The Original Angry Young Man
Draw on a mustache with black kohl, wear your dad’s wedding “reception” coat, memorize a couple of the poet’s fiery verses, and you are all set! So many boys who went to school in Madras must have worn this costume for the school “fancy-dress” competition. Outside of Tamil Nadu, this costume cannot work unless your audience is predominantly Tamil for some reason. Recently, I have been running into a lot of interesting details about the life of the Tamil poet Subramania Bharathi (1882 –1921). And there is always the question — why did one man think so differently from all others around him? We may never know the answer to that one.
I love Bharathi because he was one of the first Tamil writers to speak of the rights of women. Previously, women’s only job was to raise kids and feed the men who would go out and “do things” in the world. Let’s stop this madness of enslaving women he said. How did he turn feminist? In December 1905, Bharathi attended the All India Congress session held in Benares and on his way back home, he met Sister Nivedita, Swami Vivekananda’s spiritual heir. Where is your wife, she asked him. Home, he said, taken aback by the unexpected question. Why is she not a participant in the freedom struggle too, she wanted to know. Bharathi, who had never thought along those lines till then, became one of the biggest champions of women’s rights. He had two daughters.
I found a website authored by his grand-daughter Vijaya Bharathy. She writes about the friends, fans and others who called on the poet. It makes the fiery revolutionary seem like a familiar figure, someone you can drop in on for a song or a conversation.
Vilakkennai Chettiar (Sabapati Chettiar), the owner of the house where Bharati lived was a loving, compassionate man; smooth as castor oil (“vilakkennai”), he would never ask Bharati for payment of the rent. He would drop by with the intention of collecting it, but he was satisfied to listen to Bharati singing a song and invariably left without asking for money. There were “Vellachu” (jaggery piece) Krishnasamy Chettiar, “Elikkunju” (mouse) Arumugam Chettiar, “Valluru” (kite) Naicker, “Brahmaraya Iyer (Professor Subramania Iyer) to mention a few.
**
Another Tamil movie reference (title of Maniratnam movie); another Bharathiyar poem.
I wish I had been this kind of daughter to my parents.சின்னஞ்சிறு கிளியே கண்ணம்மா! செல்வக் களஞ்சியமே!
என்னைக் கலி தீர்த்தே உலகில் ஏற்றம் புரிய வந்தாய்!உச்சிதனை முகர்ந்தால் கருவம் ஓங்கி வளருதடி!
மெச்சி உனை ஊரார் புகழ்ந்தால் மேனி சிலிர்க்குதடி!When I plant a kiss onto your forehead, I am heady!
When people praise you, my whole being is thrilled!The entire song/poem is here.
The rest of the poem lives elsewhere, but these lines are enough.
They suggest a man who could rage against empire and orthodoxy and still return home to hug his daughter tenderly. A man who could be revolutionary and neighbor, public figure and tender father. A man who cannot be reduced to a caricature.
சிலிர்ப்பு | தி. ஜானகிராமன் | பாரதி பாஸ்கர் குரலில் | Bharathy Baskar