Tamil Poetry since Independence

P. N. APPUSWAMI

Independence did not come to us unexpectedly, or suddenly; it did not come as a bolt from the blue, nor, to use a more benign simile, like a summer shower. It came rather like the sluice-waters of a lake. It had been worked for, anticipated, and expected, when it came.

There was a period of turmoil before, of years of political struggle, carried on in various ways, by men and women of different tempers and temperaments. But we did not sail from a turbulent ocean into the quiet waters of a peaceful haven. Independence created new situations, and posed new problems, for which solutions had to be sought and found. New ideologies had come into existence. India was declared to be a ‘Secular State’; but for long we had been a deeply religious people. Our society was to be on the socialist pattern; but we had been clinging to grades and classes, ever since the time when anything specific is known about our country. Industries jumped to the fore, though we had been mainly agricultural for ages. The Atomic age dawned with its terrors and its boons. We had to shoulder new responsibilities, with rather slender resources. Further, there were several distracting situations caused by the many languages and religions of the country, and by an alarming illiteracy, and by problems of population, food, and health.

All these, in more or less measure, affected our poetry–for though often cloistered, quite as often breaks out into open. Such an emergence, some call it a revolution, took place in the early years of the century. Poetry came down from her pedestal, or ivory tower if you will, and came to the masses. Bharati was the poet who was responsible for this adventure in Tamilnad. The language became simpler, the themes more familiar and immediate, the metaphors and similies less classical. It became more understandable, and had a popular appeal, which only folk-songs and ballads, and devotional hymns, had before. But religion was not let go. If Bhaarati clutched at politics with his left hand, his grip was still firm on religion with his right. And his feet were firmly planted on the ancient classical tradition, even though he explored new horizons, and dwelt on new themes.

Such a situation is comparable in some measure with what happened in England sometime . The tradition of Pope gave way to a gradual but heavy onslaught; and Victorianism took its place. And then came another revolt and upset it. Irrelevant descriptions of nature, moral and scientific discursiveness, political eloquence, and psychological curiosity–were all thrown overboard and with them went what was termed ‘poetic diction’. In the Tamil country, Bhaarati rebelled against the smug classicism of the nineteenth century. He has had a large following; for various reasons, and one of them, unfortunately, is that it is far easier to write unlearned verse than it is to write learned poetry. But this, I hope, is only incidental, and transitional. But the modem have travelled farther than Bhaarati, though they claim, mostly to be his followers. Simplification of style and meter, glorification of rural themes and situations, creation of new folk-songs after the old manner (in the absence of the old ground), and the entry of the poetic art into all fields–these are some of the characteristics of Post-Independence Poetry. Quite a large number of poets write verse. You will find selected verses from so of them, in the Sahitya Akademi’s Anthology; and, from many more, in the anthology of modern verse published by the South Languages Book Trust. But curiously, there is not a woman poet in either.

Contemporary estimates are rather difficult to make, and particularly so, if one unconsciously compares the moderns with the old ‘masters’–in Tamil, Sanskrit, or English. This difficulty is found elsewhere too. Somebody said that when Walter Pater died no newspaper gave him an obituary notice. There is a criticism that some new poetry ‘displays more style than form’, like tailors’ dummies. Yet another criticism is that there is among the new writers “a fashion morose of disparagement, of sneering at things which, by catholic consent, had long been accounted beautiful”; that common humanity is sometimes hung up (without benefit of laundry) as a rag on a clothes-line; or else, glorified and exalted, as if the shoddy were the real stuff. But these aberrations are disappearing with maturity and judgment, and through mutual criticism and introspection.

The influence of material from other languages is now noticeable (from English and Bengali particularly), through translation, adaptation, and osmosis of ideas. Years ago, writing in the Visva Bharati Quarterly, I said that the influence of Tagore on Tamil was not appreciable at all. Now it is very prominent. These tendencies act as wholesome checks on insularity, smugness, and imbalance. Let us hope that, with the years, Tamil will give as much as she receives, and recover her old glory.

Now I proceed to give a few examples.

First letus consider Desikavinaayakam Pillai, Desikavinaayakam Pillai was born in Therur near Nagarcoil. He was steeped in the ancient Tamil classics, and in Kamban, and in the hymnists of both the Saivite and the Vaishnavite schools. He was well versed in English; had read English poetry; loved Walt Whitman, Emerson, and Blake. He translated Fitzgerald’s Omar Khayyam, some pieces from Edwin Arnold, and Gray, and also several minor poems, particularly those meant for children. His method of translation was neither literal nor pedantic. He told me how he read each poem he wished to translate, again and again, till he had absorbed the idea completely, and then he recreated it afresh. By such a method, occasionally the poem loses some of its fire, as in his translation of Blake’s “Tiger”; but it makes a greater appeal to his larger but less informed audience. Like Wordsworth, he too claimed that his main endeavour as to style was that the poems should be written in pure intelligible Tamil. But, as in the case of Wordsworth, those poems in which he deviated farthest from his own principles were the best. Some of the others sound almost ‘babyish and trivial’, an accusation made against some early poems of Wordsworth also, Though he has touched socialreform, in the main, he has kept out of politics, being by temperament sensitive.

