Viswanatha's Ode to Telugu: A Language Passional Teleseme

VISWANATHA’S ODE TO TELUGU:

A LANGUAGE PASSIONAL TELESEME

PROF. SALVA KRISHNAMURTY, M. A.
Madras University

With the award of the Bharatiya Jnanpith to Srimad Raamaayana Kalpavrikshamu of KavisamraatViswanatha Satyanarayana, the poet and Telugu have both, in a sense, arrived. In honour of the distinguished poet and to commemorate the happy event it is proposed to examine critically the poem Kokilamma Pelli–one of the poet’s earliest lyrics that bears a topical relevance.

Were itnot to the fact of its inherent difficulty and complexity as also the poet’s well-known impatience with anybody–reader or critic–that might interest himself with hisminor poems, this poem Kokilamma Pelli should have attracted better and serious critical attention than any that might have come in the wake of its publication. The present writer has had the pleasure of exploring under similar circumstances some twelve years ago¹ the lyrical charms of the romance of Kinnera, the heroine of the poet’s more famous Kinnerasaani Paatalu. Much as he may be filled with the thoughts of his major work Srimad Raamaayana Kalpavrikshamu, surely the poet does not want his readers or even critics forget and neglect his other work however minorit may be.

Kokilamma Pelli the lyric on hand, it is indicated, has been conceived in sixparts and in order that we may follow the principle of objective correlation the paraphrase of the poem may be stated thus.

The first part starting with a personal note of the poet promising the reader that he willdigand pile up before him the “stories”² of ancient fore-fathers despite the denigrating antics of intellectual novices goes on to describe the coastal country with “the cobra-like waves of the sea walloping and receding”, “swinging great trees of the forest on land up to the beach”, “the benign midnight stars peeping with their pinky eyes into the forest as well as the sea” “the strolls of the young breezes on the beach in the evenings”, “the ‘rafting’ of the sea-snakes in the swirls of the mid-seas” and “the golden fields of corn and flowers on the coastal land.”

The second part again starts with the poet exclaiming that the antiquity of the happenings of the “stories” was such that it could not be gauged and simply saying that the country was wild with shrubs and forests, hills and dales. There was a village on the sea-coast with a king who was Telugu, the Telugus having been kings as early as that. He shone like the rising full-moon with his necklaces of pearls from (native) bamboos and home-spun clothes; he was a great king, the country had not taken to shallow civilisation; no one ever did any coarse thing; tillers ploughed just enough and no more land for their sustenance; the remaining forest lands competing with the hills and clouds, gave in-season rains; every one had enough and none had a quarrel on any score. The king had two daughters with lips of crimson of the blooming Kimsuka (Butea Frondosa) and their names were Chilakamma Kokilamma. Kokilamma was, of course, black and Chilakamma green and they were always cross with each other. Kokilamma started prattling prettily very young to the ecstacy of the father. Years rolled by and her eyes became wider, the pity, Kokilamma could not speak. The father would get colourful sarees for Chilakamma but would be grumpy with Kokilamma. When Chilakamma laughed at her Kokilamma, empaling, looked at the mother. When Chilakamma made faces at her, agitated, she hid behind the mother. Helpless, if the mother too was impatient, she smouldered within herself. For days she would weep with the wallopy waves looking emptily into the foam, sit under some tree sinking inwardly. She could not unburden herself even to a tree or ant-hill for, God–no one knew what kind of person he was–had not given her speech. She would sit on the sand-beds of hill-streams building sand-nests for sparrows all day; saunter along the hill-streams looking at the wild flowers, not returning home till late in the night. At times when she stayed in the woods all night, the mother got upset.

The third part describes the corning of age of the two girls. Rainy nights came and went by; wintry days came and passed by; Autumn falls stopped. Spring carne with sprouting Red leaves. Foliage and efflorescence all over. Like the mid-vein in a leaf, like honey in the nectar of a flower Chilaka and Kokila came of age, respectively. Even the young breezes were smitten and agitated by the learning and grace of Chilaka. Her beauty spilled, as it were, all over and even those who have not seen her talked of it. The Queen-tree sang of it in the skies, excited. Young breezes spilled it all over during their twilight strolls. Every one wanted to marry her. But the parents protected the young under their eyes; would not allow her to cross the threshold lest the kings of the sea and forest should annex her. They took care, like an eyelid of the pupil, that she never went out nor did any domestic chores. Chilaka’s graces spread into streamlets, into beautiful young sprouting leaves, shedding sweetness of honey drops. Pre-occupied by Chilaka’s beauty and the affairs of her marriage, the parents would not think of Kokila at all.

