Kundurti: Leader of Free Verse

Poet, playwright and experimentalist Sri Kundurti (his full fame is Kundurti Anjaneyulu) has won the Sahitya Akademi Award for the year 1977 for his book “Kundurti Kritulu” in Telugu which is the collection of his complete works in 950 pages, consisting of 12 volumes of poetry and two stage plays, all written in free verse.

Born in the year 1922 in Guntur district and a graduate of Andhra University, Kundurti came to writing poetry by sheer accident. His family has no literary or scholastic ground. As a student he studied Telugu under two eminent Telugu poets of the day, viz., G. Joshuva and the Jnan Pith Award Winner “Kavisamrat” Viswanatha Satyanarayana and that perhaps inspired him to turn to poetry. While still a student, he began his exercises at versification on the traditional model and in these attempts, he came under the spell of Viswanatha and even imitated him both in the manner of composition and recitation of' poems. In his case the influence of Viswanatha was pervasive. Kundurti was all praise for Viswanatha’s poetry and held him in high esteem for his style of composition, though the content of Viswanatha’s works was not acceptable to him.

Kundurti wrote his first poem on the occasion of the late Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s visit to Andhra during the period when Japan attacked China, and recited it in Nehru’s presence at a Vijayawada meeting. The poem probably with some errors in prosody condemned Japan’s imperialism and exhorted people to boycott Japanese wares. He attempted some more subjective poems on the limes of Telugu Romantic poets who then dominated the literary scene. This was imitative stage in his poetic carter. But all these scribbling were not published and in course of time, the manuscripts were lost. After this he took a vow not to write poems in the traditional manner. It was a psychological decision.

The first progressive poem to be published by Kundurti was written in October, 1941. In this poem, the young progressive poet expressed his fervent hope that Soviet Russia’s Red Army would vanquish the Nazi Hitler’s hordes. Long before this, Kundurti,  who was first a nationalist in his student days, was drawn towards Marxism influenced by a book entitled “Seven Plays” written by a German Expressionist, Ernst Toller (1893-1939). Toller was a communist who founded the Bavarian Socialist Republic in Germany much before the Soviet Revolution in Russia and became its president. Later he had differences with the German Com­munists and was sent out of the party. He ended as a Pacifist. Kundurti who was in his degree class in the college translated into Telugu Toilers’ autobiography, entitled “I was a German” and this was published. As the Second World War was in progress and when Hitler attacked Soviet Russia, the Indian Communist Party declared it a people’s war. Kundurti went to the communist fold and became their sympathiser. But he never joined the part, as a member. He was struck and attracted by the concern shown by the communists for the poor and their efforts for the uplift of the masses. Kundurti saw in it, what he called, “Karuna vada” (the attitude of compas­sion for the oppressed). Thus far and nothing more. Politically, he did not exhibit organisational interest. In fact he was a near anarchist in such affairs. He never allowed himself to be subjected to organizational discipline. As a matter of fact, sometime ago when an influential communist leader in his speech intruded in the sphere of literature and stipulated how the poetry should be, what should be its aim, etc.. Kundurti protested and questioned the leader’s competence and right to do so. In his view poets should not serve as handmaids of politicians. He was of the firm view that there is a dividing line between party politics and the poets and that both should not be mixed. He scrupulously observed this dividing line. He had cautioned the extremist poets (Digambara Kavulu) against this tendency and advised them to maintain their independence at all costs.

Kundurti was one of the Niagara group of poets of the  ’Forties. The name is derived from the title of a tiny anthology of poetry consisting of the pieces contributed by Kundurti and two of his fellow-poets (namely Bellamkonda Ramadas and Elchuri Subrahmanyam). The title of the book itself is symbolic implying that the poems have the force of the Niagara Falls. The collection which was first brought out in 1944 is the first published anthology, of Telugu progressive poetry, by which time Sri Sri’s “Maha­prasthanam” was still lying as a manuscript. Of course, Sri Sri was the forerunner of the progressive poetry and Kundurti and his friends who were ardent admirers of the new poetry used to carry the slips containing Sri Sri’s poems in their pockets forrecitation whenever they had an inclination to do so. But Sri Sri could publish his book only, later. The following lines of Ernst Toller were prefixed to the “Niagara” volume:

When shall we live in love?
When than we work at will?
When is deliverance?

