Mr. Bendre and His Poetry

(The Fergusson College, Poona)

(1)

In trying to define the aims and methods of the criticism of contemporaries, Lemaitre remarked:

‘It is perhaps not well to begin by a criticism of their faults . . . Such criticism as leads immediately to general aesthetic considerations is interesting in itself, but it tells us almost nothing concerning the books which are its ostensible objects and may even easily distort them. The criticism which seeks to assign to new books their place in the history of literature and to explain their appearance is often premature. That which classifies them at once is very arrogant and exposes itself to sharp contradictions . . . But is it not just and necessary to begin . . . with a sympathetic reading of such books, in order to arrive at a definition of what element they contain that is original and belongs strictly to the writer?’

Thus it is clear that the path of a critic of contemporary poetry is strewn with thorns, though he may find ‘Roses, roses all the way’. Mr. D. R. Bendre, B.A., whose poetry is the subject of this article, is one of those scatterers of roses, the leading poets of renascent Karnatak. And if I set out on this hazardous enterprise of writing a critique on his poetry, it is with the epistolary command of the Editor of the Triveni as my pilgrim’s staff and with a few remarks of some of the eminent critics of Karnatak as my pilgrim’s scrip that I venture to do so. And, by the way, I have been treading too often on these thorns to mind their presence at all.

The following remarks will explain why Mr. Bendre’s poetry has a genuine attraction for the Triveni. Mr. T. N. Srikantaiya of Mysore,–a distinguished critic who is young but austere, creative and critical,–observed while reviewing Gari, a collection of Mr. Bendre’s poems: ‘Some of his poems, at any rate, deserve a place in the literature of the world.’ And Masti Venkatesa Iyengar, one of the spiritual begetters of modern Kannada literature, has recorded in the Mysore Census Report of 1932 (a rich and strange place, by the way, in which to exercise literary censorship!): ‘D. R. Bendre’s poetry shows also a vivid imagination and grace and power of expression characteristic of the best poetry.’ This is well said indeed. It enables me to do what otherwise I should have felt slightly uncomfortable in doing,–to indulge in a long and rambling account of Mr. Bendre and his poetry.

A word as to the methods employed in this article. I will press the grapes of my grasp so much and only so far as makes them yield the hidden meaning of life which Lemaitre would have us observe: ‘To define the author, to describe his "form," to delineate his temperament–what the world means to him and what he seeks in it by preference.’ There will only be so much of estimation and evaluation as lies implicit in an appreciative interpretation. For Mr. Bendre is a very near phenomenon to me. I have talked with him so often and so long that I am at a loss to know what I should put down on paper and what not to write. Times out of number have we walked hand in hand, so much so that I can never conceive of holding him at arm’s length, of pushing him about on the palm of my hand and feeling him with all my fingers, of examining his lustre in ‘minute particulars’ and using that sort of jargon. I have been so constant a listener to the poetry which he chants with his magic utterance that I live too much in the heart of that light to note its ‘form’ and lineaments. I feel like a native of the tracts round Mount Etna,–a man who is too familiar with the lava and the burning fumes which the volcano casts out at every eruption, to plunge himself headlong down its crater like the mad but philosophic Empedocles!

And yet, after all, this is a sovereign advantage which I possess over the other admirers of my subject. There are certain pranks and whims of a poet which only his friends can know. There are certain delicate whiffs of fancy, swift and fine turns of thought, which only a few kindred souls can catch. These may help us to postulate a more intimate relation between the impression we form of the poet and the expression he moulds for us.

Thus, for instance, the fact that Mr. Bendre is short of stature and presents a rugged growth, as of some thistle deep rooted in the earth, and a rough exterior; that his benign expression indicates a serenity and majesty of thought stamped over agonising feelings; that his voice rises shrill and high like a lark in its flight when he forgets himself in talk; and that his eyes are deep wells of ancient wisdom: all this is as much an emanation of his spirit as the poetry which is its revelation.

