Musings on the Life & Times of Chinnaswamy Subramania Bharathi                          7

Musings on the Life & Times of Chinnaswamy Subramania Bharathi

7

 

 

 

 

Subramania Bharathi, his wife Chellammal and his daughters Thangammal  and Sakuntahala  never enjoyed the comforts of living even as a middle class family. Bharathi made Rs.17.50 per month for 101 days as part time Tamil teacher in Sethupathi School, Madurai, after the demise of his father. From there G Subramania Iyer moved him to then Madras to work as Assistant Editor at Swadesamithran. He was paid Rs.90/- per month which was more than adequate to run his family. But it was his misplaced chivalry and generosity that depleted available resources. He paid ‘stipend’ to two persons at Rs.19/- each per month , as his secretaries, which they were not- and it was meant as pension in their old age. But the fact remains that Chellammal had to organise a hand to mouth existence to the family and Bharathi was not beyond inviting a host of friends and demanding a ‘feast’. Naturally, the funds crunch in the family was continuous. And Bharathi’s works were not  moving to fetch any revenue and he did not care.

 

The result was that even after a 11 year sojourn as a ‘refugee’ in French ruled Pondicherry; on his return to Madras, after Armistice following the First World War, he was arrested for four weeks and that seared his earnings and earning capacity further. And mind you, Bharathi was ‘always well dressed. Even on  his death bed he changed his clothes a few hours before he bid good bye, as if he wanted to meet the maker in  a well dressed state’, said Chellammal. Interestingly, Chellammal said the world assumed that Bharathi wore a worn out black coat with safety pins keeping it in place. It was not true. He used the pins to symbolically display a medallion as if a soldier or as carnation.Trivia, but captures the man Bharathi.

 

The family had to perennially borrow from a few good benefactors or willing samaritans . It left a huge hole in the family’s financial health, when Bharathi went.

 

A running commentary on the personal, family finances and assets on thedeath of Bharathi may tell a tale of its own. Chellammal lived for 34 long years after Bharathi’s departure in 1921.

 

  1. In 1921 – two friends – who went nameless on request- helped Chellammal with Rs.25/- per month. Rs.9/- went for rent at Alankatha Street. Bal Gangadhar Tilak Trust paid Rs.1000/- as one time help.

 

  1. Come 1922, Chellammal was constrained to set up ‘Bharathi Ashramam’, a publishing unit with her brother Appadurai. It was during this period Bharathi’s prodigious outputs as the famed Kannan Pattu, Kuyil Pattu – and several of national songs, out of 53 in all, were published

 

  1. In 1923, Chinnammal, Bharathi’s step mother Valliammai gave the plot of land in Ettayapuram worth Rs.25/- to Chellammal.

 

4.Friends Kaanan Kaathaan,Shanmugham Chettiar and Aarya offered Rs.10,000/-  for publishing rights. Appadurai scuttled  the offer as he had some devious ideas up his sleeve. Then Appadurai  cheated her by denying her the benefit of the publishing rights. And did not account for commercial activities which led to ‘Bharathi Ashramam’ being closed.

 

5.In 1924 Harihara Sharma, a close confidante of Bharathi offered help  to sell inventory stocks of books  . No one was willing to pay more than Rs.3,500/- for copyright over the

works.

 

  1. For Sakunthala’s marriage Rs.2000/- was obtained by pledging Bharathi’s books. What a tragic irony that his iconic books came for commercial exploitation of such kind!

 

6.Friend Subburaja  helped with Rs.2,000/- as gift. Harihara Sharma, Viswanathan and Natarajan, son in law of the family started Bharathi Prasuralayam to exploit the copyright in the works.

 

7.In 1928- Bharathi’s national songs/books  were banned in Burma- and copies  of them, available in Madras were seized. Book sellers O N Dhandapani and Co were raided.

 

8.Chellammal’s family finances took a huge hit during this period and ‘their dreams to live on the legacy of Bharathi went up in flames’ wrote a commentator.

 

9.In 1930-31 Chellamnal bought  a plot  of land in Ambasamudhiram from Ambasamuthoram Krishna Iyer for Rs.90/- . Family sold  the copy right to Bharathi Prasuralayam for Rs.4,000/-. AV Meiappa Chettiyar bought theaudio rights for songs for a measly  Rs.400/-.

 

  1. In 1935, Chellammal complained that Bharathi Prasuralayam failed to comply with the promises on finances, and she sought restoration of the right over sale of books. Akkur Ananthachari wrote the first biography of Bharathiyar during this period.

