Musings on the Life & Times of Chinnaswamy Subramania Bharathi Narasimhan Vijayaraghavan 26

Musings on the Life & Times of Chinnaswamy Subramania Bharathi
Narasimhan Vijayaraghavan
26

Chellammal made it clear that Bharati never earned much as an editor. Generous to a fault, he often gave away what little he had. He kept an open home, feeding acquaintances of all stripes, little understanding the strain this placed on his meagre resources. The result was a steady grinding poverty that was to haunt him all his life.

In 1951, 30 years after Bharati’s death, she delivered a poignant talk in Tamil on the Tiruchi station of All India Radio, which we got to read earlier too- on ‘Bharati: My Husband.’ “For a poet,” she said, “words are enough for his worldly needs… But to the very wife he describes in his poetry as ‘the queen of love’ falls the daily duty of bringing rice to the table each day… What can one do with a man such as this?”

It was noted that more than 50% of Bharathi’s works were not even published in his life time. And the burden fell on Chellamnal and her two daughters Thangammal and Shakuntala to complete the task. It is noted by a Aroon Raman, a writer said , “In November 1918, in an act of final desperation, he broke exile from Pondicherry and entered British India at Cuddalore. He was promptly arrested and lodged in Cuddalore jail from where he wrote to Lord Pentland, the Governor of Madras, seeking his release: “I once again assure your Excellency that I have renounced every form of politics and I shall ever be loyal to British Government and law abiding.”

It does not take much imagination to guess the inner torments that must have forced these words from Bharati’s pen. Nor did his release shortly after mean better days ahead. Constrained by lack of means to live with his wife’s brother in Kadayam, Bharati had for long been oppressed by a feeling that his works had not received the wider recognition they deserved. He wrote to many of his friends and former benefactors seeking their help in having a compendium of his life’s work published, pleading that “they will do for the Tamil Country what the works of Tagore have done for Bengal.

Sadly these appeals did not garner the money needed and this was to remain a source of bitter disappointment till the end. By 1919 his poems began to turn to existential questions of life and death. His combative nature and hot temper, however, do not seem to have cooled and a fight forced him to leave Kadayam for Madras in 1920 where he met his death the following year.

In his recent introduction to Deep Rivers: Selected Writings on Tamil Literature by Francois Gros, the Tamil scholar M Kannan writes: “Studying Tamil, one cannot escape the impression that the Tamil world generally seems to be portrayed in black and white with nothing in between and nothing beyond: Sanskrit versus Tamil, Aryan versus Dravidian, Classical versus Contemporary, Brahmin versus non-Brahmin, Tamil versus Pure Tamil, the opposing positions in which Tamil culture seems to be enmeshed are endless.”
In Bharati all these contradictions were melded together in a way that made him, quite simply, unique”.

Bharathi rued the fact that he could not his ‘immortal works’ published. He was devastated as he left for Kadayam in 1920. But not before Bharathi tried to get them published in his life time. Yes, he did. It is frighteningly sad to read his letter of 1920 vintage. Bharati had been trying to publish some of his works. He wrote a letter to Nellaiyappar on December 21, 1918, on reaching Kadayam after his release from the Cuddalore jail, asking him to come over to Kadayam to discuss the publication of his works. Again in 1920 he sent printed circular letters in English to some of his friends about his plans for publishing his works. The letter which he sent to R. Srinivasa Varadacharya at Madurai makes poignant reading as reflecting Bharati’s state of mind at this time:

Om Shakti (in Tamil)
C. Subramania Bharati Kadayam
28th June, 1920

To,
R. Srinivasa Varadacharya,
Madurai.

Dear Friend,
All my manuscripts- the accumulated labout of my 12 years exile – have arrived here from Pondicherry. They are to be divided into 40 separate books; of each book I print 10,000 copies for the first edition. This work will cost me an initial outlay of Rs. 20,000. And, within one year, or, at the most, two years from the date of publication, I shall certainly be able to get a net profit of a lakh and a half rupees.

Most of the works which I have now selected for publication are prose-stories, sensational and, at the same time, classical; very easy, lucid, clear, luminous and all but too popular in style and diction and, at the same time, chaste, pure, correct, epic and time-defying.

This fact and(2) the ever-growing increase of Tamil-reading men, women and Children in the Tamil land and the Tamil world overseas; (3) the historic necessity of my works for the uplift of the Tamil land which, again, is a sheer necessity of the inevitable, imminent and Heaven-or-dined Revival of the East; (4) the novel and American-like improvement which I propose to make in the printing, binding and get-up of my editions-which, aided by the beautiful and suitable pictures illustrating the interesting events occurring in the stories, will make them a tremendous attraction to our public and such a wondrous surprise; (5) the comparatively low prices of my books; for I am going to sell my prose-works uniformly at eight annas a copy and my poems at, so far as possible, four annas a copy; and (6) my high reputation and unrivalled popularity in the Tamil-reading world due to my past publications-all these are bound, most evidently, to make my sales a prodigious success.

Please send whatever you can send as loan towards the printing expenses. I expect from you at least Rs. 100. Kindly induce at least twenty more of your friends to lend me similar and much larger sums, if possible.
I shall give stamped Pronotes for the sums I receive from you and your friends , paying the generous interest of 2 per cent per month in view of my large profits. Expecting, very eagerly, you kind reply and scores of money orders from your side and praying to god to grant you a long and joyous life.
I remain,
Yours faithfully,
C. Subramania Bhara

It makes sad, sad reading. Just note the confidence of the Mahakavi in his works. His works are ‘immortal’ as he had perceived and proclaimed. And he is unforgettable today. Yet, during his lifetime, he was ‘begging’ for Ra.100/- and willing to pay usurious interest, as he was confident that his ‘tamilian brethren’ would embrace his works. Chellammal recalls that it broke Bharathi’s heart, when not one of the ‘approached benefactors’ cared to respond. It was not the kick the Parthasarathi temple elephant gave him, that led to his early demise. It was the utter disdain and indifference from his dear Tamil brethren that led to untimely departure. Shame.

( Author is practising advocate in the Madras High Court)