Author: V Sundaram
Publication: News Today
Date: December 11, 2007
URL: http://www.newstodaynet.com/printer.php?id=2978
Today (11 December 2007) the World is celebrating
the 125th Birth Anniversary of the great bard of Tamil Renaissance and Indian
Nationalism. 'Mahakavi' Bharathi was a peerless, poet of Tamil Renaissance
during the early face of our struggle for freedom.
Even as Mahatma Gandhi gave moral grandeur
and greatness to our struggle for freedom, 'Mahakavi' Bharathi added poetry
and grace to it and so much so that his songs were on the lips of every revolutionary
and freedom fighter in this part of the country during those exciting and
soul-stirring times.
A wise man once wrote for all time when he
said 'Let me write the songs of a nation and I care not who makes its laws'.
For, the songs of today lay down the laws of tomorrow and that is why the
great English Poet P.B. Shelley (1792-1822) said that "The poets are
indeed the unacknowledged legislators of the world". The poet blazes
the trail, which the politicians follow, plodding along.
In India's struggle for independence, the
banner of freedom was gloriously held aloft by a gallant galaxy of poet -
patriots, two of whom stand foremost, Tagore and Bharathi. Shelley also said
that poets learn in suffering what they teach in song. The patriot in Bharathi
writhed in agony, under the oppressive yoke of foreign rule and the poet in
him, burst out in song, that was at once a call and a challenge. His words
were power and his songs were fire; his music moved the people to mutiny and
roused them to revolt.
His famous song "as a heart cannot bear"
is a scathing indictment of the slavish life to which the people of his time
had got themselves reconciled to in a spirit of helpless resignation . Mahakavi
Bharathi lamented in sorrow "Obsessed with fear, and laden with sorrows,
they (our common people) had fallen prey to a thousand superstitions. They
shuddered at the very sight of a sepoy and skulked away when someone carrying
a pistol passed by.
In docile servility and cowardly sycophancy,
they meekly got up to pay dutiful homage to anyone who dressed with flambpyance
and walked with a swagger. The heart cannot bear to see these great people
torn by strife and disunity, petty differences and squeamish disputes setting
even the son against the father and sowing the seeds of a feud, that was to
cast its shadow for generations to come."
His poem titled "Poli Swadeshigal"
on the pretentious patriots and presumptuous heroes, rings with biting denunciation
of deceit and revels in the exposure of hypocrisy. The dumb driven masses
who had sold themselves to slavery, the false crowd that indulged in facile
talk and heroic fibs to cover and camouflage their cowardice, the crowd that
talked when it should have toiled, that feared where it should have fought
and sighed where it should have struggled, the crowd that grovelled in the
dust and revelled in its own impotence, that was the crowd that Bharathi singed
with his sarcasm and scorched with his scorn through his immortal poems. He
called upon the people to shed fear and fight falsehood. "Even were the
skies to fall on your head, have no fear" was the message of courage,
this Crusadar against injustice put in his song, which was also the saga of
sacrifice. Even as Mahakavi Bharathi struggled to destroy the false values
that had corroded society and corrupted men's minds, hearts and souls, he
sought to build up new values, to forge and fashion new bonds of sympathy,
understanding and love. He was a poet with a hate of hate, scorn of scorn
and love of love.
Through his great poetry Mahakavi Bharathi
made it clear that when we drink deep at this fountain of love, that we feel
that, out of clay we have been made into men and from men we have risen with
gods. According to Mahakavi Bharathi it is this gospel of love that binds
the highest with the humblest, the lowest with the loftiest and creates a
common comradeship that can be strengthened by common endeavour and unity
of purpose. It is in the raptures of this love that Mahakavi Bharathi sings
of the oneness of all, that all are one kin and all one kind, all the people
of this great and ancient land.
He pleaded for a Society that will rise above
its class, that will refuse to demean itself into divisions of caste, that
will respect the tiller and the toiler and will no longer burn incense to
the idle rich, a society where virtue shall be strength and earnest endeavour
seek to promote the abiding good-this is the new order of which Mahakavi Bharathi
dreamt, for which he worked and prayed.
The India of his dreams would have its roots
in the past, in the rich culture and noble traditions that had sustained the
country for thousands of years. In one of his poems, Mahakavi Bharathi declared:
"This was the land where our forefathers lived a happy, purposeful life
and thought a thousand thoughts, fertile in their imagination, rich in
their idealism and faithful in their realism.
Shy and bashful maidens have revelled in the
cheering coolness of the rivers of this land, and the benign moon beamed with
joy at their virgin delights. These damsels had ripened into womanhood to
fulfil themselves as mothers and with the sweet words; they spoke, fed their
babies with the wisdom of our land. This was the land studded with temples
that rose high, offering unto the Gods the humble gratitude of men for the
life of fullness and fulfilment that they lived here."
To quote the beautiful words of K. Diraviam
"But Bharathi was no poet of the past; he was indeed a poet of the future
and heralded an era where, enriched with our experiences, we should march
forward towards fresh advances in every sphere of life. Love of ancient culture
and the yearning for modern progress met and mingled in Bharathi's melody.
"There was no use", he counselled, "in secretly regaling ourselves
with colourful tales of the prosperous past."
We should catch up with the most progressive
advances in arts and sciences, in thought and literature. Our past shall equip
us, not envelop us; it shall inspire us, but not imprison us. If Bharathi
was an idealist dreamer, he was also a practical planner. He was not like
the nightingale that sat in the darkness and sang to cheer its own solitude
with sweet songs. His songs were not mere invitations to romance and rhapsody.
They were also the blue prints for progress."
Let us now hear the bracing words of Mahakavi
Bharathi in one of his immortal poems: "Let us walk amidst the silver
snowclad mountains, while our ships sail all the western seas. Let us bridge
the gaping gulfs and harness the turbulent waters of Bengal to nourish our
crops. We shall delve deep into the land and coax the hidden treasures of
the earth to bring us prosperity. We shall dive deep in the Southern seas
and fish for pearls as bright as wisdom.
Let us exchange the tasty wheat grown on the
banks of the Ganges for the tender betel leaves of the banks of the Cauveri.
We will reward the melodies of the Marathas with the soft, shining ivories
of Kerala. We will pay tribute to the glory of the Rajaput heroes, with Mysore
Gold. We will have wealth from cotton and silk, and make earth heave with
the fulsome weight of the fruits of our labour. We will span the seas and
scan the skies; we will watch the stars and probe the Mars. We will cherish
the truth and nourish the arts and sing in ecstacy of Bharath, the land of
our birth." In Bharathi's poetry, we can find post-Independent India's
Five Year Plans, set to music.
This patriot who spanned our wide country
with the poet's metre and measure, who had his feet play with the waters of
the seas that met at Kanyakumari, and held his head high amidst the snow-clad
Himalayas, swelled with abounding pride and abiding love for the language
that lured him to poetry-Tamil. Mahakavi Bharathi is an illustrious example
of a nationalist who did not love his country less, but loved his mother tongue
Tamil more. Let us say and sing along with him "The mention of Tamilnadu
fills our ears with sweet honey.
The very name of our forefathers breathes
into us, a new power. Tamil Nadu, rich in valour and full with the Vedas,
where labour and learning unite at the altar of love-this was the land that
produced Valluvar and presented him to the world; this, the language that
sang of living truths in lilting music; this the people who matched the mountains
with their mighty valour, who roamed the seas and planted little Tamil Nadu
in lands far far-away, at the back of the beyond." BHARATHI WAS A TRUE
TAMIL AND THEREFORE, A GREAT INDIAN.
