Tummalapalli Ramalingeswara Rao

Tummalapalli Ramalingeswara Rao. Indeed a tongue-twister. All South Indians bear tongue-twisting names. That is why they are known either by their initials or by their surnames. The Tamils by their initials and the Andhras by their surnames. The famous Tamils known by their initials are many (CR, TTK, CS, CP, EVR, OPR, GP, TVS, GNB, MS, MLV, etc.). Among the familiar Andhra surnames are: Chellapilla, Sripada, Viswanatha, Kattamanchi, Rallapalli, Rayaprolu, Dwaram, Nandoori, Kasu, Neelam, etc.)

Who is Tummalapalli? I ask the Andhras I know. No reaction. Who is he? They counter casually. Isn’t he that Kamma poet? Some ask, meaning Tummala Sitaramamurti Chowdari. No, assert the Andhras with claims to a literary reputation of sorts: Tummalapalli is a reactionary Brahmin writer of no consequence, because of the desperate attempts he makes to set the clock , not by a century or two, but by millennia.

Frankly, I myself have never heard of Tummalapalli Ramalingeswara Rao: I don’t find him mentioned in any literary context whatsoever. No references to him either in literary essays or anthologies or in encyclopaedias on Andhra culture with a literary bias. So, one day, when a friend, whose judgment I value, sends me Tummalapalli’s novel, Dharmanirnayam, along with a souvenir, containing tributes to him in superlatives from the Andhra literary elite of the century, such as Kasi Krishnacharyulu, Chellapilla, Viswanatha, Pingali and Katuri, to mention only a few, and deeply felt words of affection from His Holiness Jagadguru Sri Sankaracharya of Sri Sarada Peetham, Sringeri, and Dr S. Radhakrishnan, among several other saints and savants. I don’t know how to react: I’m intrigued, amused, excited, intimidated by turns. Is he really so good? Or is he just an overrated nonentity? I ask myself cynically. After going through the novel and the souvenir critically, I feel an irrepressible urge to read more and more on him and by him. Some Andhra writers no doubt grudgingly concede that Tummalapalli is a scholar, novelist and poet of some merit. But they have no idea at all of the quality of his scholarship and imagination. I am not surprised to note that romantics, marxists and the self-styled avant-garde are not among the contributors to the short felicitation volume.

Tummalapalli is a fearless upholder of the sanatanadharma which, to him, is not a mere talking point but a way of life. He is a champion of revivalism in its subtler nuances and with his penetrating insight into our sacred Sastras and scriptures, such as the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Puranas and the occult sciences, he is best equipped for the role both intellectually and spiritually. He had his initiation into the Mantrasastras, i. e., Sri Vidya, by such an august sage and scholar as His Holiness Jagadguru Sri Chandrasekhara Bharati Mahaswami, the Sankaracharya of Sri Sarada peetham, Sringeri. To inject chauvinism into one’s creative idiom is bad enough, I admit. But to see internationalism where it just doesn’t exist is worse. Conformity, held together by the strong umbilical cord of classicism, is better than rootless modernity. Today, modernity in the context of Indian art or literature, is wishful thinking. Tummalapalli not only propagates his faith heroically in the evergreen norms of the sanatanadharma but makes them come alive through his own life which is exemplary. By reaffirming the perennial relevance of traditional values with apostolic fervour, he succeeds in demolishing modern myths based more on fashion than on faith.

Tummalapalli’s novel Dharmanirnayam, which bears the prestigious Triveni imprint, is a disquieting work. Did I say, disquieting? Yes, disquieting, but not depressing or demoralising. Disquiet of the spirit is what it causes in the reader. To quote Andre Gide: “I could not greatly admire a nature which had never known disquiet; but I admire above all the nature which over comes its disquiet and recovers its peace and its equilibrium, with nothing remaining of the Gehenna through which it has passed–nothing, that is, but an enriched and subtler understanding of man and his possibilities. No one can describe that Gehenna who has not himself had to find the way out of it.” Indeed, Dharmanirnayam is very tough reading. Though not in language, which is more or less in the spoken dialect, but in nuances. It is a very demanding book: The emphasis is on the quality of the reader’s receptivity and not on his casual interest in fiction. The esoteric cant, of which it has a heavy dose, is likely to scare away the reader in a hurry, who dismisses as metaphysical Mumbo Jumbo what lies beyond his limited comprehension. Those who are interested in the extension of the frontiers of man’s vision, perception and wisdom, beyond the reach of scientific investigation, empirical experience and ratiocination, can, never be anti-Tummalapalli. But others find him a bore. Dharmanirnayam gives the reader a shock treatment only to make him feel all the better in the process. Having liberated himself from the coils of the ego, he is now ready to soar higher and higher. By exposing the emptiness of the so-called realities of life–which in fact are only illusions–that motivate one’s endeavours from the cradle to the grave, the book brings one closer to the stuff man is made of: The inner craving for something beyond words, beyond even dreams: The state of staying at peace with one’s Creator and of preparedness for one’s final blissful reunion with Him. There is no doubt that the author succeeds in imparting to our traditional beliefs a new relevance and dimension, beliefs which everyone of us secretly cherishes but openly repudiates, under the impact of the wave of pseudo-modernity. Modernity should take one forward, not ward: Today, it has assumed the dangerous form of neo-conformity which is worse than stagnation. Imitation never leads to progress.

