Musings on the life and times of Chinnaswamy Subramania Bharathi Narasimhan Vijayaraghavan For one who was passionately putting pen to paper or rather finger to keyboard, during these Pandemic times, getting published did not prove
Musings on the life and times of Chinnaswamy Subramania Bharathi
Narasimhan Vijayaraghavan
For one who was passionately putting pen to paper or rather finger to keyboard, during these Pandemic times, getting published did not prove a herculean challenge. Be it ‘Constitution and its Making- Musings, Anecdotes, Episodes’,2020 and its sequel ‘Constitution and its Working, Musings, Anecdotes,Episodes’, 2021, OakBridge Publications did a good job. Then Kalaimagal Publications picked up ‘Sam Manekshaw’s Beloved Armed Forces’ which is well on its way to being appropriated by National Book Trust, in Indian languages. Then went academic co-authoring with Sharath Chandran, ‘M N Srinivasan and K Kannan’s Principles of Insurance Law’, 11th edition, LexisNexis Butterworths,2021. With ‘Courtroom Humour’, Sitaraman & Co and Rattanlal & Dhirajlal’s Law of Evidence, 26th edition, LexisNexis Butterworths, as co-author again with Sharath Chandran, is due for publication, the search for spicing up was on.
Then one read this couplet by Kaviko Abdul Rahman
‘Ettayapurathil our Erttai Prasavam
Neeyum Puthiya Thamizhum’
Ettayapuram gave birth to twins
You and New Tamil
“You” alluded to Chinnaswamy Subramania Bharathi. Seamlessly, one moved to him.
Moved by the maverick poet. A national poet. A poet who did not make the Nobel, for he did not gain the traction, he deserved. One who called Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi a Mahatma, long before the world did. A fierce patriot. A ruthless stickler for values. A prolific poet and writer par excellence. “He wrote for love on love, culture, nation, patriotism, religion, spiritualism, history, children, women philosophy in verse and prose. He roused the passion. Suffered neglect and incarceration. Never lost his nerve, verve, passion and enthusiasm” as V Ramasamy Ayyangar (Va.Ra) mused.
Excuse me, how are you competent to write on the legendary he? Well, Bharathi said, if you have a pen you shall write. At school and college Bharathi was instrumental for me to make a mark in learning and debates. He helped cultivate memory, concentration and focus. Even if one failed to grasp his sweep and sway , which continues to this day, one owed gratitude to him, for his writings in prose and poetry served as ammunition to violate all cannons of copyright law. One did not know or care for plagiarism. One just borrowed him as if one’s own. He did not mind. For he was long gone at all of 39 years. No one cared.
Bharathi was not easily published. It was a struggle. He worked in Swadesamithran and my father V Narasimhan had the privilege of working with him. My family held shares in the newspaper. And it was a prominent landmark on then Mount Road, adjacent to the present VG Panneerdas showroom. That was all the connect one had. It was too silly, if you will. But Bharathi the writer not composer was an inspiration. Yours truly became an imposter tucking into his works.
As a compulsive writer, one is concerned with publication. You write for you want to be read. Bharathi wrote, to be read too. Has he been sold as much he deserves to be. Why did it have to be ac struggle before him to get printed and published? Why did the duty fall in on his innocent and gullible wife Chellammal to get them published after his demise? Why were there no takers aplenty? For, there were not many readers, you see. No matter the shame on us, that is Bharat. We are like that only. We know not the value of things valuable. And that too in these information highway days, even Bharathi has to cone in as two minute capsules or clips. We lack the attention span beyond.
Yes, J K Rowling’s Harry Potter was rejected 16 times. Jane Austen too. Ernest Hemingway did not have it easy either . Melville’s Moby Dick made it only after a customary struggle. Amish Tripathi now a famed author had to get his first of Siva trilogies, self-published by his caring wife. Seinfeld was rejected multiple times. Are these comforting to Bharati and his clan? Or to us. Sadly not.