The fourth part describes the arrival of a Brahmin, a vedic scholar, and Chilaka’s falling in love with him. On one mid-noon, a Brahmin with the dazzle of his ear-rings on his cheeks came there. The parents received the guest, gave him presents and treated him. Reciting Veda and provocatively ready for an argument, he stayed as the guest of the Telugu King. Hearing the cadences of his vedic recitation and seeing the brightness of his face, Chilaka kept in her thoughts. Having come to know of all this, the Telugu King might have felt excited but the mother could not like Chilaka for that.

The fifth part describes the change of attitude of the mother and her search for Kokila who had skulked away into the wilderness. The mother thought: Kokila had been wandering in the hills and dales; how the dear thing must be crying herself out, for she would not come home; Chilaka has bestowed her love on a visiting stranger of a distant land; Kokila wandering, even without coming home, in the forests had estranged herself from my mother’s-heart. Thinking thus she, with faltering steps, went in search of her, along the hills, dales, and streams of the wilderness. She searched for the daughter in the shady noon-dens of the growling tigers, peeped into the sneaky paths of the thirsty tigers and leopards into the streams, traced the valleys filled with the footprints of wandering wild beasts, saw the wandering spots of the wild dogs that would kill even tigers, explored even the dense forest-areas where pythons would doze off after swallowing deer. Search wherever she might Kokila was not found and the mother’s heart broke. She sat grief-stricken under a Mushini tree (Strychnos nux vomica) sprawling into a stream. All the while, Kokila has been following the mother. She saw her grief and cried aloud. She thundered, like a thunder, dazzled like lightning and in a jump was in her mother’s lap. Mother and daughter, locked in mutual embrace with closed eyes and insensible, sank at the foot of a tree-trunk. And that was the last. Neither of them ever got up and opened their eyes. The filial affections touched everything and in appreciation, the stream crooned it, the creepers swayed, breezes fluted it in bamboos, and Nature itself sang about it. Without the rattling and ubiquitous presence of Kokila the woods looked desolate; spring waters unbathed and ungurgled by her, trees with their tender leaves and flowers unplucked, had no beauty; the dales unwalked by her deficient in their spring bloom. Kokila with such abundance of filial affection is immortal, the mango tender foliage sang; the spring crooned; she will come alive, the woods sang; love is immortal, the moonlight sang softly. After rains and fall, the forest bloomed again like a newly-married girl with kumkumon her forehead. The stream with its waters sweet as cocoanut milk was beautiful like a brownish cobra. A thin sweet song broke out somewhere at the outskirts of the forest. The forest was startled as if the missing relation has returned. The spring rambled along impatiently with gurgling noise, and overflowed with joy at the cooing and return of Kokila. The mango bud reddened into sprouting leaves. Within no time the woods became beautiful.

The sixth part describes the reception given to the Spring-God Vasanta and the marriage of Kokila with him. Shortly afterwards the King of flowers, of exotic beauties came on his yearly round with smiles all over his cheeks. The forest sang: “O, King, you have come; we present you with the same flowers you have brought; we will prepare Kokila as your young bride and you as the bride-groom and join you together. By grace and song, your handsomeness and Kokila’s voice are a match to each other. You are made for each other.” The spring leaves became festoons for their marriage. Tigers kept vigil on boulders. The thin white spring waters sang like Shahanai. Nature with its moonlight of flowers opened her eyes. Honey flowed from flowers. Sweet songs broke out. Paths of beauty appeared. It was a harvest of Raajanaalu, the best variety of paddy.

In the great line of Chilakamma Sanskrit words came to stay. Kokilamma stored up the Telugu idiom.

On reading the poem–rather the paraphrase–the reader is apt feel a little uneasy and discomfited because the ‘tone’ at the beginning and the end of the poem puts him into a serious, if not an exalted, frame of mind and makes him anticipate or search for some intellectual element, whereas the poem itself deals with the simple pathetic story of a mute girl ridiculed by her own sister and neglected by the parents. He may find that even this story is short and the poem unduly long; may even be tempted to say that parts of the poem like the first and sixth are perfunctory and that the later portions of the parts three and five are just the verbal extravagance of a Romantic poet. And finally he may find himself in a bewildering situation for, much as he is aware of the fact that the poem is addressed not to children as befitting the story but to adults like himself, he has to find the meaning, rather understand the theme, of which he is only vaguely aware from the final key statement that Kokilamma stored up Telugu idiom. The problems pertain respectively to the mood of the poet and the poem, to its structural coherence, and the theme underlying it.