When I approach, therefore, this part of my subject, I will speak with full-throated ease. And in doing so I will be clarifying Bendre’s self to myself. For, when all is said and done, it remains a fact that man knows nothing in the absolute, not even himself. As for the other points dismissed curtly by Lemaitre,–the faults of the poet, and the position he is to occupy in literary history; and general aesthetic consideration and classification;–why, we may have something of these too. For these are but the finger-posts that lead us to the man himself. All criticism is a platform on which to display the eternal Argument. It is a scaffolding so cleverly devised as to trap the hare, to make it stay if only for a moment. And all possible waylaying and ambuscade is permissible provided it facilitates the ultimate arrangement.

(2)

History is a strange dame to be reckoned with. Many reputations suffer when she is gamesome; and many insignificant points gather significance. Some months ago a distinguished critc prophesied in The Bookman that, a hundred years hence, Yeats’ poems would survive and be read for their essential beauty, while T. S. Eliot’s poems would be remembered mainly for their experimental interest. Granting for the time being that the value of T. S. Eliot’s work lies chiefly in its novelty, does not the statement mean that poetry which is not very poetical will endure side by side with work which is essential poetry? And history is responsible for this misdemeanour. From one point of view, history is a museum where fossils and mummies are carefully preserved. From another standpoint, it is the time-honoured theatre where the eternal drama of human passion and aspiration is staged with clever manipulation.

I think that T. S. Eliot’s poetry stands for an experience, not simply for an experiment. He is certainly not a mere figure made by history. I would say the same about Mr. Bendre. The position he holds in Kannada letters today is only a rough and ready indication of his integral achievements. Nor, on the other hand, is he a figure who has made the history of modern Kannada poetry though he is undoubtedly an event in its tremendous course. It seems to me that no human being can make history unless history conspires with him and allows him to be called its maker. And its makers are like the adventurers of old who claimed to be the masters of a continent because they were the first to behold it. The following facts will make it possible for the reader to see that Mr. Bendre was instrumental in determining the course of the history of Kannada poetry for a number of years. His poetry owes something at least of its reputation to the time and place of its appearance.

The Renaissance was lingering like a ‘Polar dawn’ in Karnatak some twenty years ago. Muddana, the morning star, had already bequeathed his last scintillations. The signs of a new ferment were perceptible as early as in the eighteen-fifties with the work of some missionaries and learned pundits. But the aesthetic crystallisation of this new consciousness had not yet taken place on a grand scale except with Muddana. And in poetry the attempts were too sporadic to establish and popularise the inauguration of a new tradition. The air was big with unseen destinies; but as yet it was only an invisible influence that was stirring the educated minds.

The period 1885–1915 may, in one sense, be called the period of preparation. The Epigraphia Karnatica and the kavicharite volumes were being published in Mysore. The kavya kalanidhi series opened up the treasures of ancient poetry to the Kannada public so that the works of a poet like Muddana could be produced with ease. The efforts of Kittel and other missionaries were equally great on Mangalore side, considering the fact that the Kittel dictionary holds out, even today, unexplored possibilities to every literary adventurer. The Vidya Vardhaka Sangha at Dharwar had already come into its own with the Vagbhushana as its literary mouthpiece. The Kannada schools had been opened in North Karnatak as early or as late as 1872. And enthusiasts and scholars like Toormari, Chennabasappa, Mulabagal, Santa Kavi and V. R. Katti were preparing the soil for the rich harvest that was to follow. With the founding of the Sahitya Parishat in 1914, the Renaissance had been rightfully enthroned. The political and cultural consciousness of the Kannada public was being worked up by veterans like Alur Venkatarao and Mudavidu Krishnarao. And a reading public was being gradually created by versatile writers like B. V enkatachar, Galganath, and Kerur.