As Nani Palkhivala said, “India is like a donkey carrying a sack of gold – the donkey does not know what it is carrying but is content to go along with the load on its back”. What a load of gold Chinnaswamy Subramania Bharathiyar was and has given is. It shall be my endeavour to get on the Musing on the Anecdotal and Episodal route, hoping against hope it gains traction. If it does, fine. If it does not, as Bharathi said, “I write so that I may be read. If I am not, fine by me. For I write, as I have to. That is my soulful rendering for the yearning of Atma Tripthi”, satisfaction of the SELF with a capital S.
“The publication rights of Bharati’s books are in [Bharati’s half-brother] Mr Visvanathan’s hands. The rights to use them in films, on radio, and on gramophone have been purchased by Meiyappa Chettiar. Bharati’s writings are the common property of the Tamils, nay, of the whole world. Like Gandhi’s writings, Bharati’s writings too need to be made public property, and the Tamil people and the government should take necessary steps to free them from private hands.” That was the legendary commie Jeevanandam in a meeting got together by C Rajagopalachari.
The BBC said- Subramania Bharati, who wrote in the Tamil language, was a literary colossus. Influenced by the Romantic poets, the radical poet used the pen-name “Shelley-dasan”, meaning disciple of Shelly. Much later, inspired by Walt Whitman, he wrote prose poems, possibly for the first time in an Indian language. He was also interested in haiku, the traditional Japanese poetry form.
Bharati was a maverick and remarkably progressive. He was not shy about open demonstration of affection: some of his love poems are addressed to his wife; and a grainy old picture shows the poet with his hand over her shoulder, very unusual for his time. He briefly turned atheist, and his nationalistic writings were banned for sedition by British rulers.
“He was the central figure in the making of a modern Tamil culture,” says historian AR Venkatachalapathy, author of ‘Who Owns That Song’, a riveting book on the battle for Bharati’s copyright.
Much like Scottish poet Robert Burns who died at 37 leaving behind a small debt, Bharati died in poverty in 1921, aged 39, leaving behind his unlettered wife Chellamma and two daughters. By then, the radical poet had written more than 700 pages of poetry – Whitman-inspired prose poems; blank verses; and couplets – and more than 600 pages of stories.
The government paid 5,000 rupees ($73;£55) each to Bharati’s wife and daughters, and an equal amount to a half-brother of the poet for the copyright. This was a substantial amount of money in 1949. “It was a revolution in literary history. Since then no famous writer had the honour of their works freed from the claws of copyright before the lapse of the stipulated time period,” says Dr. A R Venkatachalapathy.
If Bharati and his family had held on to the copyright of his works, it would have expired in January 1972 – exactly 60 years after the author’s death in accordance with the Indian laws. The fact that his copyright was put in the public domain very early on, meant that the poet also gained enormous posthumous fame.
A few million copies of his books have been sold in the past six decades. A 500-page book of Bharati’s poems can be bought for less than 100 rupees ($1.48;£1.11) today. Tamil movies freely use his songs, making them hugely popular. Bharati, who turned out to be major figure in help fashioning a Tamil identity, has become ubiquitous. And that is a blip compared to Harry Potter mania.
“I think it was a fantastic thing for the government to acquire his work and make it accessible and inexpensive. Bharati always wanted his works to be sold freely. His family was paid a generous sum by the government,” historian A R Dr Venkatachalapathy whose work “Who wrote that song’ is a work of art on copyright issues vis a vis Bharathi’s works.
Is Bharathi relevant today? Do we care for him and his works? Did we respect him when he was alive? Do we respect and revere him today? Was his birth in ‘a community’ like that of Parimelalagar a drawback? Is he a Bharat Ratna without its formalisation? So many questions. But no easy answers. And it is not given to a nincompoop like me to sit in judgment. It may suffice to dance around the edges or the periphery, as is given to my limited scholarship. Subramania Bharathiyar defies all definitions by the best of scholars. And that is a comforting thought to the pigmy in me.
(Author is practising advocate in the Madras High Court)
