‘SHE’ – A Misinterpretation (Part - II)

     

     Do you know about our national poet? His journey of love lasted as long as she lived. Our poet D.R.Bendre did not say any less about her. He wrote SakheeGeeta. K.S.N became old trying to find her, the daughter of a Shanubhoga, (a Brahmin who does the work of a village accountant) in leat, banana and lemon orchards. We don’t know if he gave her Mysore Jasmine. Harivamsharaya Bachchan, who worshipped her in his Madhubala, MadhuShala and Madhupyala, was clammed mad about her. Vincent Vinci who cut his beautiful ears, wrapped them in a piece of canvas and gave her asking her what gift he should give, the English poet W.B.Yeats who whispered into her ears “tread softly, my love, because you are walking on my dreams”, all these artists, I think, have gone in search of her but they have not seen her. Who is ‘she’ that slips away like that?

       What a pain that I suffered that evening! My mother told me ‘she died of blood cancer’ ‘who?’ I asked. She told me “That female child who played on my plam, who warmed your limbs, caused the blood to flow to your cheeks, is now no more.” She continues to talk about her. I looked deep into my mother’s eyes. In her eyes ‘her’ fire was burning. But she was not burning. Our tomorrows will be a shade less excruciating if she were to die once for all, won’t they? I think that Death becomes meaningless if it were to attack her. How can she be liquidated by Death when she is after the deathless, formless and harmless man standing on the burning bed of straw on the water? Language becomes utter pointless whenever I think of her. Women of different kinds-of physical structure, of language, of beauty have entered into my life. I address all of them as ‘she’. ‘She’ becomes totally essential to language but not to emotions. In language ‘she’ is treated as ‘she’ but ‘she’ is a child in the form of a seed in the womb. ‘She’ is still very young in my mind as waiting for her customers by the shade of a chimney in front of my school as evening approaches. But ‘she’, holding wine glasses of different colors, arousing you sexually in the bedrooms of your veins, dancing, has not been affected by time.

          

     The blind woman Shankaravva who carried me to various place during my childhood and showed me a different world with her unending stories, poor lady teacher who fed me, Talawar Dundavva, who could take my father to task who believed in the theory of controlling his children by punishing them, Shivamma who smeared our empty forehead with vibhooti and lifted our small feet to touch her forehead, Tulajabai who cleaned our urine, Ratnavva who protected me from the burning sun by covering the head with the end of her sari, Mangalavva who cursed me, the lady teacher who promised me English which I could not learn, the lady friends who attended and who will attend my programmes, functions, marriage, one day my cremation, with love or with hatred, are all different incarnations of ‘she’, aren’t they? My whole life is love, trouble, torment, humiliation, hospitality and sweet pain that ‘she’ has given. Truth is dependent on those complete deaths. If my existence itself is impossible without ‘her’, why don’t I understand ‘her’? Who is ‘she’ who cannot be understood?

    Who is ‘she’, who played all possible roles in my life, who is present at every step in the journey of my life but who remained as a buried treasure without being available to the quest called research?

   The more I ask this question, the more complicated ‘she’ becomes. ‘She’ can even get her sex changed. You may not believe if I say that ‘she’ was present in the food that was served by my grandfather, in the made love of my brother, in the pure love of fans, in the happiness of students, in the affection of a teacher who used to come from a distant place and in the innocent smile of my brother’s new born child. I can say with certainly that ‘she’ is present in the jasmine flower, in the books that I pick up with love, in the pillow on which I lie, in the ruined sinking stone pillars of Hampi. I can talk to ‘her’. I can tune in to ‘her’ voice’; I can plant myself in ‘her’ womb. But, still who is ‘she’? I just cannot say. ‘She’ is not just kumkum, not a nose-ring or ring worn on the toes, not a saari, nor a Sanyasini in the mundane world.

      Let us relate the story of a young man of our family who went to see God. He quarreled, left the house, abandoned my sister whom he had married in accordance with the scriptures, left the town, and grew a beard, wandered from forest to forest for a decade. Punishing his body he tried to prove that he was beyond ‘her’. When he returned home, one day, all of a sudden, he went mad. He was born again and again around the fragrance of ‘her’ heart like a moth that dies trying to catch fire. He might have found life meaningless without ‘her’. Or he might have misunderstood ‘her’, thought of ‘her’ as an obstacle in realizing the aim of his life.

