“Once in a letter to a relative Keats said: “The excellence of every art is its intensity, capable of making everything that is disagreeable to evaporate, from their being in close relationship with beauty and truth.” Such an inspired observation could have been as much Bharathiar’s for there was so much similarity in the thoughts and writings of both; one Asian and the other European.”____________________________
by Victor Karunairajan
(May 27, Toronto, Sri Lanka Guardian) The history of the Tamils from ancient of times richly reflect humanity’s natural urge to progress, and in this process extend further their honour and dignity in the polity of nations.
Tamils are a constituent community of the Dravidian people of southern India. Tamil sages, literary giants and the learned have been conscious of this, and their teachings and writings emphasized the spiritual, moral and ethical aspects of life. There has never been a surfeit of them.
The Tamils along with their fellow Dravidians have reasons to be proud of their heritage. Theirs is a history of steady evolution that preceded by centuries the onset of the Christian era. During this period they had achieved a high standard of productive rural and farm-oriented life with its supporting nature-friendly and environmentally enriching technology and founded townships and small cities.
They had developed trade across land frontiers and over oceans and set up highly efficient systems of civil administration. Europe at this time was virtually night walking in slumber through the Dark Ages.
Our ancestors enjoyed good standards of life and held in high esteem and veneration those who excelled in the realms of fine arts, craft and architecture that gave profound meanings to their faith and literature. The richness of the Tamil language is rooted in antiquity. Writers through history have used it to focus on the ethical and social philosophy of the people and such works as Arthisoodi. Thirukkural and Naladiar are good examples in this respect.
There are also larger works, religious writings both prose and verse, commentaries and a vast amount of Sangam literature that are a testimony to the premium the Tamils placed on knowledge and high standards of ethics and morals.
Amidst the steady flow of sages, great writers, poets and lettered folks who commanded tremendous influence in the courts of kings, precincts of temples and halls of learned societies and the populace at large, came our 20th century firebrand, writer, poet, social reformer and political revolutionary Subramanya Bharathiar.
Alarmed at the socio-political and moral decay caused by colonial slavery of nearly five centuries and the consequent changed values and loss of pride, dignity and honour, Subramanya Bharathiar sought to influence the world around him through prose, verse and song based on his vast reservoir of literary skill, deep perceptions of his mind, the range of visions, spirituality and civic and social consciousness.
He alighted on the Indian stage as a rude shock; nevertheless a welcome awakening particularly to the Tamils as a poet of great merit, and a prophet of India’s freedom. Born in an extreme orthodox Brahmin family, Bharathiar, even as a little boy was a rebel. Having lost his mother at the age of five, it was his father Sinnasamy Iyer, a learned man of the court of a Pandya ruler who brought him up from his childhood years.
Bharathiar saw the educational intent of his time sterile and a veritable trap into a life of procreative boredom to serve only the interests of Britain’s Whitehall in London. Unfortunately, his father was unable to recognize the roaring rolls of waves, the swelling storms and the surging flames within Bharathiar’s fertile and productive mind and the full gamut of his son’s visions.
Bharathiar saw his father’s enthusiasm as instruments that could shackle him to an empty and meaningless future. Unable to compromise his values, he went to live with his grandfather and through him, came to know the Ruler of Ettayapuram. Impressed by Bharathiar’s compositions, mastery of literature and the ability to sing well, the king offered him residency in the palace itself.
It was during this time, he came under the influence of the composer Annamalai Chettiar and took immense fancy to his Kavadichchinthu masterpieces. People loved the way Bharathiar sang these compositions and those of other poets of his time.
His father, convinced that lyrics and poems were not going to feed Bharathiar and his wife Chellammah whom he married at the age of thirteen, sent them to Thirunelvely for higher studies. However, Bharathiar finding his father’s interference in his life beyond tolerance left with Chellammah for Benares where they stayed for a time with his uncle. Benares made an immense impact on his life; it was here he learnt Sanskrit and Hindi and flowered into a true Indian nationalist.
