VENU, THE MARVEL

Drama was the extrovert front of Venu’s talents. His introvert mode of aesthetic realization was with poetry in the form of say, reading closely Kamba Ramayanam with the exegetical interpretations of Sri Vai.Mu.Ko swamy . I still remember the nascent glee when he bought the Sundara Kandam, Kamba Ramayanam with VMG’s urai in the Nambillai sannidhi in the south gate Srirangam. ‘Aandakai aandu av vinnnor Thurakka naadu arukil kandaan’—‘the manly one then beheld there the yonder world of heaven celestials well nigh to his watchful gaze’ so began the SK and there began my coaching in expounding Kamban on stage. Twenty hymns with the VMG’s explanations were targeted to my memory to be recited and narrated at any time on demand. A following Sunday found us in Dr. Vas’ stores in Thennur in the house of Sami Periyappa (eldest of my father and his brothers) I still hear the baritonical gurgling laugh which greeted me at the threshold. After a hot coffee I was commissioned to do an extempore exposition of Kamban - in- memory . Dr. Vas was jubilant and immediately commissioned all the inmates of the stores. There were ‘aahaas’ and ‘see this small boy’ in liberal measure. 

The forum informal then reminiscenced about the days when my father was one of the inmates when he was a bachelor. There were lots of stories for the picking. For instance, there was the story about one Brhamma Kabaal swamigal, a mendicant noted for his coin-toss gimmicks. The swami used to keep some rupees exchanged into brand mint coins and by a sleet of hand used to toss coins on the prostrating devotees giving them to believe that he had nothing to do with such divine signals. Venu was the ‘sando’(boxer) in the complex and sometimes argued a point with his hands when persuasions were pooh-poohed. So people brought now and then domestic cases to his panchayat. His judgements, decisions, leads and tackles were always appreciated by Dr Vas and others. The swami , perhaps fearing Venu, used to placate him by saying that Venu had shed off 10 of his births by showing respects to him, whereas Rajappa , of the Dr.’s household increased 10 more by his disrespect towards him. Dr Vas was a religious man and firmly believed in saluting the ochre robe wherever and whenever seen. Somehow the swami went away and nothing more was heard of him. 

Then there was the story of waiting for the Mahatma. Venu took the boy Ramakrishnan to see Gandhi. Dr Ramakrishnan still narrates with the nascent relish, the story of the waiting. My father was an ardent admirer and associate of Prof. C.S.Kamalapathi (seen in the right) and together they founded SHAKESPEARE HEAD PLAYERS and staged more than a dozen dramas of the Thespic Angel of the Avon, Shakespeare. Those were simple days and people were simple. The thatched roofs and the rustic porticos invited the people in , induced the people to go out, mingle among themselves and meet the strangers. The raised up vertical streets nowadays cleave even a single man into his sleeping part and waking part. He is now in the predicament of meeting himself first before beginning to come out. 

The present generations have not done their homework. The integration of the past , the interpretation of the present, and the intuitive construction of the future is an important task but sadly neglected. Heaping the blame on the modern way of life is one excuse. The modern life has its own virtues, say, better living conditions and more and more people realising their dreams. What we do with this material prosperity is solely dependent on a rare thing to be attained viz., Wisdom. It was available with people in those days, now become a rare commodity.
Srirangam Mohanarangan 

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A POET'S WAY OF CRITICISING ANOTHER POET

I was reading the UttaRarama Charitham by Bhavaboothi. I find him so adept in portraying the poignant moods of characters. The time he has chosen is also apt. The later part of SriRama's life, given to much recapitulation and nostalgia, provides a suitable thematic space for Bhavaboothi( Ist quarter of 8th cent.- Dr. Bhandarkar).

There are some stories which speak of the connection between Kalidasa and Bhavaboothi, though not historically valid but show the veins of criticism, registered by the succeeding generations of readers. One such story is interesting. After finishing the URC , Bhavaboothi wanted to have an opinion of the master-poet, Kalidasa. So he approached him and found him playing the chaturanga, a form of chess. After hearing him thru, Kalidasa wanted to give a hint for bettering the text in one place. Perhaps he didn't want to do it openly, for the reason that Bhavaboothi may be estimated low in the eyes of the beholders, but all the while the hint should reach the literateur. So what he did you know, he took some chewing leaves and pasting it on the back with the edible lime, he commented that சுண்ணம்(calcium) is a bit excess. The onlookers thought that Kalidasa was commenting about the pan leaves and the lime paste overleaf. But the message reached Bhavaboothi and made him thankful. Let us see about that.

