Musings on the Life & Times of Chinnaswamy Subramania Bharathi Narasimhan Vijayaraghavan 54

Musings on the Life & Times of Chinnaswamy Subramania Bharathi
Narasimhan Vijayaraghavan
54

Now back to the anecdotal routine. During the Kuyavarpalayam visit, the potter innocently asked of Bharathi, “ Ayya, if you could share a photograph of yourself I would be happy to make a Manbommai- Claytoy- with your expressive face. I am keen and eager to do it”. Bharathi was not keen, willing or eager to oblige. Iyer intervened, “ Yempa, I have a beautiful picture of Bharat Mata sketched by a Bengali artiste. Can you make a Manbommai, a Padhumai, with it”.

The Kuyavan was delighted to take up this request. The very next day, the Bharat Mata drawing was sent across to Kuyavarpalayam. The picture of Bharat Mata was quite simple. She was draped in a saree and wore a blouse. Her long hair was spread wide resembling Kashmir, as she stood on the map of Bharat. Curiously m, she wore not a whit of jewel or necklace. And she had her right hand in her jaw as of in worrisome thought. Right adjacent to her feet was the emerald island of Sri Lanka, as if a lily.

The Kuyavan was deeply disappointed and anguished at the portrayal of Mother India. Everything was fine. The one irritant was a huge one, hitting the eyes, body and mind was the total lack of jewellery on her. That did not go well. He felt Bharat Mata looked ‘Mooli’. (No equivalent in English-blank) Not a kundhumani on her person. That is not how we should see her. She is divine. And deserves to be clothed in the finest and bejewelled, befitting her status. But ‘Mooli’ . A tough expression to translate. No way. She can’t be seen like this. It cannot be ‘SHE’, the kuyavan concluded

He rushed to meet Iyer with the drawing. “ Ayya, what is this? How can I make a Pafhumai with this drawing. Bharat Mata cannot be portrayed like this. How can she not be wearing a Kundhumani even, on her person. My stomach is churning and person burning. My fingers cannot deliver”. Iyer, “ Adey, what are you talking. We are under subjugation. Bharath Mata is chained. She has been looted by the British. They have carried away all her family estate. They are so depraved that they have even looted her person. She is still beautiful. But painfully so. She being seen ‘mooli’ is what she is today. We need to know the truth about her impoverished personal state. Only then we may be aroused. To free her. And adorn her with the finest. Go ahead and make a Padhumai as she is now and looks in the picture”.

Bharathi was not keeping quiet. He burst into his flaming self. “ Ayyarwal, what are you talking? How can I accept Bharat Mata was ever looted or impoverished. What has the Anniyan- the foreigner carried away as booty. A few pieces of gold, silver and diamond. That is all. Can he take away the Mother Ganges and Cauvery. They are with Bharat Mata. Can the looters carry the Himalayas on their shoulder. Or the riches that this land is possessed of . Bharat Mata is not poor. She continues to revel in her riches. She radiates as ever and shall always. No looter can ever loot her of her beauty or jewels for no looter can ever even imagine doing it. He will get tired looting and will be caught. The kuyavan is right and has good sense. Ayyarwal, you are horribly wrong. Don’t even dare think of looting Bharat Mata in thought and mind. Kuyava, go forth and adorn my mother with all you can, as your fertile imagination can take you. Don’t hold back. Bharat Mata deserves the best. Forget Iyer. Run away and come back with a well dressed Bharat Mata with sparkling jewels, which she will enhance with her looks on her person and not the reverse”.

Hearing this the Kuyavan said, “ Ayya, what an exposition on our Maharani. We cannot even dream of impoverishing her. I have no time”, so saying he literally took to his heels to Kuyavarpalayam with a fully adorned Bharat Mata. God knows if he ever slept that day or days thereafter . Within a few days, he was back with Bharathi/Iyer with a Bharat Mata Padhumai. One of a kind. Colourful and cheerful. Fully decked with the finest dress and shining jewellery. Bharathi was moved.

Tearfully he said, “ Adey, Enna Arputham. What a beauty! My mother is radiating as if freed from bondage. And the adornments do not add beauty to her. She enhances their beauty. That is who she is. Talk of the Ayyarwal who wanted Mother India shorn of her jewellery! A fool. Now let him look at her. She is resplendent. Only she exudes such light and shine. Dey, Odipoi- go running and fetch me smaller ones of similar beauty for Navarathri”.

