HUBLI, November 27:
“Rasave Janana,/
Virasa Marana/
Samarasave Jeevana”
These lilting lines, spreading the message harmony in a world torn asunder by the discords, dissensions, greed and avarice, penned by Kannada’s poet laureate Da. Ra. Bendre, a literary colossus who strode majestically on the firmament of modern Kannada literature for more than seven decades, continue to be on the lips of every Kannada speaking person even today.
Even thirty years after his demise, same liveliness and contemporary relevance, and this has been embellished by the assiduous efforts underway to analyse and interpret his writings for the benefit of the posterity.
“Bendre is an evergreen poet,” says the poet, Chennaveera Kanavi. “I don’t mind admitting that every time I read his poems, I acquire newer insights. The process of learning never stops”
Better known by his pen name, Ambikatanaya Datta, the poet, a recipient of the prestigious Jnanapitha awardee, was a poet par excellence of a different genre. Poetry was his first love, and was quite at home with other forms of literature like the dramas, prose, satire, and short stories.
Poem for him was a mere translation of his pangs and pains. He would often say that the poet in him speaks and he was a mere scribe. “Enna Paadu enagirali / Nanna Haadannashte koduve, Rasika” (Let my sufferings remain with me /But I would give you song Oh Rasika), he would often say. .
What made his poetries sparkle and appealing to the common man, were that they were rooted in desi Kannada of the Dharwad region, and were extremely lyrical too and was liberal in using the colloquial idioms. He was a magician par excellence with words and his capacity to create imageries was something superb.
Besides being a multifaceted literary personality, Bendre was a visionary, a philosopher and scientific thinker and was far ahead of time. He had eternal hopes in the dawn of a world of peace, without hatred and bereft of poverty and hunger. “Let not the cry of unborn babe is heard anywhere in the world “he would say.
Another facet of his personality came to light during the last phase of life. Bendre had developed a fascination for the study of numbers and had evolved number of theories. He would often give his blessings in numbers.
Just he passed away on the day of the festival of lights way back in 1981 at the far away Mumbai hospital, the hospital staff asked for a message from the poet. His response was “881 and 441”, which represented as he himself made it clear “Hridaya and Viveka”. These were essential for the emergency of a health world, he said. As back as in forties, Bendre had said in his presidential address at the Kannada Sahitya Sammelana in Shimoga, that the fusion of material science and literature were the essential tool in quest of truth. He would often say that mere literature alone would not help realize the truth but it has to be tempered with material science.
For those, who were unaware of the thought process of the Bendre, which was an amalgam of philosophical thoughts, couched in scientific theories, mathematical combination, found it difficult to fathom the hidden meaning of his poetries.
And Bendre was aware of that. “Dharwad takkadi innoo tookaane aagilla. Horataava chakadi, hortaava chakadi…,” was his favorite observation about his works not being properly assessed or understood by the society. He had alluded himself to the Dharwad Scale “Takkadi”, which is waiting to be weighed. (Takkadi tooka, is typical desi expression, which is used in the rural areas especially in the rural market for pricing the produce brought) .The scale of evaluation of his poetry was to emerge, while cartloads of literature continued to be produced. (
And the situation remained so when his end came in 1981. He had left behind a rich legacy of literature, in the form published works, manuscripts waiting to see the light of the day, the plethora of notes and jottings he had made on practically each page of the more 16,000 books in his personal library. All this was waiting to be deciphered and interpreted and brought out.
This arduous task, stupendous by any standards has been bravely taken up by a two member team comprising of Dr Vaman Bendre, the son and Dr K S Sharma, his close disciple, both of whom by their close association with the poet, have a keen insight into the thinking, the philosophical strands and the language used by the poet.
For them it has been a more labor of love and a sure way of keeping Bendres memory alive for the posterity. Combining themselves in the name of the Bendre Research Institute Hubli , the two member duo, have ploughed a lonely furrow and put in indefatigable efforts to bring out more than 25,000 pages of literature in the post Bendre era.. It includes;
· Six volumes comprising of entire gamut of poems written by Bendre in his sojourn lasting more than seven decades. It is not a mere mechanical collection of whatever has been published. But it is thematically arranged, with apt commentaries and graphic illustration and presented in an epic form, since the poet always used to say that his life was nothing but an epic.
· Two volumes on Mother and Aurobindo and Sakhi geete a song of life partner described mini epic.
· Three volumes on dramas
· Kavyodya a prose volume on aesthetics, its philosophy in his poems.
· Besides the Research Institute has brought out 35 individual anthology of collection of poems, five selections , 14 stage plays independently and Taledanda relating to Basaveshwara and another a book transcreated by Bendre from the work of Sanskrit write Bhasa based an episode in Ramayana ; 13 selection of Bendre poems, with musical notations, in a bid to introduce a new concept of Bendre Sangeet on the pattern of Tagore Sangeet and translation of Kahlil Gibrans “Good Earth” and writing son Bendre by contemporary writers.
And the latest to come out to the stables of the Bendre Research Institute have been the 13th volume in the series of the collected works of Bendre, namely, Sahitya Yoga Sidhanta, a treatise on aesthetics in Bendre prose, and Bendre Samagra Kaavya Nighantu, a dictionary of the words used by the poet, compiled by the leading linguist, Dr B B Rajpurohit, who incidentally had collaborated with Dr Nichida of Japaan in bringing out Kannada English Japanese dictionary.
The Sahitya Yoga Siddhanta , the second prose volume brought out mainly deals with the aesthetics in prose and comprise of five parts – namely a) Theory of literary prose; b) Samvada – translation of his marathi articles; c) short stories, which Bendre would often describe as common mans epics including Transcreation of Chinese stories and adapted to Indian settings ; d) Kadambari yoga, with Bendre writing the finale of relay writing of the novel by eleven authors, in an unique literary experiment undertaken by Manohar Grantha Mala, and e) ten satires
The significance of the 170 page lexicon lies in the fact that it deals with only the words which are not found in other dictionaries and the emphasis is on the colloquial Kannada used by the poet, which are peculiar to this part of Karnataka, which are hardly understood by the other regional colloquial Kannada spoken spoken elsewhere in the state and also on the words which have more than one meanings.
“Oh Manava, Bidu Durabihmanava/ Oh Daanava kodu Hridaya Daanavaa,” which could be loosely translated as, “Oh man, shun the ego/ Oh demon, donate your heart.” This is a typical example of diglosia found in the work of Bendre. Both the words Maanava and Daanava have different meanings in the two contexts
These books were released to mark the 30th annual memorial day of the poet the other day during the just concluded Deepavali festival Mr. Chennavira Kanavi, the leading poet expressed the view that by using the Dharwad desi Kannada, Bendre had raised his literature to cosmic heights In a way Bendre could be placed a notch above the English poet, W B Yeats, who while being Irish, gave up the desi to start writing in English.
Dr K Raghavendra Rao, who has translated several of works of Bendre including the Jnanapith award winning work “Naku Tanti” in English, said that “Bendre who had transcended the barriers of language deserves to be treated on par with Shakespere and Yeats. No lexicon can fully help understand Bendre.
“We cannot afford to rest on our laurels and we still have a long long way to go” say modestly, Dr Vaman Bendre and Dr K Sharma and add many other publications about Bendre are in the pipeline.
Eom
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