The Niagara poets used to say that poetry, was the downpour of emotion. They aspired that the social let-up should undergo a radical change under the banner of Red Flag. They asserted that the communist manifesto itself was the best piece of poetry and there was nothing comparable to it. In those days the poetry of this group was described by men of letters as ‘Ultra modern poetry.” Till then the term “Progressive Poetry” did not come into vogue. There was no such movement at all, but the trio used to deliver speeches at literary gatherings frequently employing the expressions such as “torrent of emotion,” “Marxist outlook,” “People’s poetry”, etc. Sri K. Ramakotiswara Rau, the celebrated editor of the prestigious cultural journal “Triveni” got perturbed over there ultra-moderns and taking an alarmist view of their ideology and its propagation wrote an editorial expressing his concern at this disturbing trend. Traditionalists and conserva­tives attacked it and condemned it. But their voice was drowned in the din of the all round acclamations of the new generation. In 1944 the Niagara poets issued a manifesto taking a pledge to vigorously propagate free verse form as against the traditional poetry. Since then till 1956 Kundurti did not touch any metre.

Kundurti believed that literature is unworthy if it did not reveal social awareness in relation to immediate affairs, and if it did not serve a definite social purpose. For him literature was the statement ofa problem and the pleading ofa cause pertaining to the unfortunate and underprivileged human beings. All progressive poetry should reflect the present-day conditions in the society with a strong social awareness he averred. His characteristic themes and the subject matter he chose pertain to the dynamic people’s movements irrespective of their party affiliations. The revolt of the people in whatever manner or form against the then prevailing system or establishment stirred him to the core. He was not concerned with the success or fall of such movements. He did not bother about the ideological differences among the political leaders. “All those waves of the ocean of social consciousness rising sky-high from amidst the masses are the events that concern me. The triumphs of the heroic people’s army which encountered and repelled the Nazi armies in the Second World War, the revolt of Alluri Seetharama Raju in the Agency area in Andhra which made the British administration to develop cold feet, the people’s movement in Telangana against the feudal set up of the Nawabs, Gandhiji’s campaigns opposing the British Empire, where, it is said, the sun never set, in the face oftheir deadly weapons with mere moral force, and all other great and memorable movements in other parts ofthe world which have acquired an indelible place in mankind’s history are my poetic themes”, he declared. Accordingly he wrote a long narrative poem namely “Telangana” in 18 chapters depicting the agrarian movement in a part of the feudal State ofHyderabad. It is an epic on Telangana. In this poem, groups –such as society, Nizam and police – are the dramatis personae.

The poem, which was hailed as the first full-fledged revolutionary poem in Telugu, instantly, attracted the attention of literary circles for its novel way of daringly presenting the historic political movement with a remarkable comprehensions of the peasant movement’s main problem in all its distinctive features in the common man’s speech, with the result that even neo-literates could read the poem and understand it fully. He questioned:

Whose soil is this?
Is it not the wealth of one crore people?
If some say ‘no’
O history, you are known for never       entertaining such claims,
March forward not minding the flimsy objections.

The future of this grim struggle
Will be the seed for the tree of mankind’s welfare;
It is the bridge built across the sea
With the mountains of courageous hearts,
It is the ground for realisation of the
Final victory of truth and righteousness.

Is it not something extraordinary for Kundurti, the Marxist, to write a long narrative poem on Dandi Satyagraha? But he had his own explanation. “Of all the struggles launched by the Indian National Congress against the foreign rule”, Kundurti stated, “it is the Dandi March which is wholly a mass upsurge and is one of the heroic battles of our Freedom Movement.” He gave the name “Dandi Yatra” to the poem. The poet introduced two individuals as main characters in this poem–one is Dasari Perumallu who is a Harijan and the other is Constable Chandrayya who is an ex-serviceman. He thus described the historical march:

The Mahatma started his march on foot
Amidst the victory slogans of
Countless people of villages on the way
As if to trample the
Two hundred years of alien rule.
He may tolerate a misrule,
But certainly not acquiesce with the foreign rule,
So he embarked on the great march in history
Along the two hundred miles path,
With his one step forward, the earth trembled,
With another step the sky gazed at him in wonder,
With one more step
This vast country of diversities united as one unit,
As if the earth add the sky joined together
Now there is no way out for the colonialists
They have to bow down in the face of the strength of this Trivikrama
They cannot remain on this soil 
They have to take the course of ‘Patala.’

“Yugay Yugay’ is yet another collection of his poems which awaken, arouse and instruct the common man. He says:

This is my poetry–the Gita,
The listener is Nara, the man,
He is a man in the street, an illiterate,
He is constantly in a state of deep slumber
In the lap of the Mother Penury.
O man, listen to my song
It is the music for the liberation of the mankind,
I go on increasing the Yoga divisions of the Gita
At the rate of one Yoga for a Yuga
You add to the Yogas of Karma, Jnana, etc., of yore
The Yoga of world revolution.

The title of this book has a symbolic significance. In each era of this universe a great poet takes birth and preaches new values establishing a new Dharma (code of conduct). The poet suggested here that he was that great poet. As lord Krishna exhorted Arjuna to do his duty, so also this modern poet woke up the common man to brief him about his duty in the new age. This is rather an adaptation of our tradition, and Kundurti said that the poets of his genre do not fight shy to utilise our heritage and tradition if it became necessary for their expression. In fact Kundurti desired the approval of the traditionalists for his writings and to this his explanation is: “We are poets of free verse school belonging to an age of transition. We cannot go the way of anarchists. Some understanding of us by the opposite side is necessary.”

