Whither Telugu

WHITHER TELUGU?

Change is the law of life and applies equally to a language and literature as it does to men and nations. It is, however, permissible that we examine the nature of the change and its implications from the intellectual point of view.

This was the central issue that characterised the discussions that took place at the Chandravati Saraswata Sadassu during February 27-28, 1999 at Hyderabad. This was the third in the series of such Sadassus undertaken by the Vemuri Chandravati Ramanadham Charitable Trust.

A galaxy of Telugu scholars, including Professors G. V. Subrahmanyam, K. Sampatkumracharya, S. V. Rama Rao, V.V. Ramanadham, Ravva Srihari and Usha Devi, and Mr. Indrakanti Srikanta Sarma and Mr. Akella Suryanarayana, presented prepared papers, on which wide-ranging discussions took place. The topics covered were Modern Poetry, Drama, and Bhasha. Under these heads the deliberations of-the Sadassu placed emphasis on the implications of the changes occurring in Telugu writing these days.

While the traditional ‘padyam’ or poem is receding in popularity, at the hands of the media, it has not gone into oblivion for the number of persons using this ‘prakriya’ is still very large over the length and breadth of the Telugu land, as well as among the ‘pravasa Andhras’. Yet the more popular ‘Prakriya’ today consists of ‘vachana kavitvam’ - prose poetry, and it is claimed by many that this offers itself as a more suitable vehicle for the creation of a poetic piece and that it remedies the difficulty of understanding which allegedly characterises many poems belonging to the older poetry form, coming down from the days of Nannaya. Intense discussions showed that, while in respect of content and diction, clear changes have occurred over time during this century, what with, several ‘movement’ driven systems of poetic writing, today’s poetic ‘prakriya’ of the non-padya category, does not necessarily and exclusively possess the qualities of distinction claimed for it. On the other hand, many pointed out, neither was the ease of writing a non-padya verse a blessing in itself from the standpoint of poesy, nor did an average non-padya piece suffer from the quality of being understandable. Any ‘movement’ - motivated writing stood on a different footing. In fact it is an inevitable development in a situation which demands social change. The literary ‘world’ gets used, and effectively so, in the course of furthering the movement-oriented objective - e.g., the ‘dalit’ movement or the feminist or ‘streevada’ movement. Unless the writer is capable of endowing it with the quality of poetry, its purpose is limited to the kind of intended movement - message; and there is no slight attached to this statement. In fact it achieves its basic objective. The need for such writing cannot be debated, as long as there is a social need for the message implicit in such writing; however, adjudicating it as poetry would be a different matter. ­

It was shown, with illustrations even from well-known writers, that several of the writings lacked clarity as well as profundity. The latter, in particular, occurred where a ‘movement’ - ­like emotion occupied the writer’s mind to the relative, though not exclusive, relegation of the basic nature or purpose of poetry, namely. ‘soundraya’ and ‘hira’ or the end of good to mankind, to put it in another way.

The discussions revealed that the ‘form’ of writing did not matter much. though admittedly a ‘chandassu’ added to the beauty or ‘soudarya’ of the piece, as was evidenced by many ‘vachana’ writings themselves labouring ‘antyanuprasa’ or even ‘prasa’. For the ‘mahakavi’. Sri Sri, all the virtues characteristic of good poetry exist in abundance, even where he went outside the ‘chandassu’ mode. Incidentally, there are hundreds of ‘chandassu’ which are not generally used by writers of poems, in which there exists ‘laya’ - ‘mathra chandassu’ in many cases.

The discussions tended to show several things. First, the trend of non-verse or ‘apadya’ writing has come to stay, as if a law of nature. But by the same token laws of nature will weed out whatever is ‘low’ from the standpoint of poesy, just as many writings of the ‘padya’ variety are also whetted by time and reader response. Second, the writer, even of the non-padya prakriya’ has to bear in mind that, irrespective of the mode, the basic tenets of good poety must be present: or else. ... Third, while a ‘movement’ is somewhat partial, however correct, in nature and coverage, poetry has to reflect the permanent quality of ‘soundarya’ or ‘kavitatma’. What this is, has been under scholarly focus for ages everywhere, the more so in India. That its purpose or quality is ‘to move you and to thrill you….” is not a new discovery: only such a slogan needs proper understanding from the perspective of ‘paripakvata; or profundity. Fourth, some of the non-padaya writings of today are as good as padaya writings from the standpoint of poetic quality: the lack of a well-­known metre does not work as a negative ­factor at all.

Discussions relating to recent developments in ‘bhasha’ - the style of writing, for example, were equally illuminating. While no one denied the legitimacy of the ‘vyavaharika’ bhasha, several problems needed to be tackled, though permanent answers could not be hoped for in every case. For example, what is a ‘correct’ word - ‘sishta’? (e.g., ‘vilekharudu’ or ‘vilekaradu’; ‘sakaharam’ or ’vilekharudu’ What is the ‘sishta verb form / ‘chestundi’ ‘chestunnadi’, ‘chestadi’, ‘chestavundi’, ‘chestuddi’, ‘chettadi’, ‘chettundu’, and so on). To throw a form under the carpet by saying that it is a ‘mandalikam’ or something else, does not solve the question completely: for the question is: What is the base against which we term these one way or another? To turn to another issue of style: if, on certain grounds, the ‘grammatical’ or ‘grandhika’ style is discarded, what about the highly sanskritised ‘prose’ writings we come across in the editorials of certain dailies - supposed to be read by the ‘masses’? Is it just enough that the verb at the end is diluted, say, from ‘cheyunu’ to ‘chestundi’ or some form of it, or ‘padamu’ isrewritten as ‘padam’? Let us watch carefully the speeches of some of our well known, more competent, Telugu scholars; the end verb is down to earth; but from the beginning to the end the words used and the long phrase instructions are ‘traditional’ or sanskritised.

The ‘sadassu’ realised, that questions such as these were inherent in current trends in Telugu writing. Perhaps none of them is capable of a folly convincing answer to ‘everyone’. One needs not be pessimistic about all this; for the trends are such as none can bridle; nor should. The purpose of the above report on the Sadassu is just to show the unending issues relevant lo a live literature. What is more important, is to realize, and with grace and no partisanship, that these issues are inherent in the situation and that neither positions of power nor the strengths of a ‘movement’ should keep one from recognising the essential forces of nature, from which literature is not exempt.

This Sadassu, like the earlier two consisted of learned discussants; and the purpose continued to be non-pedestrain discussion of basic issues. The proceedings as before, will be issued in book form.