Trends in Telugu Poetry

It was on the banks of the Godavari and at the Court of the East Chalukyan monarch, Raja Raja or Raja-Mahendra, that the first great classic poem in Telugu–the Andhra Mahabharatamu, of Nannaya Bhattaraka–was composed. That was a thousand years ago. By a strange destiny, there was a renaissance of Telugu poetry towards the end of the last century at the same dear spot. Viresalingam, Lakshmi Narasimham and Vasuraya Kavi re-lit the torch. The age produced other giants like Vedam Venkataraya Sastri of Nellore, the twin-poets Tirupati Sastri and Venkata Sastri of Masulipatam, and Gurazada Appa Rao of Vizianagaram. Appa Rao was the forerunner of the great song-writers of our day,–Basavaraju Appa Rao who is no more, Nanduri Subba Rao, and Adivi Bapiraju. Tirupati Venkata Kavulu rescued Telugu poetry from the decadent classicism of eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; they brought the Muse from out of the courts of Chieftains and the coteries of pandits to the newly awakened population of Andhra. And they made possible the lyrical outpouring of Rayaprolu Subba Rao, D.V. Krishna Sastri, Viswanatha Satyanarayana, Pingali Lakshmikantam and Katuri Venkateswara Rao. The last two are twin-souls and twin-poets like their gurus.

The impact of the nationalist movement of 1905, and with it, the influence of Bengali literature as represented by Rabindranath was felt much earlier by the Telugus than by the other peoples of South India. While the earlier generation of Viresalingam was brought up on the English literature of the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, and occasionally turned to the Sanskrit classics for inspiration, the generation of D. V. Krishna Sastri was profoundly influenced by the English and Continental literature of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and by the outstanding achievements of Bengali writers. The younger generation of Srirangam Srinivasa Rao and Rukmininadha Sastri turned to the post-War literature of Russia and the current movements of impressionism and surrealism.

The young men who were at college during the first World War produced their best work between 1915 and 1935. These two decades in our literary history way be likened to the ages of Pericles in Athens, of Elizabeth in England, and of Bhoja and Krishnadeva Raya in India, for, lyrical poetry then attained its loftiest heights in Andhra. The personality of the poet rarely obtrudes on the reader’s attention in classic Indian poetry, whether in Sanskrit or in the other Indian languages. An expression of the poet’s joys and sorrows, and of his reactions to the movements of thought and emotion around him marks a new phase in our literature. The Satakas (centuries of verse) were the nearest approach to this type of subjective poetry.

The quest of a human beloved, who is at once the perfection of loveliness and the guiding star of the lonely pilgrim to the shrine of Love, was the main pre-occupation of these poets. To them, woman is an ethereal being; she is akin to a streak of lightning, the dewy dawn, or the white foam dancing on the waves of the ocean. By their idealisation of the object of love, and their haunting descriptions of the graces of her mind and soul more than the charms of the freshly frame, they raised Telugu poetry to the regions of the sublime. Platonic love is the theme of Rayaprolu Subba Rao’s Trinakankanam and Abburi Ramakrishna Rao’s Mallikamba. The intense longing for a supremely fair denizen of heaven on the part of a lowly earth-born lover, and the agony born of despair, from the dominant note of Krishna Sastri’s Urvasi and other lyrics. The desire for a union of hundred minds and kindred souls is reflected in Sivasankara Sastri’s Hridayesvari. In Deepavali, Vedula Satyanarayana Sastri makes a resolve to pursue to the uttermost “this pilgrimage across the ocean of love.” Nayani Subba Rao fears that his frail bark might go to pieces in midstream; but then, the planks will serve for his funeral pyre. Almost alone of this group of lover-poets, Nayani ends on a note of triumph. His love is fulfilled, and at long last, he succeeds in linking heaven and earth.”