In the first anka of the play URC, 27th verse reads

kimapi kimapi mandam mandamAsakti yogAt
aviralita kapOlam jalpatOrakramENa
asitila parirambha vyApruta ekaikadOshNo:
avidita gatayAmA rAtrirEva vyaramsIt

we were mumbling in whispers soft, random
in deep love entangled, cheek to cheek
lying close, one in another's arms embraced
night alone was over
with its watches passing by.( translation mine)

In the line 'night alone was over', by adding one anusvara, m, in the original rathrirEva becomes rathrirEvam, meaning 'night was over thus'. Eva in sanskrit means 'only', 'alone'. Evam means 'thus', 'in this manner'. Bhavaboothi originally while reading out to Kalidasa wrote only 'Evam'. In the verse it meant that the lovers SriRama and Sita were calling back to memory the bygone days in the forests and on one such occasion of intimacy the night time passed by in the manner described. Deascribing like this is not remarkable for a distinguished poet. So Kalidasa suggested that the letter m is an excess in the word 'Evam', removing it 'Eva' will be more natural, aesthetic and apt. How? In intimacy, it is but natural for the lovers to be unmindful of the passing time, even at the end of night.

So to say that night time only passed by leaving us still in whispers will be more aesthetic. In sanskrit this m is written at the top of the letter as a dot, which is called anusvara. So when Kalidasa, in his gentle way pasting the lime over the back of the pan-leaf and said one atom of lime was in excess, Bhavaboothi understood that he meant an anusvara, occurring in some descriptions. And finding out the anusvara in Evam was a child's play.

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BURNER'S FANTASY

The milkpot sits docile on the burner
Stickey drops of water
Trickle down the sides
To the bottom on the flames.
The burner's flaming tongues
Raise resenting hiss' and tchas;
Knowing fully well
The anti-stance mutual
Why the watery drops
Should touch the flames in bad spots
Or perhaps.. a wooing
For a silent shimmer of intercoursing heat.

BIRTHDAY OF FIRE

Human beings shivering in rains, shrunk in cold, scorched in summer and eating food raw and unbaked was the picture till the advent of fire and light. Light ofcourse they had thru the sun in the sky, but it was not mostly light, the friend but often some phenomena from the above beyond one's purpose. Heat almost they had none except the sun's heat. What would they have thought of the sun as the source of light and heat? Did they have concepts of light and heat as seperate? Without fire in the life of mankind, would any form of civilisation have been possible? Cold and darkness seem such domiciled creatures now; but not so in the pre-fire ages of mankind. Food was raw, tools were rough, climate a dictator colluding with the wild- the picture is already bleak. There was only a spark in the brain pulling him thru all the untowardness in the surroundings--the spark of cognition, the spark of thinking, the spark of understanding.
Somehow fire came to man or man learnt to make fire. Many mythologies cherish some story or another about the fire's coming to mankind. The whole Rig Veda seems a mystical register of the biography of fire, the Agni. Prometheus brings fire from Heaven and incurs the wrath of Zeus.

Fire the external spark in the outside world enhanced the human life in innumerable ways. Civilisation and culture were but consequences; religion became a possibility;
story-telling was born, technology sharpened--man could taste what was freedom.
All because this ancient seer- agni, FIRE came to reside among men as the messenger between men and gods, as the bridge between the past and the future.
Some day should have been the birthday of this most important guest of mankind,
the strong friend, the sagacious guide and the sublime philosopher of physical
inspiration. Maybe Deepavali is one such day, the birthday of light, the birthday of
heat, the day of advent of the FIRE. Let us wish him a happy birthday !!

SRI KRISHNA

A stray arrow from the wilderness
To an illusive target
Of an untrodding foot
Could prove the finale
Of a narrative begun
Before the beginning of the sun
And moving on and on, way beyond
Even after the earth has come to an end
Bearing the holocaust on its honed tip
To the nested peace of the pained bliss;
Perhaps the arrow,
The self-same one
Rent by the hunter
Into the bird and bard of poesy
Bereavement cursed breaking the word
Into flesh of sounds
And breathing the meaning into the forest of the soul.

VENU IN THE ROLE OF ASVATTAAMAN

This is the picture of the actors in the sanskrit play 'Asvatthama' staged in Trichy way back during 1950s !! You can see my father, the indomitable VENU, in the role of Asvatthama--standing, Ist row, right extreme. The sacred thread is conspicuous. It has a bearing on the character-on-stage. My father used to say that he was able to bring full force into the acting by taking the proverbial oath of Asvatthama stretching the thread taut by the left hand while gesturing the oath by the right.(Asvatthama is the son of Drona, the brahmin teacher of military arts to Pandavas and Kauravas in the story of Mahabharatha. When Drona was becoming invincible in the war-field he was downed by a trickery of words. By the by, the great epic is available in English translations. In Tamil, the entire epic inclusive was brought out after 20 odd years of effort in 1930s and 1940s by the great M V Ramanujachariar swamy thru his Mahabharatham press in Kumbakonam. After 1955 it was long out of print for nearly 50 years. Luckily, now,it is being brought out in 9 tomes, already 4tomes are out, by one Venkataraman, my friend) You should have seen my father acting out various characters even while reading out. A genius and a genuine thespian was lost by Tamilnad unawares. 

Srirangam Mohanarangan 

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