A Poet who Never Pandered to Popular Taste

A POET WHO NEVER PANDERED TO
POPULAR TASTE

V. NARAYAN RAU

The most admired, the most criticised but never neglected Viswanatha Satyanarayana bestrides the Te1ugu literary scene, a gaint that either provokes derogation or compels admiration. Though dressed in the orthodox fashion of a gentle Brahmin, with a shaven head and a tuft of hair behind, the contours of his face show a defiant attitude. Reckless in his likes and dislikes, highly provocative in his words, he has always faced the Telugu literary public with a strong sense of conviction of his eminence, that sometimes looked arrogance.

A very prolific writer and the only one in Telugu who made money from his books, he never cared to write for popular taste, but his books sold like no one else’s in modern Telugu literature.

Satyanarayana came on to the Telugu literary scene along with the other writers of the romantic period in the 1920’s. Like Rayaprolu Krishna Sastry he wrote poems in praise of the past Telugu and Telugu culture. The early works showed a poet that was to become far greater than could be limited to a narrow romantic age. He had even in his early works a very individual voice with a sharp ability for imagination and an independent phrase that indicated a strong personality in the making. His short poems that are found in “Vaitalikulu”, the famous anthology of Muddukrishna, are but the beginnings of a stream that was to grow into a mighty river. In “Kinnerasaani Paatalu”, the song of a rivulet named Kinnerasaani, he wrote a highly sensitive lyric beautifully reflecting the music of the river and its many moods in deft syllables and metres chosen with a magic skill. It was a miracle in poetry in flowing Telugu. All the poems he wrote in this period were romantic with a chiselled expression, yet not over-polished to rub the individual tone into the smoothness of emotional anonymity, as was the fashion with many poets of 1930’s.

Traditionalist

Soon he was to grow into a traditionalist with a great passion for the classical modes of literature and a determination to spread the Vedic message. The same change came about in his novels too. His early novel, “Ekavira” is a romantic poem in prose set in the historic times of Madhura Kings. Worked on a small canvas, it depicts a tale of forbidden love. But in “Veyipadagalu”, he has changed into a realist and a revivalist. Writing in classical prose with tightly packed lengthy Sanskrit phrases, he captured in his style the vigour of native idiom and the virility of human passions. Permitting himself a free flow of his personal opinions in lengthy speeches, he spread the story on a vast canvas of three generations in the social history of Andhra, with soaring imagination in making the plot and a deep insight into human nature. The result was a human drama depicting the varied phases of individual passions, conflicts and social forces written with a nostalgia for the past that was fast decaying and an irrational hatred for the changes that were coming on the social and political scene under the foreign influence. Throughout the novel there is a note of tragic fatalism with an attempt at rationalising and supporting every aspect of the ancient life, including the child marriages and the four-caste system.

In the novels that followed, he tirelessly continued his theme of the battle between the Vedic and anti-Vedic forces, writing in a language that is neither classical nor modern but all the same compelling and vigorous, passionate and picturesque and making a story that always gripped the reader. A man with a lust for life and passion to see world in all its varied actualities, he has been able to make the characters in his novels live with ardour and gusto.

His tirade on modern historical outlook touched new heights in the 16 novels he wrote entitled “Purana Vaira Grandhamala”, depicting the ancient enmity between Vedic and anti-Vedic forces in creation. In these novels he has something to say about everything, from the creation of the universe to the styles of women’s dress, from the efficacy of Mantrasastra to the advantages of mango pickles. But what is interesting is his genius in picturising the fantastic and the plausible alike. He has a way of saying that even if one hates the idea one reads the passage.

A bundle of idiosyncracies, his style both in prose and poetry has abundant archaisms, aching twists and inconvenient “sandhis” that earned for him the name of stone-hard stylist. He never paused to improve his phrase or polish his expression, he never in fact wrote, he dictated and never looked into what his scribes wrote. But behind all this rough exterior is the power of his towering personality, his erudite scholarship, his genius in story-making and the sensitivity of a great artist.

If through his novels he reached a wide reading public he reached greater literary heights in his poetry. He left a mark of individuality on the Telugu verse that it has not had since Srinatha. He used the same metres that have been in use since Nannayya in the traditional literature but gave them an imprint that is unmistakably his. His mode influenced every contemporary writer of verse worth the name, including his bitterest critics, barring perhaps Krishna Sastry who, however, has not published much verse in the past 20 years. He not only has a very individual way of writing verse: he has an individual style of reading it too. Endowed with a metallic voice with a slight nasal twang in it that gave it a peculiar beauty, Satyanarayana sang verses to spell-bound audiences all over Andhra with a feeling and emotion the author of the verse alone could give.

He started work on his “Ramayana Kalpavriksham” as early as 1940. Preparing himself for the task of the great work he is said to have done vast amount of devoted exercise in verse-making until he mastered it with unsurpassed felicity. Ramayana is not a new story. Nor one that was not worked by earlier Telugu poets. But why does he write it again? The poet has an answer in the very first volume.

You ask me why Ramayana again?
People have been eating the same rice.
Each one has his own taste.
People have lived through the same life.
Each one has his own experience.

This is the story that has become a part of the life and consciousness of the people. It is never old and never stale. It has a message for every generation and a meaning for every individual. Poets create it in thousand different ways. It is the creativity that answers one’s thirst for beauty.

Taking the basic story from Valmiki, like any poet that worked the Ramayana theme, Satyanarayana said it in a way that is highly classical and yet modern, very traditional, yet novel. The most brilliant aspect of the work is his way of telling the story. The tone of the poem is the same as that of traditional Purana, established in Telugu since the time of the three poets of Bharata (Kavitrayam). But Satyanarayana combines the technique of the modern short story and the novel in it. In the process he has given new life to the characters which are divine and yet very human. His genius as a novelist finds full play in the Ramayana. Every character, every incident, is brought to life with the minutest human feelings worked in detail.

The imagery in the Ramayana is strikingly original and yet has roots in the tradition. His long Sanskrit phrases, often the target of attack from his critics, are but the inevitable manifestations or his unique imagination. Compact and deep, they extend the limits of our experience. If he lacked restraint and equanimity that are the qualities of epic writers of the past, he has imagery and insight, rarely achieved in any literature. Traditional Telugu literature has not known a genius of his stature in the past several hundred years. If he has to be compared with earlier writers, they are Nannayya and Tikkanna but none else, in the past one thousand years of Telugu literary tradition. He is the greatest genius thrown up by a dying culture in its desperate struggle to establish its continuity against all odds.

Versatility

A writer of unparalleled versatility, Satyanarayana welled with equal ease every form of literature. Novel, short story, drama, essay, literary criticism, poetry, epic, every literary form flowed from his pen, marked by a distinct individuality of his own. His essays in literary criticism are essentially the poet’s study of the other great poets. His contribution to the understanding of Nachana Somanatha amounts to a rediscovery. His essays on Nannayya show him at his best in unravelling the intricate mysteries of the great author of Telugu Bharata.

While tradition has been the stronghold of Viswanadha, it looks as if his zeal to uphold it made him lose sight of some of the most important directions of the modern age. In his 76th year Viswanadha is still a force. He has merits. He has defects. Both are mighty. If he has received a Gnan Pith Award, few are surprised.

–By courtesy The Mail