The potter was overjoyed that his family/village heritage was receiving such accolades from a mater craftsman, a wordsmith. He brought a lot of smaller Bomnais/toys. And Aurobindo Ghosh was stunned to see these figurines when he was given a few. The Bharat Mata Padhumai became a raging hit as Bharathi spread the word. The potter was visited with roaring business.And as providence or luck would have it, little Sakku, Bharathi’s younger daughter was blessed with a lot of toys every time the potter visited Pondy from Kuyavarpalayam.

Bharathi’s compositions were not focused on Bharat Mata. Iyer was actually happy that it was his ‘stupid comments’ that triggered this chain responses. How can we miss out on this Bharat Mata vision? And not borrow from the better informed Aravindan Neelakantan, an author of eminence and a columnist in the web journal Swarajya. “For what is a nation? What is our mother-country? It is not a piece of earth, nor a figure of speech, nor a fiction of the mind. It is a mighty Shakti, composed of the Shaktis of all the millions of units that make up the nation, just as Bhawani Mahisha Mardini sprang into being from the Shaktis of all the millions of gods assembled in one mass of force and welded into unity. The Shakti we call India, Bhawani Bharati, is the living unity of the Shaktis of three hundred million people …”
—Sri Aurobdindo (Bhawāni Mandir)

Bharat Mata or Mother India is a name that evokes a deeply emotional veneration in almost all Indians. Often portrayed carrying the national flag and riding a lion, she is to most Indians, a goddess in her own right.
She also has her detractors. She was disliked and feared by the colonialists. Both her devotees and detractors at one time or another identified her with Kali. There are some who deny her ancient roots. To them, she is a colonial construct. Recently, a Dravidian politician claimed that to him, only Tamil was mother. As one cannot have two mothers, India cannot be considered as his mother, he said. At another level, Sumathi Ramaswamy, professor of History and International Comparative Studies, Duke University, considers the imagery of Bharat Mata as the undoing of the European enlightenment through “the recuperation of old myths and the return of fancy”. She also claims that “modern secular and scientific mapped knowledge is hijacked” to assist that “unraveling”.

Most Western and Westernised Indian academic studies start the study of Bharat Mata with Vande Mataram, a song composed by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee in 1875 and published as part of his novel Anandamath seven years later. They usually neglect the early goddess-centred unorganised resistance to subjugation of people, documented from medieval to early colonial periods.

The goddess tradition started spreading throughout Bengal, coinciding with it coming under Mughal and then British rule. When British control became total in Bengal and started generating famines, the famous Sanyasi Rebellion happened. The subsequent increase in dacoity after the rebellion saw the emergence of Kali as the syncretic goddess bridging the religious divide between Hindus and Muslims. Professor Jati Sankar Mondal explains:

The dacoits used to undertake their operations on moonless nights so as to take advantage of the darkness with its auspicious association with Kali. Still there are places in Bengal with temples named dakatia Kali or thangadiya Kali…. Firstly, every gang of dacoits, whether they are Hindu or Muslim, used to follow the ritual. The reason is probably the amalgamation of sanyasi and fakir with the peasantry turned into dacoits. These sanyasis and fakirs like Majnu Shah of Birbhum along with others tried to resolve Hindu-Muslim bifurcation in their approach to religion and life.

The ancient Tamil verse of Silapafikaram too alluded to Mother. The roots of the both the fierce and benign dimensions of the goddess can be found in Vedic literature. Yet she predates and stands above the Vedas.
Many modern scholars have pointed out that the imagery of Bharat Mata has roots in Prithvi. For David Kinsley, a historian of religion, “the fundamental conviction that the earth itself, or the Indian subcontinent itself, is a goddess, indeed, that she is one’s mother, pervades the modern cult of Bharat Mata (Mother India), in which all Indians are called sons or children of India and are expected to protect their mother without regard for personal hardship and sacrifice”. He considers Vande Mataram as “one of the earliest and probably still the most popular literary expressions of this theme”.

We cannot go on in this vein and lose track of the anecdotal retinue. Let us leave Bharat Mata with those allusions. And go anecdotal again.And what a fascinating one connecting Bharathi, Iyer, Kuyavan, Bharat Mata Padhumai and Vanchinathan. Yes, that Vanchinatha Iyer who assassinated Collector Ashe Durai. An unbelievable one.

( Author is practising advocate in the Madras High Court)