With these remarks we may confine ourselves to the poetical aspect of the new movement. Not much is known about Hyderabad and the surrounding parts of Karnatak. Perhaps much did not happen there at that time. Strange and antiquated–and in many ways insignificant–books were pouring from Bellary and the other Ceded Districts. The situation was slightly different in Mysore. There was the long line of pundits aiming at the eighteen essentials of the epic and hammering at the hundred and one alankaras. Basavappa Sastri of Sakuntala fame is the gifted representative of the school. A slight variation of the themes and methods was practised by S. G. Narasimhachar in his Ajan-rupa Charite and elsewhere but his career was cut short by his premature death. A few of Prof. B. M. Srikantia’s translations of English poems had been published in the Vidyadayinee but the volume called Englishu Geetegalu had not yet seen the light of day. And it was only about the year 1920 that Mr. D. V. Gundappa published his Vasanta Kusumanjali and ‘Srinivasa’¹ came out with his Binnaha.

Mangalore unfolds a similar tale. The famous monthly called Suvasini (with Mr. B. Ramarao as one of its editors) had just been stopped but Kannada Kokile and Krishna Sukti were carrying on their work. Mr. Muliye Timmapaya had been producing Sobagina Balli and other compositions which reveal a Muddana-like attitude towards the new and the old. Panje Mangesarao, Govinda Pai and M. N. Kamat were definitely of the new band and had been giving the public an insight into the trend of the new movement.

Thus we find that the new poetry found itself mostly in the condition of protoplasm by the year 1915. The battle had been won, however, within five years to come and the departure itself became an opening for others to follow. Then it was that the public became enamoured of the grooves of change’.

But it is with the poetry of North Karnatak that we are immediately concerned. Much the same state of affairs was prevalent therein. The poets, all of whom belonged more or less to the traditional school, may be grouped as follows, corresponding to their approach towards modernism: Srinivasarao Katti, Mulabagal, V. M. Tatti, Santa Kavi and Kavyananda. Kerur, the literary pioneer, and Kannada Vamana were the leading practitioners in the new line. But in poetry, at any rate, thei.r work was not massive and intense enough to widen the public consciousness.

Thus it is easily seen that Mr. Bendre stands in a line with those workers who carried the new poetry in their hearts till about the year 1920 and then struck out unique and recognised paths for themselves. The new poetry obviously won general hearing during the period 1915-22. And Mr. Bendre effected the change in North Karnatak just as Prof. B. M. Srikantia, ‘Srinivasa’, Mr. D. V. Gundappa and Messrs. Panje Mangesarao, Govinda Pai and M. N. Kamat did it in Mysore and Mangalore. Messrs. Khanolkar and Betigeri were the only two participators in the task, since Mr. R. S. Sali descended later into the arena.

We may now inquire into the nature of the reputation which Mr. Bendre’s poetry has acquired during the last few years.

The poets literally leave their souls on earth. They could not otherwise be at home with the generations that follow. And every soul left on earth preserves with it the history of the manner in which it was perpetuated in the memory of mankind.

To track this history is itself a highly instructive and amusing task. It points out the strange and inexplicable by-paths pursued by the spirit of mal:} and perchance by his destiny. That Shakespeare hardly left a line of his imperishable dramatic poetry in his own handwriting; that Tennyson was revising his work with an amount of patience and care which almost leaves us in doubt as regards the intrinsic worth of some of the poetry itself; that Purandaradasa and others died chanting their hymns when very few would reduce them to writing: all these are strange facts that leave us wondering at the dubious value of literary history and posthumous reputation.

In this and in many other respects I think that Mr. Bendre is a fatalist. A kind of philosophic indeterminism permeates his being. In the grand chase of the eternal procession that he has opened up for himself, poetry is only a small rabbit that has scarcely received much attention at his hands. He pats it now and then, sets it on its path and feeds it with a few crumbs from his platonic banquets; but that is all. He lives and talks poetry; he writes it less often. His imagination feeds on many unwritten novels, dramas and epic poems. But he does not seem to have relished the task of putting pen to paper. A friend of mine, one of our distinguished short story writers, was telling me the other day that Bendre is in the habit of talking short stories, and lamented that a distinct type of fiction, representing Bendre’s analytic genius should be lost to Kannada literature. I would say the same about his aesthetic theories, poetry and what not. Let me hope (though it is to hope against hope!) that this protest registered in print will at least make him realise the injustice he is doing to himself and others.