Dharmanirnayam deals with a marathon spiritual odyssey: ’Tis the saga of Fatima’s inner struggle. The unequal struggle is between religion and love. Eventually, the weaker side, love, triumphs, but it fulfils itself only negatively: Not through carnal togetherness which is only illusory but through the annihilation of duality itself. By merging totally into Narayana Rao with the finesse and finality of a true Vedantin, she makes herself wholly acceptable to him. He is also involved in an unequal struggle: Between religion and love. But in his case the stronger side wins! The father, Parameswara Rao, and the son, Narayana Rao, follow different paths, but arrive at the same destination. Ultimately, they release themselves from the gravitational pull of desire: The father through self-denial and the son through his love for a girl outside his faith. Thus they find harmony in chaos, synthesis in antithesis and joy in anguish. Narayana Rao is passionately devoted to Fatima, while his father never deviates from the path of the sanatanadharma. But Fatima is not Fatima at all: She is ready to make any sacrifice in order to make herself acceptable to Narayana Rao. When she realises that he can’t marry her, because his passion for the ideals he has inherited from his ancestors is deeper than his love for her, she sublimates herself into a mere symbol of bhakti, assumes the name of Sumati and dedicates the rest of her life to the worship of the godhead of her own creation, Narayana Rao. Fatima is the central character in the novel and she endears herself to the reader, the moment she arrives on the scene for the first time. She is the picture of womanhood at its sweetest. She is utterly charming and credible.

Tummalapalli’s prose is worthy of the theme. The language employed is of the easy spoken genre, though, predictably, vullgarisms and colloquialisms find no place at all. The style is firm, stately and pellucid. I don’t know about his other works, because I haven’t read them. But, it appears, his poetry is even better. Judging by the quality of Tummalapalli’s writing in Dharmanirnayam, one feels that Vyavaharikabhasha (the spoken word) has been seldom more effectively used. His prose has the impact of incantation on the reader. According to the souvenir, he is a prolific writer. He has already published 19 works in prose and verse and 11 are in preparation. The themes are all lofty: And they are treated with humility, dignity and integrity. From all this one is apt to conclude that Tummalapalli must be a frail, feeble-minded nonagenarian with one foot in the grave. No. He is only 56 (born, February 7, 1921).

Here are some details of his early life. He was born at Gudivada in Krishna District. His father, Jwalapati, was a clerk in the local District Munsiff’s Court. It is said that he was born after his father performed Mahanyasapoorvaka Ekadasa Rudravarabhishekam to propitiate the local deity, Sri Ramalingeswaraswami, because Jwalapati’s earlier three children were all daughters and he would have been happier if he had had at least one son. Tummalapalli had brilliant schooling, after which he joined the Government Arts College, Rajahmundry, where his academic record was even more dazzling. His father died. Naturally he had to seek employment in order to support the family. He went to Bangalore where he secured a temporary job. While there, he had the unique fortune of coming into contact with His Holiness Jagadguru Sri Chandrasekhara Bharati Mahaswami, the Sankaracharya of Sri Sarada Peetham, Sringeri. Later, he returned to the Andhra districts where he worked in different Government offices for bread and butter. He even became a leader of the Non-Gazetted Officers’ Movement, but the sordid and stifling nature of a Government job disgusted him. He resigned. In 1961, he proceeded to Madras where he decided to live in peace–writing, praying, meditating and doing whatever pleased him. Earlier he had a brief spell in a managerial capacity in a private firm at Cuddapah. Today, he lives in Madras.