     He had 12 children from ‘her’. He often met other women after he had abandoned my sister. He is still meeting them. My argument is that he did not get ‘her’. ‘She was neither an obstacle in his way in the beginning of his life, nor was ‘she’ the woman who satisfied his growing desire for sex in his later years. ‘She’ was merely the scapegoat of his limited vision that is all.

    I now feel that because of the limitation of my emotion and intelligence, I tried to catch ‘her’ with my language and conceptual imagination. The more I try to express ‘her’ in language, the more significant forms ‘she’ talks on.

    How can I say that ‘she’ will not be misunderstood when we describe ‘her’ as merely ‘she’ just as we misunderstand when we say earth as merely earth and light as merely light? We understand according to the twist of meaning because we have always viewed everything within the parameters of meaning. But, we must know, that the misinterpretation and twist of ‘her’ is the first step towards getting a vision of the truth about ‘her’.

Dr. Rajakumar : A New Beginning

Dr.Rajakumar  :  A Miracle (Part II)

Definitely “beneath the showman’s mask, one could say, there was the sensitive face of a real artist, a genuine idealist, who was eager to serve his fellow beings through the medium of his art. Some said that Rajakumar was acting every movement of his life. Perhaps it was true. But it was not less true that he lived every movement of his plays or films. But the intensity of his feeling and expression was never fully exposed on our screen, and seldom on our stage. It was his complete identification with his role, and his(often) over anxiety about the perfection of his work, that sometimes led to unfortunate blemish on his otherwise impeccable histrionic reputation.”

In Rajakumar people found Badavar Bandhu, on Kathariveer, a Ranadheer Kanthirava, a Mayoor what not? Middle class viewers condemned the critics talking against Rajakumar like anything. Because they found him as an omnipresent of Kannada culture. Disgracing Rajakumar was like disgracing Karnataka violating social value and the self-respect of Kannadigas. People found in him all that was good and beneficial to mankind. It is very difficult to say what Rajakumar was to Kannada society. It is better to ask what he was not. He was identified with all the famous characters of Indian Bhakti Movement. He became a Sant Kabeera, a Sant Tukaram, a Bhakta Kumbara, a Bhakta Kanakadaas, a Basavanna and finally Devata Manushya. He became an idol of worship. Whenever Rajanna achieved the desired balance between the convection and its expression, the result was histrionic greatness unsurpassed on the Kannada screen. Two of his most outstanding roles which even today come to my mind are Babruvahana and Kaviratna Kalidaasa.

Rajakumar is not only the strength of Kannada culture and heritage but the great weakness of the Kannadigas too.

For instance, one of my friends Dr.Basavaraj Donur, who is a lecturer in English in one of the prestigious college of Karnataka, always opposed talking against Rajakumar. Rajakumar is his moral strength and emotional weakness.

As for as Rajakumar is concerned he would go to any extent to see his films and defend his Natasarbhawm. Of course. There are many reasons for such a mad(?) love for Rajakumar. His simplicity, commitment to art, respect for old people, strong belief in social values, concern for peasant community, tea totalitarian way of life, love of soil, yoga, sangeeta were most passionating to those who identified themselves physically, emotionally and morally with Rajakumar. Rajakumar was a role model for them. More than an actor, Rajakumar is a particular pattern of thinking and the way of life. They loved him and through his they loved themselves.

Academicians known for their hair splitting business, don’t talk about actors and actresses, but they watch movies secretly. They don’t discuss for, they believe it is below their dignity. But my friend Donur is first amongst us to see Rajakumar with an symbol of generosity. When Rajakumar passed away we consoled Donur, we talked to him, not because we did not know a person related to film industry, but Donur was a bundle of Rajakumar ethos. Rajakumar is living in the sincere emotions and feelings of such simple people. To understand Rajakumar what one needs is innocent and sincerity, it was for this that our Rajakumar stood and lived which he conveyed as his message of life.