Before we find the answers to these problems it may be noted that the poem is a lyric. It has no formal treatment either in our alamkaara saastra or in Aristotelian poetics. At best we may loosely describe it as an Anibaddha Kaavya but cannot strictly categorise it under that head. Now, in as much as a lyric is highly imaginative, as we all know, we may note the psychological nature of its mood and composition, and try to find some symbolistic interpretation just as it is done in the case of dreams by a psychologist or in the case of colours by an occult colourologist as also the esoteric significance of the characters mentioned. We may take them in so far as they can illuminate our understanding of the poem without introducing any arbitrariness on our part and without affecting the objective collocation of the terms and the theme.

Thus we note that the sea-green colour of the waves symbolises envy, cunning and self-defeating action. Pink, the ultimate in light red, attributed to the stars represent love rather than affection, being above jealousy and spite with a willingness to serve and help. The golden yellow of the corn fields symbolises creativity, artistic and scientific intellectuality and wisdom. The white of the moon attributed to the father-king represents neutrality, fastidiousness, understanding, sincere and fair, but apt to be over-critical. Chilakamma’s (she-parrot) colour green is the great colour of nature signifying adaptability, formidability and immutability yet sympathetic and sentimental. The black of Kokilamma (the cuckoo) is the colour of ‘dignity’ without false pride, commanding respect, formal and conventional and yet with ability for dynamism. The crimson of the lips of the two girls mentioned symbolises action and aggressiveness on intellectual plane and achievement of great things and an optimistic and competitive spirit.

Treating the lyric on par with a dream, we may note the symbolism of some of the very many things mentioned in the poem on the psychological level. Thus, sea or ocean symbolises a warning or danger or enmity, chance to start over again, desire to be re-born, and death; reptiles like snakes–men and their power; trees–happiness and success; green woods–lucky change, if alone and happy in a forest, finding a new home; beach–need for relaxation and sex motives; stars–many prosperous years; canoeing or rafting–ability to run one’s own affairs, if in rough waters, domestic and occupational discontent; farms–desire for security; gold–competition, anxious to realise ambition; rice–steadfast friends; flowers–happy working conditions; pearls–gala celebration; full moon–over-sentimentality; abundance–desire for independence and neglect of duties to the loved ones; talking birds like parrots–warning to be careful about gossip; talking with mother–anxiety, hear her calling you, your guilty conscience; agony–fear or jealousy; crying–corrupt business dealings, implications of love affairs; father–some difficulty bothering, foam–a waifer; building a house–many changes in present plans, clergy (or a Brahmin)–desire to gain strength, overcome a wrong; gifting–seeking attention or flattery; escape–improvement of status; tigers (and cheetahs)–torment due to personal problem involving disappointment, desire for sexual fulfilment, wild dogs–anxiety; lightning–symbolof love; dying–sense of guilt or a problem that cannot be avoided by any other way; embracing–longing to help others; music–prosperity; bathing–intense interest in opposite sex, business expansion and renovation about the home; concert–an inward passion that needs expression in some kind of artistic endeavour; being a bride–good future.

On the esoteric level suffice it to know that the father-king represents, Time (Kaala), Mother–desa or country (dik); Chilaka (parrot)–esoteric Fire; and Sanskrit. Kokila (cuckoo) esoteric Fire (in embers) and Telugu. Permitting ourselves a little useful digression, we may note that the rulership of Telugu as a language is attributed to the fiery planet Mars who also rules Saama Veda with its musical element.

The poem demands reading at three levels. We start a little hesitantly wondering as to the possible significance of the personal note of the poet–namely that part of the statement–“despite the denigrating antics of the intellectual novices”. However, we may follow the story and find, at the end almost startled by the statement that Sanskrit words come to stay in the line of Chilakamma, and Kokilamma stored up the Telugu idiom. This time we are virtually ordered to re-read the poem. The personal note of the poet conjointly with the final statement regarding Telugu idiom makes us suspect the poem as a personal statement also. Thus we may have to read the poem not merely on the story level but as a personal statement of the poet as well as saga of Telugu idiom.