Like Bhaarati before him, he too stood rooted in the soil of the ancient poetic tradition; and he too was willing to reach out and explore farther afield, and to sniff the air of the new atmosphere. So it is not surprising that he was a good archaeologist, and yet a good science teacher in a girls’ school; that he sang the glories of ancient Tamil, and yet translated quite a few poems from English; that even when he was an old man, he wrote sparkling verses for children.

Though he does not strictly belong to the period after independence, most of his work having been done before, yet he forms a link between Bhaarati, the rebel, and the moderns, Bhaarati broke from the traditions of the nineteenth century, which roughly corresponded to the tradition of Pope, being ‘the apotheosis of clearness, point and technical skill; of the ease that comes of practice, not of the fulness of original power’; and Desikavinaayakam Pillai followed him, along with Raamalingam Pillai, Sudhaananda Bhaarati, and Bhaaratidaasan, and many, many others–far too many to name here. I hope they will all forgive me for not mentioning their names.

To show Desikavinaayakam Pillai’s lineage with the past, his concern with the present, his liberal views on social conditions, his contacts with English, and his efficiency and skill as a translator, I take a couple of examples. The Tamil verses are to be found at page 280 of Tamil Kavithai-k-Kalanjiyam (an anthology of Tamil poetry, published by the Sahitya Akademi). The original poem in English was entitled ‘Rights of Women’, and it opened thus:

The rights of women-What are they?
The right to labour, love, and pray.

It was quoted in full by Lady Dorothy Nevill in her Reminiscences, where she says that this was given to her by an old friend who had forgotten the name of the author. I sent them to Desikavinaayakam Piliai with a request that he should translate them; and he did.

Let me give the verses from Desikavinaayakam Pillai’s translation, and then the originals.

cinthiya kanneer thudaippavar aar?–bayam
cindi ahanrida-c ceipavar aar?
munthu kavalai paranthidave
muththam alikka varupavar aar?
‘The right to dry the falling tear,
The right to quell the rising fear,
The right to smooth the brow of care,
And whisper comfort in despair.’

anbinukkaahave vaazhpavar aar?–anbil
aaviyum pokka–th thunipavar aar?
inba uraihai tharupavar aar?
innahaiyaal oli ceipavar aar?
‘The right to live for those we love;
The right to die that love to prove;
The right to brighten earthly homes
With pleasant smiles and gentle tones.’

We shall now take a couple of selections from the ‘moderns’. The first is from ‘Bhaaratidaasan’, whose name is really Kanakasubburatnam. He served as a teacher of Tamil at Pondicherry, and was a close follower of Bhaarati’s poetic creed. He is an ardent social reformer, of the more advanced type. He loved nature too; and likes to sing about it, with genuine feeling. In this poem, he sings of nature in the first two verses, and suddenly, as if he was a small boy caught doing something not quite right, he drops the enjoyment and switches on to utility. The matter, the style, and the effect, of the third verse, seem to me, to be clearly at variance with those of the first two verses. I have given a fairly close and literal translation, in the hope that one may feel the original through it, as through a glove. This piece is taken from the anthology of modern verse published by the Southern Lannguages Book Trust.

1. edu eduththen, kavi onru varainthida,– 
‘ennai ezhuthu’ enru connathu vaan;
odaiyum thaamarai-p-pookkalum thangalin
oviyam theettu enru uraikkum:
Kaadum kazhaniyum kaar-muhilum vanthu,
kannai-k kavarnthida eththanikkum:
aadum mayil nihar pengal ellaam, uyar
anbinai-ch chiththiram ceika’ enraar.

2. colai-k kulirtharu thenral varum; pacum
thohai mayil varum; annam varum;
maalai-p pozhuthinil mel thicaiyil vizhum
maanikka-p parithi kaatchi tharum;
velai-ch chumanthidum veerarin thol, ‘uyar
verpu enru cooli varaiha’ enum;
kolangal yaavum malai-malaiyaay vanthu
koovina ennai. ivarridaiye,

3. innanilile thamizh naattinile ulla
en thamizh makkal thuyinrirunthaar;
annathor kaatchi irakkam undaakki, en
aaviyil vanthu kalanthathuve:
“inba-th thamizh-k kalvi yaavarum karravar”
enru uraikkum nilai eithivittaal– 
thunbangal neengum, cuham varum, nenjinil
thooymai undaahividum, veeram varum.