No doubt Rajakumar is an actor par excellence. He started his career with theatre, where he proved his distinctiveness. His dialogue delivery, expressions of emotions, body language were marked with theatre influence. He believed that an actor should undergo theatre training to become a good actor. He is unique for his strange experiment in assimilating theatre and film. Expect Pritvi Rajkapoor of Hindi films we don’t have any parallel to him in this respect. The most unfortunate thing in southern universities is that they never studied or allowed actors, directors, music composers and lyricists to enter their campus. I am sure if our thick eyebrow critics and scholars and thought of Rajakumar he would have got the highest place in the educational curriculum too.

Rajakumar cannot be compared with any actor, be it NTR of MGR, be Big B or Rajakumar. No, we cannot compare him with anybody. For, they all are actors, acting for them is a profession, money making method. For Rajakumar it was penance, yoga and his lifeblood. He never tried to earn any mileage through the noble profession of acting. He acted because it was his internal urgency and emergency, which enabled him to propagate human values. Film for Rajakumar was not an industry. He expected it to be a mirror held to society. Cinema, he believed, should uphold human values. He always preferred to play the roles of a ideal brother, a father, a husband, a leader and a devotee in his films like chanduvalliya Tota, Anna Tangi, Kastoori Nivas and Bangarada Manushya. Fortunately, Rajakumar was on the screen when film had just begun its journey with a social commitment and he went off the screen when film forgot its motto and became an industry.

He is miracle of our era, definitely our children will not believe if we talk of Rajakumar’s simslicity, non-commercial outlook of media. For, the present generation is accustomed to perturbed definitions of film and acting.

It is wrong to say that Rajakumar entered the Gokak Movement to strengthen it. He took an active part when he came to know that there was a threat to Kannada Language. He was a thorough Kannadiga, a slave of Mother kannadamma first and an actor afterwards. Rajakumar means kannada abhimani Devaru plus Kannada language. He fought for Kannada because he just could not help doing it. Getting a political mileage was not the purpose of his participation in the movement as it was for some of our Kannada writers.

Probably he was the only actor in the industry who never sold his fame to promote goods. He led a retired, peaceful life and never entered advertisement. Had he thought of advertising he would have been the richest person in Karnataka at least. He remained as a right modal for our society not only as an actor but also as a good human being. He knew his limitations.

Rajakumar can be studied in more than a dozen fields of humanities. His contributions to yoga, acting, music, theatre, linguistics, society and human ethos are yet to be studied.

If you understand Kannada laymen, dasas, sharanas you definitely will understand Rajakumar. They are the essentials of Rajakumar’s personality. Rajakumar is a champion of humbleness, self-respect and beautiful human sentiments. The study of his career is a kind of journey into Kannada culture. His life story is my story, your story and our story. We cannot expect the existence of each individual kannadiga or Karnataka without Rajakumar.

Rajakumar is Rajakumar, unconquered undefeated and unforgettable. He was as ordinary as any man and as extraordinary as any actor in any film industry. Time cannot wither Rajakumar who got immersed in river Kaveri. It is that Shri Ramayana Dharshan of national poet Kuvempu involves all the words of Kaddada vernacular. Similarly Rajakumar involves the history of whole Kannada film achievements. He will live as long as Karnataka exists. Rajanna was, above all, an idealist and not a dialectician, an artist and not a social analyst, a patriot and not a politician, a reformer and not a revolutionary, an actor and not a man of action. One sits down to remember, to recall…

It is difficult to compress the ocean of his personality, gifts and deeds within the narrow limits of a mere article.

One can only say that there was a man called Rajakumar who never was, but was always is. He was life incarnate, it is sacrilegious to associate him with death.  