 

  1. In 1945-48- Bharathi ManiMandapam built in Ettayapuram was opened by Rajaji as Governor-General of Calcutta and the plots in Ettayapuram and Ambasamuthiram were willed away to her two daughters.

 

12.In 1949, Omandurar led TN government bought  the copyright  in Bharathi’s works from  Bharathi Prasuralayam . Chellammal got Rs.10,000/- and  the 2 daughters got Rs.5,000 each . AVM Meiappa Chettiar agreed for nationalisation of  his audio rights  in Bharathi’s songs, for free.Bharathi family got nothing.

 

13.And in 1955, when Chellammal died, she died a ‘near pauper. And comparably Rabindranath Tagore who was born twenty years earlier than Bharathiyar and lived twenty years beyond as well,  left a financial legacy of incomparable proportions though to Shantiniketan, his baby’ as a writer bemoaned.

 

People should be aware of the intensity of Chellamma’s struggle to get Bharati’s works published, in spite of her disadvantages in life, and in defiance of the immense obstacles that she faced after her husband’s death.  She had no support of any kind, not from the Government or any other source, at that time. Only the love of the general public for Bharati’s poems,  sustained her. In response, she announced that it was her intention to bequeath the copyright in Bharati’s works to the public, after her death.

 

When Bharati first entered into the freedom struggle, he apparently told Appathurai, Chellammal’s brother  that, “[I]t is customary that the deep-sea diver who plunges deep into the ocean in the pursuit of pearls (muthukkuli) entrusts his brother-in-law to take care of his wife in his absence; so am I entrusting you to take care of Chellamma.”

 

Appathurai was deeply involved in Chellamma’s publishing endeavour, and he was totally responsible for  administering the financial, printing, and practical side of publishing Bharati’s works. Yet, when the critical moment came, his selfish interests prevailed and Bharathi’s dreams were shattered.

 

Chellamma brought out 2 volumes of Bharati’s poetry. The first volume consisted of 90 poems,  which included the poems that Bharati himself had published during his lifetime (in the books Swadesa Githangal, Janma Boomi, Nattu Pattu and Mada Manivachagam), most of them national poems, and a few new poems from manuscript versions.  The second volume comprised 80 poems which included poems from the first volume, while some new poems also appeared.  The three poems about Chellamma were NOT included in either of these compilations.

 

Interestingly, the three poems – Chellamma Poems- with her name employed , were printed in as is where is  form by Bharathi Prasuralayam.As Bharati’s daughters observed, in  their works , the name change was  probably made by Chellamma’s brother Appathurai Iyer, and must have been approved and published by C. Viswanatha Iyer.On the premise,  “Bharathi was too far ahead of his time. And his ideology of women empowerment  may not have public approval. And use of his wife’s name would not be received kindly”.

 

To imagine  that this happened to Bharathi and his adoring poems, communicates the times they lived in and the social constraints faced by the family. That enhances not detracts from the fighting spirit of the visionary Subbiah.

 

Bharathi’s grand daughter Vijaya Bharathi blogged the reasons for dispensing with Chellammal’s name from Chellammal poems! . Possibly, the most authentic voice on this issue. What were the reasons behind this radical change of Chellamna becoming Kannamna?

 

As noted above, Thangammal thought that Chellamma’s name was removed because it was  “unsophisticated” (“nagariga kuraivu”).  But I am not sure that this is true. Most likely, there were other forces at work. Appathurai may not have wanted to include “personal” and “intimate” matters in Bharati’s poetry. Perhaps he did not want his sister’s personal life to be openly known to the public. But, why not? Is it shameful that a poet describes his wife’s beauty in detail and shows his appreciation of her? Were there other reasons that he wanted to draw a veil of secrecy over his sister’s relationship with Bharati using the name Kannamma as, in Dante’s words, ‘a screen for the truth’? Why did he decide to print the poems at all?”

 

Whatever the reason, the pity of it is, that people still do not know that Bharati wrote about his wife. The public has been led to believe that these three poems, in particular, belong to the idealized “Kannamma,”  as in his other “Kannan” songs.  Chellamma was deprived of the signal and hard-won honour of appearing in her rightful place, as the heroine of his poems.Bharati elevates Chellamma on the pedestal of his heart and worships her. Yet, his lover Chellammal never got to be there. The misfortunes of Chellammal and her daughters continued beyond Bharathi’s lifetime, as we shall see.

 

( Author is practising advocate in the Madras High Court)

 

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