authenticity. His presentation of Indian rural women is more realistic and convinc­ing than that of Kamal Das who draws in her poems woman’s abnormally passionate nature and grossly exaggerates feminine lapses and erotic aberra­tions. While the poetry of P. Lal is de­scriptive, decorative and figurative, it deals with superficial features and details and as such we miss in his poetry the spirit or the soul which is the breath and life-force of poetry. The spark of Reddy’s poetic genius has recreated common themes, common­place incidents and every-day situ­ations, breathed life into them and transformed them into living portraits.

His poems on nature such as ‘The Wood’ is calm, ‘The Lake at Night’, and The ‘Coconut Tree’ bear testimony to the boundless wealth of the beauty of nature description. The celebrated British critic and writer, Mr. A. Russel remarks “His poems do not seem to be in the heterodox genre of Indo-English poetry. We can read the influence of great poetry he has read and they bathe his sensibility in a baptism of transmutation.”

A few satirical poems, esp, from his Melting Melodies, that expose the petty-mindedness of the high-browed and hollow-minded university dons are remarkable. While dealing with the poems of academic interest focussing the existing University atmosphere, the poet is bitter because truth is always bitter. Every line seems to be the product of his bitter experiences, his contact with peevish professors and pseudo-scholars and the farcical interviews he had faced for a better placement.

Thus whether Vasudev Reddy’s poems are lyrical or satirical, social or rural-based, erotic or spiritual, they vibrate with natural rhythm and sweet melody, sympathetic understanding of the human predicament, and a compassionate heart. It is this intense human concern that lends universality and enduring quality to his poetry.

It would be a blessing if each human being is stricken blind and deaf for a few days in his early adult life. Darkness will make him more appreciation of light, silence would teach him the joys and sound.

Use your eyes as if tomorrow you will be stricken blind. Hear the music of voices as if you would be stricken deaf.”

–HELEN KELLER