But in his tenderer moods Bendre will give us an explanation though not a defence. He will tell us that, however we may try to rough-hew our ends, there is a divinity that shapes them. ‘Rest assured,’ he will say, ‘I would have been given the impetus and leisure had I been ordained for the work’; and will thus make us wroth with heaven instead of with himself. But bitterness has not warped his being. He goes forth to meet his destiny as a friend.

And yet it must be remarked that no one has taken one’s poetry more seriously than Bendre himself. Heaven denied him leisure at a time when he should have been unfolding ‘the rose’s hope while yet unblown’. But he has taken a magnificent revenge and loaded every rift of his verse with ore. Imaginative versions of whole stories and inventions are boiled down to a single simile or metaphor. One such occurs in the poem called Chinta. Hoo (flower) is a philological romance (of the world of sound and sense) recorded with the most unromantic but also unflinching brevity. When a poet who has thus cultivated the value of restraint allows his imagination to wander at will, the result is superb and can be seen in poems like ‘The Butterfly’ and ‘Moonlight’. The poet seems to dip his pen in rainbow colours as he writes.

Again, though it is true that poetry is not a vocation, an exclusive groove of escape, with him as with others, it is also a fact that he has made every problem of his being turn round the centre of poetic creation. He has prepared and built up,–perhaps from many sources,–an aesthetic technique which he applies to every problem in the world. The sense of the soul’s pilgrimage, which he always carries with him, is itself an object of aesthetic contemplation. All his philosophy is bound up in these terms. I am afraid that, when the time comes, he will claim God as his aesthetic object and not as the Almighty or as the Merciful. But he is also conscious of the fact that the four quarters of life–the subjective and the objective, the particular and the universal–will be merged into one indivisible Whole,–when the time comes!

His poetry is only a suggestive and half-revealing summary of his personality. But in another sense he is one of the most poetical of poets, since he extends my very conception of the poet and his task. F or others poetry is a sport with Amaryllis, a holiday excursion, a laborious toil, a sacred obsession, an exclusive method of being in contact with the refinements of the spirit. But Mr. Bendre pitches other problems of life to the same key to which he tunes his poetry. All his responses to the world and to the ultimate Reality, his poetical gestures not excepted, are determined by the vision which is summed up in the last lines of Moorti, a long poem: ‘Rasa is janana or birth; Virasa or the absence of it is marana or death; and samarasa or perfect harmony alone is life.’

I once requested Bendre to define his attitude towards life. He answered at once that he meant to live. It seems that he had pondered over it long since, for in a playlet written in his early days occurs the sentence: ‘To be is the goal.’ This reply represents a peculiar type of temperament. To live is all; to dream, suffer, hope, storm the four stages of consciousness, ransack the universe for knowledge and experience, and so to live on till all be well and one,–is not that a royal ambition? The ‘spirit-life’ itself is turned into a ‘gay romance’ and song naturally has its share in it.

This is how Mr. Bendre composes poetry. Shall I also tell you how he publishes it? It is highly amusing. His Karulina Vachanagalu, the first of their type in Kannada, lay for eleven years in manuscript. Gari, the only representative collection of his poems, came out in 1932, fourteen years after he had been known as a poet. And then, too, it was his friends who prepared the press-copy and traveled with it to Bangalore; and his fellow-workers paid the bill. But as many poems and more remain buried in his manuscript, waiting silently for their redemption. It is so cruel. But looking to the man whom they have chosen to be their spokesman, I think it is inevitable.

It was in 1917, in the Karnatak Social Club, Poona, that he made his debut as a poet. He gave a reading of the Tuturi (‘trumpet’) to the audience. In the same year was composed Kogile, his first long poem.