Before we try toexplore these three levels one point has to be noticed. A poem is as much incritical as it is insouled. It is said that a lyric is generally ordered by a problem; it starts with the beginning of the problem and ends immediately after finding a permanent solution for it. If so, what is the problem in this lyric? The problem is competition with handicaps. A permanent solution is found only at the end of the poem and not before. It is not difficult to see that Kokilamma connected with the storing up of Telugu idiom represents Telugu and the narration–poet identifies himself with Kokilamma. On the story level Kokilamma’s problem is the competition she had to face with her sister with the twin handicaps as it were, her blackness and dumbness. When she came of age, it became a sexual problem. Though mute, she had many ideas and plans for future as symbolised by her action of building sand-nests for sparrows. Ridiculed and neglected, she suffered the agony but with the engagement of her sister to the vedic scholar, it culminated in her leaving the home. It could not be solved in any other way except through death. The emotional reunion of mother and daughter did bring it. And Kokilamma was born as a bird of song and married to the king
Of flowers, Vasanta–the God of Spring. The problem is solved permanently and on a much better footing. The mood of the poem is atavistic; the atmosphere totemic; the execution shamanistic. Now we may ask ‘how is the first part of the poem connected with the problem?’ It is. The first and second parts constitute one unit; it is like a dicot ; they represent the ‘situation’. Description of the coastal country is the inverse of it; the second part is the obverse of it. The personal notes regarding the period at the beginning of both the parts give the clue. The third and fourth parts dwelling on the beauty and engagement of her rival constitute ‘the problem’. Her own colour and dumbness, the natural handicaps aggravated by the ridicule of her sister and indifference of her father with the mother’s passive helplessness and occasional impatience turned it into an insoluble personal problem. The parents’ constant preoccupation with plans for Chilaka’s marriage and Chilaka’s finding of her man was perhaps the last straw. The fifth and sixth parts, the ‘resolution’ dicot, find the permanent solution through the death and rebirth of Kokilamma and her marriage to Vasanta. The essential nature of competition here is in essence parallelism. This is perfectly maintained in the problem dicot and the solution dicot, the former describing the beauty and engagement of Chilaka to the scholar and the latter describing the beauty and marriage of Kokila with Vasanta. Whereas Nature is made to sing Chilaka’s beauty only–she is made to sing the beauty and celebrate the marriage of Kokila. The mother’s earlier predisposition weighted the forces heavily against her. Her change of attitude restored the essential balance of forces into parallelism putting the father with Chilaka and the mother with Kokila.

The inherent difficulty and complexity of the poem referred to in the beginning is felt, when we try to read the poem on the other two levels if only because the poet is trying to express an emotional abstraction in terms of concrete intellection. At the level of language the competition is between Telugu and Sanskrit. The former suffered ridicule and neglect not merely at the hands of the rulers but even by the country-just as Kokila was denied of her mother’s affection and support. This was the case until the eleventh century, historically speaking. The period of neglect was long and dark and no concrete instances could be presented to depict it. But only concrete or at least tangible stimulii can evoke emotions. Thus it is an emotional abstraction. Presenting it through concrete intellection constitutes the difficulty, because we are yet to know as to what could be the dumbness of a language and how Telugu, in this case, overcame it and burst into a song The mother’s search for Kokila refers to four places, possibly Kokila’s frequented haunts. These four, the dens of the python, the hunting dogs, the leopard and the tiger refer to the Para, pasyanti, Madhyama and Vaikhari stages of the Telugu word. The dumbness of Telugu was its unfitness for the higher use of language as a medium of art and science. It was as good as dead. But it transformed itself into a different shape and emerged successful. What could be the transformation? Telugu as a Dravidian language was perhaps halanta(consonant-ending) like Tamil.

But Sanskrit is both ajantaand halanta(vowel-ending and consonant-ending). It is with the ajantacharacteristic that Telugu has acquired its sonorousness and music which has brought her the compliment of being called the ‘Italian of the East’. The idiom is from the nature of the soil into which it died and whence it rose again. However, the competition between neither Chilaka and Kokila nor between Sanskrit and Telugu was malicious. It was just a matter of ‘situation’; of Time and place; at best a race against Time.

The poem as a personal statement of the poet is a testament of unegoization. I believe it indicates similar unfair competition in his early days and describes his emergence as a Telugu poet instead of a vedic scholar. His identification of himself with Telugu and Kokila, proves the bona fides of the great poet only too well. The identification was so complete that the poet chose to narrate it all by himself even where he dramatized the situation. I refer to the thoughts of the distressed mother. Of course, neither Time, nor the country, nor a mute, nor even a language could be made to speak in the poem. It was only for the purpose of the problem and its argument–a problem that he himself encountered and transposed on the ancient problem of Telugu–that the characters are invented. They are at once imaginary and real, for nobody ever knows that Kokila was a mute; everybody knows that it sings so well, occurs so often and so frequently in Telugu literature that it is almost a Telugu bird.

The song has broken out. The poet has arrived; the poem has fulfilled itself.

¹ Bharati, June 1959.
² This plural word has the sense of singular in idiomatic Telugu