I am truly gratified to have the benefit of such lovely contributions. The allure is not me. I know. It is that peerless poet Mahakavi Bharathi. N Vijayaraghavan,Advocate.

Good Morning. . I have the Fourth of Special Contributions to my book on Mahakavi Subramania Bharathiyar. It has been accepted for publication in English by Kalaimagal Publications. And in Tamil by Alliance Publications. This contribution sizzles with an autobiographical touch which we rarely get to know. Bharathi does it to everyone. Mr. R Sankaranarayanan, Senior Advocate, Additional Solicitor General of India joins Vanavil K Ravi,Advocate, PNPJ and NAVJ on Bharathi as a Cosmic Poet. I am waiting for a few more. Bharathi touches them all at the core and let them see themselves as they are. I am truly gratified to have the benefit of such lovely contributions. The allure is not me. I know. It is that peerless poet Mahakavi Bharathi.

N Vijayaraghavan,Advocate.

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The Unparalleled Visionary
Bharathiyar
I was seven years old and I was in my second standard then. I was a student of Nagercoil Municipality Primary School. My teacher displayed a photograph of a turban clad gentleman. The students those days used to sit on the floor and I was in the first row. I saw the photograph in dose proximity. The eyes of the person seen in the photograph was penetrating and I wanted to see hi.m more and more. I recall vividly that my teacher told all of us that he was Subramaniya Bharathiyar. She told us that he was a poet. Well, that was an age when my only interest was to reach home in the aftemoon and play in the mud road near my house and prose or poetry had no meaning in my life. lhereafter, I moved out of Nagercoil and travelled towards North and learnt completely two different languages and I had lost
tou(h with Tamil. Again, i resumed my pursuit in Tamil when I returned back to Chennai (Madras then & always for me) and started learning Tamil all over again.
Once again I had the opportunity, not only to see Bharathiyar’s photo, but also to learn some of his poems. It was virtually a restart of learning Tamil and I remember reading Nalavenba & Kamba Ramayanam as part of my curriculum. The difference between reading these and reading Bharathiyar’s poerns was that I could make out the thrust in Bharathiyar’s poems, even though my vocabulary in Tamil was very poor. This encouraged me to read more and more of Bharathiyar, not as a part of my curriculum, but purely out of interest.
After reading a number of poems, articles & stories, got the feeling that Bharathiyar was not just another human being born in this world, but one who reverberated good thoughts & intentions in the hearts of everyone. I was increasingly convinced that he
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was chosen by goddess Saraswati, to come here and lead us and prepare us to walk & talk a virtuous path.
Bharathiyaffs vision was completely different from a normal human being at that time and probably even now. Where someone could see sorrow or ordinary love, he could visualize altogether a different concept. To him, everything in the world mattered and in his thinking process he picked up events, personalities or acts as the subject of his poetry or essay.
Look at Thomas De Quincey’s essay titled ‘Opium Eater and Three Ladies of Sorrow’. The same article when read by Bharathi got transformed into romance with Goddess
Saraswathi, Goddess Lakshmi and Goddess Parasakthi. This transformation of thought made him render the poetry ‘ CD6iTD] 51TY6b’. Bharathiyar talks about his first love being the love for Goddess Saraswati. The second love was with Goddess Lakshmi and the third love was with Goddess Kali alias Parashakti. The said poetry explains how Bharathiyar did not relish or enjoy his academics in school but learnt directly from Goddess Saraswati. He fell in love with Goddess Saraswati. In the interregnum, Goddess Lakshmi visited and Bharathiyar started loving Goddess Lakshmi. The third love was with Goddess Parashakti. Bharathiyar, thus, had romance with knowledge and valour, but wealth even though he romanced aluded him HI-I the end. May be Goddess Saraswathj thought that knowledge should not be translated into money as dissemination of knowledge should not be for consideration and our ethics defines as “vidhya dhaanam”.
Yet another striking feature is his interest in the generations to come and the dedication of future generation to language and culture was paramount in his mind. And how does he indicate to the readers at large? Just look at his dedication to ‘Panchali Sabatham’. I have seen the dedication by many authors. It could be to their parents, teachers, spouse, children and so on. But Bharathiyar dedicated ‘Panchali Sabatham’ to the poets who would come after him and render their service to the Tamil language and all those benefactors who would take care of those poets.
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In the same dedication he informs the readers that his object was to use simple words, a very ordinary style of writing, so that ordinary people could understand and a common man could set tune to his poems. The ultimate object according to him was to give a new life to Tamil language and he asserts that though his talenB were limited, the tasks were huge and yet was confident of completing the task with the affection showered by goddess Parashakti, with intent to give a new life to Tami-I jaathi. The vision of Bharati was therefore, not restricted to trumpet his knowledge or ability, but one with purpose of developing Tamil as a language and developing Tamil as a culture and behind all these things were the thought that the great nation India, that is Bharath, would one day achieve its independence and become glorious.
Bharathiyar was ahead of his time. He kept himself ülformed of whatever was happening around the world. The First World War started in 1914. Belgium was overrun by the German army. Belgium put up a fight and yet could not prevent the invasion. On