THE BOON OF TAMIL

Bhaaratidaasan

1. I took up a palm-leaf scroll, a poem ti inscribe

“Write about me” said the sky,
Brooks, and lotus flowers, asked me
To paint their beautiful forms;
Forests, and fields, and dark rain-clouds,
Came near; and caught and held my ravished eyes;
And many a maid, lovely as a dancing peacock,
Said to me, “Draw me a picture of glorious love.”

2. Came to me the cooling breezes of the grove

Came the peacocks with gorgeous plume; and many a swan;
And in the evening, in the western sky,
Sank the ruby sun, its splendours revealing;
The shoulders of warriors, who lances bore,
Said to me, ‘Portray us as hillocks high’,
And many a thing of beauty, like Serried mountains,
Came crowding, and called out for me. But meanwhile,

3. My own beloved people, living in misery,

In the Tamil land, lay in deep slumber.
That touching sight so aroused my pity
That, entering within me, it merged with my vital breath.
Could we, I mused, but reach that state, when one could say
‘Now all our men have learned Tamil’s delights,
So, Sorrow will vanish, Joy will come,
And our hearts will become Pure, and Courage will enter there.’

As I said, at the outset, it is exceedingly difficult to make a selection from the verses of so many writers, who occupy roughly the same level. Here is a poem chosen almost at random, yet, perhaps, in this case, the selection was influenced by its slender linkage with science and ‘animal poetry’. The poem is addressed to a glow-worm. The seeker, with a sorrow, seems to see a fellow sufferer, as revealed in the last verse. The glow-worm is an amazing insect, whose power to produce ‘cold light’ by oxidation has not yet been duplicated in the laboratory.

Love is a flame, love is like a flame, a virgin seeks her bridegroom with a lit flame (as in the Parable in St. Mathew), a flame is like a lover–these are all small variations linking flame and love.

The author of this simple piece is Appulingam, who sometimes writes under the pseudonym ‘Kalaivaanan’. Now let us look at the poem, and its translation, which I have made as close as possible to the original. This piece also is taken from the Anthology of the Southern Languages Book Trust.

MINMINI

1.‘Kannang karukku irut pothinil,
kaivilakkodu thanimaiyil,
enna karuththinil alaihiraay,
ingnganam engum e, minmini?’

2.‘Koothal adikkaiyil, vaanile
kondalhal koodi-k kuthikkaiyil,
maatharase, thaniyaaha im
maathiri-ch chelvathu adaathu adi.’

3.‘Errl eduththu nin kaiyile
enthivarum iv vilakkoli
karril alaivathu ek kaalamum
kaanome? eethu eno?’ colvaay adi

4.’Vittuop pirintha nin kaathalan
verridam nokki nadakkavo,
natta nadu nici-p pothile,
naathi arru, ippadi-ch chelliraay?

5.‘Koodi-k kulaavi, en nenjinai-k
kollai kondu odiya kaalai engu
odi-p pathungiyullaan ena
ornthilaiyo, adi minmini?’

THE GLOW-WORM

In this midnight hour, black as charcoal,
With a lamp in your hand,–and, all alone,
Why do you loiter? What do you desire?
Tell me, Glow-worm, so haggard, so woebegone.

While the chill winds blow, and up in the sky
The rain-clouds gather, and leap, and tumble,
O Queen of women, is it meet or seemly
That you loiter thus here,–and, all alone?

Holding in your hand a lamp you have lit,
You walk about: but I have never seen
Its luminous flame flicker in the wind.
How is this marvel?–Won’t you tell me, dear?

Did your fond lover who parted from you
Walk hence away to keep another tryst?
Is that why in this dreary midnight hour
You wander thus, unfriended,–and, all alone?

That brave gallant, who made sweet love to me,
and stole my heart, O he has gone away.
Where has he run to? Where is he hiding?
Can’t you reveal to me, O Glow-worm dear!

I may pause here a moment to comment that the lady glow-worm is an angel without wings–in simple language, a mere crawler. Gentlemen glow-worms have wings, and they also glow somewhat; but their lustre is nothing like the radiance of their female consorts.

It would be hardly right to compare this poem, through a translation, with an original poem in English. But I do it for the purpose of showing how the flame-and-insect idea is used by another poet, to produce a very artistic picture. The ‘pathetic fallacy’, or the anthropomorphic element, is found in the English poem also. It is entitled ‘The Moth’and is by Walter de la Mare.

THE MOTH

Isled in the midnight air,
Musked with the dark’s faint bloom,
Out into glooming and secret haunts
The flame cried ‘Come’.

Lovely in dye and fan
A-tremble in shimmering grace,
A moth from her winter swoon
Uplifts her face:

Stares from her glamorous eyes
Wafts her on plumes like mist.
In ecstasy swirls and sways
To her strange tryst.