‘SHE’ – A Misinterpretation (Part - I)

  At every turn of my life-in my silence, in the conflict of my speeches, in combat, in all my encounters, in the town fair or in the holy celebration on the streets, in daytime, in the nights of sighs, in every line of my poetry, in my sweats by the heat of the midday sun, in the pages of ruined history and in the heaps of broken bangles that children play with-‘she’ pervades all walks of my life. She troubles me quite often. So, ‘she’ {both the word and what it symbolizes} is a big question to me. “she” began resting in my eyes the moment I came to this earth. As I grew up to be a young man, ‘she’ shed light on my path. During my youth, putting ‘her’ warm flesh in my hands, plunging herself into my body closing her eyes ‘she’ said-this is a yoga. Sometimes ‘she’ smiled at me and quarreled with me making me a culprit. And sometimes ‘she’ will be silent like a burnt thread, still kindle a light in me. Now I have a little time, feel a little bit relaxed, being in the thirty-fifty years in the middle of my youth, to recount what I have done. After having played with air and dust I ask the question who is ‘she’?
        ‘she’ is the same outside me. ‘She’ became a thorn in the flesh of Bodelair’s description; ‘she’ razed the city of Troy to the ground. She troubled Yeats as his love and later born as his daughter. Coming from Babylonia ‘she’ became the holy dust of this land. ‘She’ was ruined simply waiting for kings like Odyssey, Rama and Lakshamana. ‘She’ became a slut resting on my broad chest and putting the nipples of her round breasts into my mouth. ‘She’ became merely a roaring wind to Omar Khayyam, a friend to Ghalib, troubling the sharanas in their illusion as their wife, husband, daughter and a desire of the mind; became a wife to the Sufis, a dullard to Milton and a blood sucker killing Agamenon. Who is ‘she’ who immortalized Jonson by drinking him up with her eyes?

      Who is ‘she’ who became the core of my song, a little attraction, a road side rose, a cry of the forest, a flower of the mind and a two-faced poisonous snake and anything and everything! The more we condemn ‘her’ the more important ‘she’ becomes. ‘She’ will become immoral even if the entire world blames ‘her’. ‘She’ makes the death of an ascetic meaningless; ‘she’ will make a person wearing a saffron cloth become naked secretly and wait for ‘her’ soothing touch; ‘she’ will not die when she is dead; ‘she’ she made them to write the Fifth Veda; a sister-in-law to a fight over, a dear wife who talks, like a dear daughter, she taught a language but is beyond it, settled down in desirous eyes? Who is ‘she’? Who is ‘she’? is a big question to me!

        ‘Her’ birth is also equally queer. ‘She’ will be born as a poem from the depth of the river of the deepest emotions, she will be gloriously presented in colours on the canvas, a dancer in the sculpture, nobady in the world can be compared to ‘her’ on qec. Of the way in which ‘she’ is born. ‘She’ is an obstacle in the life of the mundane world; ‘she’ is meaningful or meaningless in the calculation of this life. So, who is that ‘she’? ‘She’ is sometimes, the Betala on the back of Vikramaditya. ‘She’ joins me in the song of both my defeat and victory, crying and laughing. When I am about to tell ‘her’ this is all your handiwork and you are responsible for all this, ‘she’ laughs in such a way that the night becomes startled by flinging my words into the fire of abuses, hanging from the branches of the trees that are not born. Thus, who is ‘she’ that fills the night with horridness, the earth with silence putting a ladder to the sky?

            This is not my question. Why should ‘she’ alone become of and on my mother, my sister, my wife, my keep, my friend, the dim of my night and the end of my life? Or are these words merely the witness stones for the path that ‘she’ has trodden? I am afraid; all the words that we used for her were meant to accuse ‘her’. They were a means to escape from ‘her’ attention. ‘She’ is like a rainbow. We put seven colors together and called it a rainbow. But what should I call the beauty that is born out of these seven colors? I say words as words and silence as silence. What definition should I offer for the state where both words and silence meet? ‘She’ is like that. It is true that ‘she’ is a mother when she delivers a child, the land when sown, she becomes a friend when she walked, a wife when she fight and laughs and a rati when I meet her in private. But how should I catch in language the mere smell that is still lingering on the seat that she was just vacated, the shadow that she has left behind along with the cloths in the cupboard, the undying smile seen in the last bus stand and her face that disappears quickly after appearing for a while on the canvas of my mind? Should I describe the power that becomes a life force for the flowing river, in the roaring waves, in all the life forms both for the happiness and unhappiness as ‘she’?