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03.02.1915, Bharathiyar rendered a poem praising Belgium for the efforts taken to protect their independence and consoling them that suppression of their rights would melt away in the same way as the darkness dispelled when sun rises at the break of dawn. The said poem read in its entirety would have told all those who could read Tamil at the contemporaneous point of time that he was yearning for a similar uprising in India against the British rule.
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1917 witnessed the Russian revolution. It affected not only Russia, but also made Bharathiyar think, but with a difference. He rendered a poem on the fall of the Czars. He starts the poem observing that Goddess Parashakti by her grace made the people to revolt and bring down the Czar. What is important is that he was abreast with the happenings around the world. He was not a mere poet who sat in a corner and composed poems only to exhibit his prowess but one who was concerned about the world as a whole and not merely India. This Ter. +91-90032

aspect is further demonstrated by his poetry on Mazzini. Giuseppe Mazzini was an Italian politician, journalist, and activist for the unification of Italy and spearhead of the Italian revolutionary movement. Bharathiyar was concerned with the wellbeing of the world and he wanted people to lead a dharmic life.
He wrote on Balagangadhar Tilak, Guru Gobind Singh, Lala Lajpat Rai, Mahatma Gandhi, Dadabhai Nowroji. Very few persons can see beyond their nose and he was one among them. To him India was not a mere geographical entity but a nation vibrant in its thoughts and culture. His poems clearly reveal his thought process reflecting the above spirit.
Everyone knows that he lived from hand to mouth, he was not affluent. But lack of funds did not deter him from pursuing what he thought was right. It also did not deter him from speaking his mind out. He was not recognized the way he ought to have been when he was alive. This is probably a curse which obtains even today in our society. Bharathi was not a hypocrite. He called a spade a spade. He was neither worried about aitiäsm for what ho was, nor wanted to be praised for what he was not. This is a classic quality of one who is not a hypocrite.
He saw God in every creature and in all creation including himself. He writes 0m Tat Tvunmsi (I am that) in one of his poems indicating his faith in the ultimate advaitic philosophy. No wonder he was concerned with every creature and every living being. For instance, there was a cyclone in Puducherry. He depicts the cyclone in the form of a dialogue between a husband and a wife and the wife tells the husband that the wind is howling and the sea is roaring, please wake up and close the windows and doors. The husband responds that the sky is angry and the earth is shaking and pleads Goddess Parashakti to protect. The husband immediately observes and requests Goddess Parashakti to protect all Her children who are unable to protect themselves against the cyclone. He was concerned about the welfare of every person.

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Bharathiyar wrote poems in English and he called himself ‘Shelley dhasan’. He wrote several essays and stories in English. It would be interesting to note that in October 1914, Mrs. Annie Beasant emphasized the upholding of one’s duties in preference to one rights. The meeting was presided over by Justice Sadashiv lyer, who naively remarked that after listening to her speech he realized that man has no rights at all and has only duties. He further observed that God alone has rights. Bharathiyar reacting to this comment and response, stating that such teachings contain but a partial truth and may do injury to the cause of our national progress, which is dear to the hearts of both Mrs. Beasant and Justice lyer, as anyone else. Bharathiyar added that his duties are based on his rights. That is to say, his duties to others are denned l by their duties to him. He finally observed that he must fulfil his duties and vindicate his rights and that life is possible only on su&t a basis. Is there not a cry now everywhere that ‘every citizen demand their rights but seldom talk about the performance of their duties’?
I can go on and on. Bharathiyar was born nearly a thousand years after Kamban and kept the Tamil flag flying high and spoke about oneness, unity, compassion, valour and patriotism. I’m sure people would recall him even after many centuries. His thoughts would permeate through the boundaries of the earth.
Vande mataram. Jai Hind.

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