He could not bear anymore the cocoon enclave of Brahmin lifestyle and shocked his family by communing with those of other communities irrespective of social and caste barriers, even cutting off his hairy tuft on his head that identified him as a Brahmin. The seriousness of such an act is best understood in the controversy that raged over the Sikh turban issue in British Columbia, Canada in 1994. This was almost a hundred years after Bharathiar’s outrageous conduct and amidst a community that remains steadfast in its customs even today.
Bharathiar, to his community, was beyond redemption and felt he had tempted the wrath of the gods and the sacrificial rituals that dominated their faith and lifestyle. He was therefore, totally ostracized from his community. But Bharathiar’s faith in his Creator was resolute. He saw the divine presence of God in every aspect of his life, in every event around him and in all of creation. He strongly believed there was an Omnipresent (All-present), Omnipotent (All-powerful), and Omniscient (All-knowing) force within and beyond us that energized us. He conceptualized this energy as Sakthi, Mother Parasakthi, and paid his obeisance through contemplation and meditation. She was his eternal deity and he never swerved from her.
In course of time, Bharathiar renewed his relationship with the Ettayapuram ruler and became a court scholar. He studied the writings of many communities and wrote several research papers in music and literature. He was particularly inspired by the works of Percy Shelley (1792-1822), John Byron (1788-1824) and John Keats (1796-1821) and thought a world of them.
Once in a letter to a relative Keats said: “The excellence of every art is its intensity, capable of making everything that is disagreeable to evaporate, from their being in close relationship with beauty and truth.” Such an inspired observation could have been as much Bharathiar’s for there was so much similarity in the thoughts and writings of both; one Asian and the other European. Keats, Byron and Shelley were long dead before Bharathiar was even born.
As the 20th century unfolded, Bharathiar became involved in the rising tide of India’s freedom quest. Deeply influenced by the country’s elder statesman Chakkaravarti Rajagopalachari, Ship-tycoon Chidambaram Pillai, Salem Varadarajulu and several others, he took the stage as a fiery orator and soul-stirring singer of freedom lyrics and helped to ignite the spirit of swaraj in the hearts of the common people.
He foresaw India’s freedom and wherever he went whipped up life into sleepy and broken down communities and expressed his views freely on the spirit of a free republic and the unity of India. He said all people belong to one human community and every citizen of India was sovereign.
His depth of economic thinking was often expressed in verse. A good example was when he sang about manufacturing tools for industries, books and paper, industrial plants and educational institutions. His vision went much further; they were all about unity and development. Referring to Sri Lanka he wanted a bridge to be built and saw possibilities of claiming marshy lands for road building and the use of India’s great rivers for intense agricultural development and managing their excess waters for cultivating crops in areas where little or no water was available.
In more than many ways, Bharathiar led the freedom struggle in the south. He edited various papers and journals urging the Indians all over the sub-continent to struggle for their independence. His writings were not political alone. He had a special love for children.
There is no known parallel anywhere in the world to his Ordi vilaiyadu papa, nee oiynthirukkal ahathu papa (Run around and play my child; You should not laze around my child). In this song, he has sung the needs of a child and it’s growing up through the years in a manner child educationalists would have loved to delve deeply into Bharathiar’s educational ideas, thoughts and visions. He sang of the loveliness of nature, composed hymns and wrote in verse and prose forms classics like Panchali Sabatham (The Vow of Panchali).
He and his wife lived in close proximity to the Parthasarathy Temple and every evening had his devotions there. It was a habit of his on the way to prayers to feed the temple elephant with fruits and coconuts. He was quite fond of this pachyderm; equally the beast was friendly with him. But one September day 1921 unaware that his four-legged friend was in must which makes an elephant dangerous, Bharathiar approached him as always with fruits he loved.
But to his horror and those there at that moment, the elephant with a sudden sweep of his trunk lifted Bharathiar and dashed him to the ground. Although he recovered to some extent, internal injuries eventually took their toll, and Bharathiar passed away shortly afterwards.
The spirit of Bharathiar will live among us for all times. He has earned for himself a permanent niche in the history of the Tamils if not of the Indian subcontinent. Wherever we Tamils take up roots, we can always place Bharathiar’s visions at the vanguard of our aspirations and progress.
- Sri Lanka Guardian
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