Viswanatha Satyanarayana in his Kokilamma Pendli (The Bridal of the Kokil) and Kinnerasani made song the vehicle of romantic tales of nature in her tender moods, as Duvvuri Rami Reddi employed elegant verse. Among the poets of the Renaisance, Viswanatha holds a distinguished place. Like a star, he dwells apart. He has achieved eminence in nearly every form of literary expression,–classical verse, romantic song, the lyric, the drama, the novel, the short story and the critical essay. There is richness and vigour allied to ruggedness in his writing. As ‘Giri-Kumara’ he has written love of exquisite grace, while in Andhra Prasasti, the poetry of patriotism attains the dignity of literature transcending propaganda.

Katuri Venkateswara Rao and Pingali Lakshmikantam started their literary career with a volume of verse–Tholakari–commended by Dr. C. R. Reddy. The promise of the early years found its fulfilment in Soundara Nandam, a long, sustained Kavya depicting the age of the Buddha but reflecting the atmosphere of the Gandhian era. Perfection of form and richness of sentiment have made Soundara Nandam a classic par excellence.

Then there are those who could have written verse but preferred song. It seems but as yesterday–in sober fact, it was over thirty years ago–that the cousins Basavaraju Appa Rao and Nanduri Subba Rao were in the Law College and the Christian College in Madras. They were madly in love with the songs and verse-tales of Gurazada Appa Rao, and recited them with feeling. They soon started singing their own songs to small groups of eager fel1ow-students, and moved them to tears. The Selayeti Ganam (Song of the Rill) of Appa Rao and the Yenki Paatalu of Subba Rao took the Andhra public by storm. Today these songs are on everybody’s lips. Appa Rao urged that one should pass through sorrow so that “the heart might become tender” and “the sense of ego wiped out “ Subba Rao’s rural lovers Yenki and Naidu Bava are as soft and gentle or as passionate and devoted, an any hero and heroine of princely romances. For, when the lover accosts her with the simple query,

“Where dost thou dwell, O Maiden of Light?”

the artless maiden answers:

“In thy shadow shall I build my palace.”

Adivi Bapiraju, painter, poet, and song-writer, has latterly won distinction through his short stories and novels. While Bapiraju’s genius is versatile, his characteristic mode of expression is the song, vibrant with emotion, and lifting the listener to high altitudes, even like the river Godavari which, in a song of his, “shoots up to the skies.”

Thus Love and Nature were the main themes of the poets of this period. But patriotism, more especially during the days of struggle against a foreign power, was a powerful factor in their emotion make-up. They were dreamers of dreams, and their vision was wide as the universe. Their sympathies were extended to common men and women, though they did not actually share their lives. In diction and in metre, they sought to bridge the gulf between the classical and the popular–the marga and desi.

Since 1935, there has been a peceptible swing to Leftism in Telugu poetry. Srirangam Srinivasa Rao led a revolt against the romantic movement which commenced with Rayaprolu Subba Rao. A new world is in the making, according to Srinivasa Rao,–a world in which sweat and toil must lead to the vindication of the rights of the worker in field and factory. There is no sense in celebrating the glory of the Taj Mahal; think rather of the forced labour which made the Taj possible. Soft sentiment and the enraptured worship of Nature in her beautiful moods can no longer form the theme of poetry. The new group is influenced in a large measure by the impressionists and surrealists of the West, and seeks to break away from conventional verse-forms, including the gita metre so largely employed by the romantics. Free-verse is their favourite medium. The prevailing economic discontent, and the disillusionment following the emergence of political freedom are to be canalised for the class-war. But along-side of these are others like Mallavarapu Visvesvara Rao and Pilaka Ganapati Sastri who are wedded to the Rayaprolu-Krishna Sastri tradition. Buchi Sundararama Sastri, who passed away last year, was a direct disciple of Venkata Sastri; in his Panchavati, he displayed his unique gifts as a poet of devotion.