Dr. Rajakumar : A New Beginning

Dr.Rajakumar  : A Mantra (Part I)

 “Of course”

“I did not love you”

“But I did not hate you too”

The above mentioned lines were written way back in 1999, recollecting the love and hate relationship between me and a girl. I view Rajakumar, the actor, singer, orator, humanist and nationalist from the same point of view. Even today, I don’t know exactly, whether I loved him or I hated him. But I must say that I felt a great loss when I heard of his death. Writing on the demise of Prithviraj Kapoor, K.A.Abbas says, “It is difficult for me to write about Prithviraj Kapoor in the past tense. He was always so alive, so vital, such an optimist that one can’t imagine him to be dead. And to recall one’s innumerable encounters with him is a painful process.” It is true in case of Rajakumar too.

To be honest, my mother, how is illiterate, named me after Rajakumar. I am now retrospecting all these things, which are nearly 30 years old. Cinema in those days was not everybady’s cup of tea. The aristocrats alone had the opportunity of watching movies. The story of traditional families was quite different, which considered watching movie a crime.

Especially religious Hindu and Muslim families never allowed their women to watch movies. It was believed that a woman who watched movies would get her life spoiled and young girls would go astray, imitating the gorgeous life shown on the silver screen.

My mother bore me in the remotest village, called Telasang, in Bijapur district of Karnataka state. Father of three young beautiful daughters, my grand pa never exposed them to the modern, fashionable style of celluloid world. By the time my mother was married to my father, I don’t know how? she had seen some two or three movies of Rajakumar, one and only hero Kannada films of 1960’s. An elder sister of my mother, my aunt, staying in Shivamoga town, might have informed my mother about Rajakumar. She already had a male baby and who was named after Udayakumar, another famous actor of the time, who was more popular than Rajakumar at that time. My mother took suggestion of their sister when she bore me and named after Rajakumar. Needless to say that we have already passed nearly 50 years after those glorious days of Rajakumar. When I bore a child and started searching for a good name, a three years old female baby came and whispered a name into my ears that is ‘Rajakumar’.

Tell me what does this Rajakumar mean to the child? What this Rajakumar is? Is it mere a name? A symbol or an actor? The one witnessed today and forgotten tomorrow? Can time perish the footprints of this forth standard educated boy? Who ruled Kannada psyche for more than six decades? How did he grow so dangerously, breaking the records in the box office?

How come he was so unbeaten and unconquered, not only on the film world even in the history of Kannada culture, literature and language. We got it confirmed witnessing the meaninglessness of golden jubilee of Karnataka unification without Rajakumar.

      Even though my mother named me after Rajakumar, sorry to say, I did not like his films for, when I started watching Kannada movies, the angry young man movement headed by Vishnuvardhan, Ambarish and Prabhakar was in swing.

Compared to Rajakumar’s moral films, they had a number of fights, new music, modern dressing styles, which easily seized my young mind. Of course, the survey of Kannada film activities was one sided because, then I was not aware of Rajakumar’s films based on Indian mythologies and history. I was not in the position to understand what acting was and who a good actor was. I was rather attracted by the visual effects of the camera, colour and modernism than the message.

It is true, when Rajakuamr entered filmdom, Udayakumar and Kalyanakumar, were the highest paid actors, who charged nearly one lack twenty thousand rupees for a film. They were very popular. I read somewhere that even during his tremendous days of popularity Rajakumar never took more than 50 thousand rupees. He grew like anything beyond the guess of film critics. Rajakumar grew up not merely an actor but he became a mantra, a part and parcel of every Kannadiga: he became symbol of self respect, sacrifice, service and sincerity.

I SHED MYSELF

Flickering and glittering

From dusk to dawn

Thou the star of

Early morn

Melting and mourning

As the voice of ice you are

My excellent choice

Here thy place

You made

Me restless in your search

I go for you

Every evening after the suns march

Days I passed

From cradle to tomb

Ways I crossed

From pole to pole

After thy reverie

Thus I went

Life without life

Days I spent

O my star

Whom thou followed

The dawn or thyself

For thee I shed myself.