A student of the Fergusson College, he graduated in 1918 and left for Dharwar. That was the year of the Sahitya Sammelan at Dharwar. And he was then introduced to a considerable gathering of literary men as a poet by Mr. V. B. Alur and his friends who had arranged for a reading of Mr. Bendre’s poems. In 1918, too, was started Prabhata, a journal originally intended to publish all of his poems. But, for many reasons, only four poems of his figured in its pages. He became a member of the editorial board of the Vagbhushana in 1919 and turned out much significant work in that capacity. And it was in 1920, as a teacher in the Victoria High School, Dharwar, that he divined and commenced practising the idea which ripened, later on, into the Geleyara Gumpu and its activities.

The rest is easily told. Mr. Bendre also took an active part in the deliberations which were responsible for the inauguration of Jaya Karnataka, the premier monthly of the province. The Swadharma was taken up in 1926 and became, for nearly two years, the literary organ of Mr. Bendre and the Gumpu. The Jaya Karnataka, again, was taken up in 1929 and served, till May 1933, the aspirations both of Karnataka and of the Gumpu. Recited by himself and by his friends, Bendre’s poems had already grown immensely popular. And his reading of Hakki Harutide at the Belgaum Literary Conference was in itself a thing of genius. Early in 1930, he was elected as the president of the Poets’ Conference, Mysore. And the recitative tour which he subsequently had with Masti Venkatesa Iyengar endeared him and his work to the people throughout the Mysore State.

The position can be summed up as follows: Mr. Bendre was the first to promote an intense study of ancient Kannada literature among the young men of North Karnatak both by precept and by practice. He was responsible for the celebration of many of the utsavas like the Santakavi and Vidyaranya anniversaries. It was he who made the young poets of Dharwar and elsewhere read out their poems to crowded gatherings at the time of the Mahanavami festival, even before the Parishat thought of making the kavisammelan its adjunct. He was the first of modern poets to turn the Kannada country and literature themselves into a theme for poetry. And it was in his poems like the Taruna Tapaswi that the great national awakening of 1919 found its most satisfying expression. For these and many other reasons it is that Mr. Bendre’s poetry has come to have the pre-eminence which we attribute to it today, apart, of course, from its intrinsic worth.

A clue to the nature of the poetical reputation which he enjoys can be obtained in the poem in which he has made ‘fame’ famous,–keerti. He broods over it till its real meaning grows luminous within him. In the first part he dwells on the chaotic course of history and develops a sort of historical pessimism. Certain works survive and certain others, far more precious, are lost and forgotten, apparently for no reason. The wheels of chance alone seem to determine the course of literary immortality. Musings similar to this introduce the poem. In the second part, the poet dwells on the psychological aspect of the problem. Immortal literary distinction is like the shadow that a cloud leaves on the waters. It is like the handful of dust bestowed on the dead by the living. It is not the ‘bubble reputation’ but the gift of quickened response and love that satisfies a thirsty soul. Joy and sorrow are of no account in themselves. It is the comradeship in weal or woe that is of real consequence. To feel the presence of a human heart is all that the soul needs for its sustenance.

The third part carries this trend of thought into the domain of mutuality, of insurgent and co-operative experience:

‘It is in the joy of sympathetic living,–of the apprehension of others’ weal and woe as one’s own and vice versa–that the real scope of personal experience lies. This alone is life; all else is vanity of vanities.’

‘Even the music of the voice which accords with the symphony of the tambourine and blends with it in harmony, becomes an immortal song. This golden bliss alone is the crown and glory of life. The renown of a "name" is but fatal like the fall of a thunderbolt.’

How can the harp of life feel satisfied if it smites on all its chords for its own listening, enwrapt in its own harmonies? The soul attains freedom only when the Universal Soul is seen to permeate its utterance.’

‘Vain is the joy which is not reproductive. And the continuity of the progeny of joy is immortal indeed. Oh! Life! Oh! maiden with the dark hair starred by a cluster of blossoming smiles! You and you alone are the queen of my faith!’

‘Enough of the immortality of life piled on life. Dry and fruitless is the lure of "name and fame". Vain is the vicarious immortality of parenthood. Valhalla also and heaven are as nothing in my eyes. Let me live in the living and it is seven heavens and more.’

(To be continued)

1 Sriman Masti-venkatesa Iyengar.