Kundurti’s poetic talent is revealed in his poem “Nagaramlo Vana” (Rain in the City). It is pure poetry, of course, with an undercurrent of social consciousness. As we read the poem, we realise that it is not the rain that is playing havoc over the city, making its busy life subdued. Kundurti’s poetry appears here with all its faculties of vision, imagination, perception, similes, style and expression. He had painted myriad scenes of the rain ­hit city and at the same time depicted the urban life that tried to limp to normalcy. These descriptions are unique and memorable because of the unrivaled poetic beauty in them. The total effect is both rich and severe. Thus there are numerous poems of topical interest and pieces of enduring merit in this bulky collection which is worth-preserving.

Kundurti added another dimension to his poetic personality by embarking on the experiment of writing full-length poetic plays in free verse. His “Aasa” (Hope) is the first free verse play of its kind in modern Telugu literature revolving round the story of Bankmen’s strike. This experimental play was put on boards by the Indian National Theatre, Hyderabad. In this play, in addition to human characters, there are a few abstract characters such as time, hope, history, etc. These abstract characters gave scope to the poem to put more poetry in their mouths. Otherwise it looks absurd if the human characters speak all the poetry and no prose. The ultimate aim ofthe poet then was to write a play with all human character speaking in a language that is nearer to poetry. As the audience witness the play, they should not form an impres­sion that they were listening to the recitation ofpoetry, he explained. Kundurti achieved this goal in “Siksha” (Punishment) his second play with all human characters, dealing with the common man’s plight. “Acharlugari Ammayi” is his playlet about a fallen young woman. It can be said without fear of being con­tradicted that no other contemporary modern poet has written such verse-plays with such a novel technique. Thus there was a continual development of experiment in him.

The credit of building up a broadbased forum for free verse not only for Marxists but also for the writers of other schools of thought should legitimately go to Kundurti even though poets like Sri Sri, Sishtla and a few others wrote poetry in this form much before him. But for some reason or other, this form was almost abandoned by the stalwarts. Kundurti took up the cause of this form in a big way. He made the free verse his sole medium of expression for years together. He made his poetry to conform to the rhythms of natural speech, avoiding the artifices of an embellished language. He did his best to give a holiday to the conventional forms. He himself wrote in a more relaxed manner using totally the simple spoken language and employing a diction close to ordinary speech. An utter simplicity and genuine nativity are the hallmarks of his poetry. He did not like sensationalism, obscurity and ambiguity in poetry, because according to him the listeners and readers of their school of poetry are middle class people and not men of erudition. Its style should come down to the level of the speech of the common man and Kundurti’s ultimate aim was to carry the form to perfection, so that long narrative poems (Kathakavyas) may emerge in due course in this form. He launched a crusade for the free verse form without the shackles of prosody and other rigid rules and impositions. He was the one modern poet who bestowed much thought on this form, applied his mind constantly to its improvement and made efforts at perfecting the form along with the social cause he set for himself. After becoming unquestionably the master of free verse school, he began to wield great influence on younger poets whom he organised and a community of followers right from university teachers to white-collared workers in offices grew around him. He exercised truly a healthy sway over the intelligentsia. He was accepted universally as the leader of the free verse movement and to some he was even pontificial. He founded the Free verse Front in Hyderabad in the year 1965, the main activities of which are writing in their chosen form, bringing out publications and having periodical discussions. Under his editorship an anthology of free verse consisted of the progressive writings of 100 representative poets of the age of Sri Sri with the title “Taram Taram” (Generation-Generation) has been brought out on behalf of the Free Verse Front in 1976. It is a rare anthology. The free verse circle he created not only in the state capital but also in the mofussil is growing and gradually coming to dominate the literary scene. In his behaviour and dealings with younger writers, he was always on terms of equality as to a fellow-worker. Younger poets were never ill at ease in his company. He remained always a contemporary, He encouraged them by writing sympathetic but penetrating forewords to their collections of poetry. His introductions (to his books also, he himself wrote introductions except the poem “Telangana”) which are lucid and detailed expositions of the nature of free verse remain unrivalled in the world of contemporary Telugu literature and they have all been collected and recently published in a book-form of about 200 pages under the title “Kundurti Peethikalu” (Introductions by Kundurti). This publication is a Magna Carta for the poets of free verse school.

Kundurti, who passed away on October 26, 1982, was the recipient of the Andhra Pradesh Sahitya Akademi Award for best poetry in 1970 and also the Soviet Land Nehru Award for poetry for the year 1968.