Within the last two or three years one notices the beginnings of a new movement, the return to classicism. If the leftists and surrealists rebelled against the romanticism of the second and third decades of this century, the neo-classicists like Nanduri Krishnamacharlu, Jandhyala Papayya Sastri and Joshua are questioning the value of the surrealism of the decade from 1935 to 1945. Harmony instead of strife is their theme. The chaotic free-verse of Pattabhi and Arudra makes no appeal to the neo-classicists. In the post-War world an equilibrium has to be achieved between matter and spirit, between idealism and realism. Krishnamacharlu and his fellow-poets are seeking to effect this reconciliation. The surrealist made light of the romantics, and spoke of them as ‘escapists.’ Th e neo-classicists in their turn are asking where the persistent preaching of class-war will lead. The poverty and the misery of the people are undeniable but how will hymns of hate alleviate that misery? Is a class-war inevitable, and is it the function of poetry to serve as the handmaid of a political and economic revolution? These are the questions being posed today, and the neo-classicists claim that it is their mission to restore to poetry its original dignity as the symbol of all that is beautiful and true.

This return to classicism is also emphasised by the fact that Viswanatha Satyanarayana is writing an epic with the story of Rama as the ground, and that Gadiyaram Venkata Sesha Sastri has chosen Shivaji as the hero of his Sivabharatam. These two are likely to stand out as the great epics of the modern age, fashioned in the classical mould.

In Andhra, as in other parts of India, cultural efforts are at a discount. We have not yet worked out our passage to the new from the old, to the haven of freedom from the slough of subjection. Economic factors weigh heavily on us. There is danger that the still small voice of poetry may be stifled, and its virtues denied. But if cultural values are not to be swamped, the poets must once again lift up their voices, and point the way to a newer and richer life. Language is but an accident; it is the vision that matters. And men with vision,–the poets, the seers, and the prophets of all lands can impart their vision to humanity struggling towards the light.

It is in this context that the achievement of the Telugu poets must be judged. Curiously enough, the old classicists of the type of the Poet-Laureate Sripada Krishnamurti Sastri, the romanticists like Krishna Sastri, the surrealists like Srinivasa Rao, and the neo-classicists like Krishnamacharlu are striving in different ways to enrich our literature. They represent the many facets of our cultural life. And while they seem to work at cross-purposes, they are shaping Telugu poetry to great ends. The points of view may differ, the emphasis may shift. But poetry that is authentic will always be heard, and its loveliness never fades.

Before closing I shall include, for the benefit of non-Telugus, renderings into English of two poems, representative of the Romantic revival of the second and third decades:

The first is from Krishna Sastri, rendered, by ‘Sukumar.’

SHALL I–?

A leaf among leaves, a flower among flowers,
A branch among the branches, into the tenderest downy stemlet turned,
Shall I hide myself within this forest deep?
Somehow, shall I here for ever stop?

A ripple within the sweetly, sweetly, rustling wind,
The sad burden of the falling, falling waters endless rhyme,
Shall I bide myself within this forest deep?
Somehow shall I here forever stop?

A lone butterfly, hidden behind coral veils of yet unfolding leaves,
The maiden bashfulness of virgin flowers Sweet,
Shall I hide myself within this forest deep?
Somehow, shall I here for ever stop?

High o’er green tree tops climbing,
Far above purple mountains rising,
Into the blue wonder of a rain-cloud turned,
Shall I hide myself within this forest deep?
Somehow, shall I here for ever stop?

Of hunger and thirst, no more; sadness and vain regrets, no more,
Thus lonely like a mad man wander,
Shall I hide myself within this forest deep?
Somehow, shall I here for ever stop/

The other is from Viswanatha Satyanarayana, rendered by Adivi Bapiraju.

THY CHARIOT

Proudly bent on its Course
And cruel in its speed,
Thy car was whirling on.
My frail form was crushed unto death
Beneath the chariot wheels,
And streams of blood gushed forth.

Thy car, divinely bright, stopped not a moment
In hesitation that aught impeded its progress;
Nor did it veer round to note the sudden wail
That went up from my bruised heart.

At early dawn, dread Lord, Thy charioteer
Will wash the blood-stains from off Thy chariot wheels,
But, how, from amongst the blood-stains of millions,
Wilt Thou spot out mine?

(By courtesy of All India Radio, Vijayawada)