Bharati's Kuyil Song: An Assessment R. Subramanian
Sri Subramania Bharati <https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/bharati#history> occupies a unique place in the galaxy of the twentieth century Tamil <https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/tamil#history> poets. He heralded a new era in the history of Tamil literature. His poetical greatness was the result of the synthesis of three great cultures–Tamil, English and Sanskrit <https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/sanskrit#history>. His originality was unique, candour forbidding, presentation attractive and success phenomenal. “Poet Bharati has fulfilled the true mission of a poet. He has created beauty not only through the medium of glowing and lovely words, but has kindled the souls of men and women by the million to a more passionate love of freedom, and a richer dedication to the service of the country. Poets like Bharati cannot be counted as the treasure of any province. He is entitled, by his genius and his work, to rank among those who have transcended all limitations of race, language and continent and have become the universal possession of mankind.” In these words, did Poetess Sarojini Naidu, the Nightingale of India <https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/india#history>, paid glowing tributes to Bharati, when the Bharati Memorial at Ettayapuram was raised by a devoted Tamil public, the year after the nation became free. Bharati was truly great and he was easily the greatest of the modern Tamil poets. With him came the flood-tide of renaissance, as a part of national upsurge for freedom. In his hands Tamil recovered its naturalness, clarity, vigour, vitality and flexibility. He turned to colloquial vocabulary and rhythms and brought the written Tamil closer to speech. Apart from a remarkable output of glorious poetry <https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/poetry#history>, he also helped to fashion Tamil prose. He attempted every branch of literature and surely adorned it with his writings. Bharati’s “Kuyil Song '' is a sustained fire of emotion; his imagination curiously welds together all the scattered materials of the human world and builds through an alert imagery of the magnificent potency of human love, peerless, stainless and all-pervading. Lovers dream deeper dreams of permanence in this fantastic world, and their higher feelings float on ethereal poesy, in endless harmony of song. The lovers’ souls flutter in rapture, bill and coo, and realise the earthly paradise. Bharati’s song of the cuckoo is indeed the crown of all his achievements in the domain of poetry. Bharati in his song of the cuckoo pours out his heart. It is indeed a day dream of the poet. *Kuyil’s Song (Kuyil Pattu)* is a narrative poem in nine parts, totalling about 750 lines. It may be called a fable, because the principal character is a Kuyil and two of the other characters are a monkey and a bull. It may be called a dream-sequence, for some of the events partake of the tantalising quality of dreams. A fable and a dream poem, it is also a sort of vision seen or imagined by the poet. *Kuyil’s Song* is unquestionably the most audacious, the most original and the most enjoyable of the creations of Bharati’s poetic imagination. Bharati has a keen observation and has the capacity of identifying himself with what he creates. As one author observes, an artist has no character of his own but he becomes what he creates. This aspect of the negative capability is stressed while pointing out the essential greatness of an artist. His vivid description of the monkey and the bull give us a rare insight into his artistic skill. The cuckoo under the magic spell of love, goes into ecstasies over the lovely features of the monkey and those of the bull. The framework of the story is rather simple. It is neither tangled nor complex. The story which is narrated is in keeping with the traditions and beliefs of our race. The transmigration of souls, the relentless pursuit of love down the ages, the overwhelming power of fate which shapes even the course of love, all this is traditional and having this as an effective scaffolding, he has raised an immortal palace of art. Bharati has poured in this poem all the wealth of his poetic imageries and experiences. Great poetry appeals not only to our imagination but also to our understanding, feelings and emotions and Bharati’s song of the cuckoo may be considered as a supreme example of great poetry. This is the story. One morning the poet finds himself in a luxuriant garden in Pondicherry. Strangely, there are neither birds nor bird-catchers. Only a solitary kuyil is perched on a branch, and she is singing a full-throated moving song. The song of the kuyil, although tuneful in numbers, is ordinarily in no recognisable human language. But the poet discovers in the *‘ku-ku-ku’* of the kuyil’s song both words and rhythm, music and spirals of meaning; and he transcribes it as a poem in ten three-line stanzas–perhaps the most daring and most astonishing of Bharati’s lyrical effusions. Quite literally the first stanza could be rendered thus– Love, love, love; Love ending, love ending, Death, death, death. The whole point is the repetition of contrasting words in the first and third lines. The kuyil’s ‘*ku-ku-ku’* becomes a three-fold repetition of one word after another–in all ten pairs of contrasting words are used for this purpose–while the middle line purposely links the contrasted key-words of each stanza. Love–death; joy–misery; harmony–discord; fame–shame, etc.,–out of such antinomies, the kuyil fashions her music. The keynote, of course, is the hunger for love; and failing love, the inevitability of death. When the song ends, the poet approaches the bird, and asks her what’s wrong that she should be pouring forth her heart in such sad sweet ecstasy. “I seek love–or death!” answers the kuyil, and entreats the poet to come again on the fourth day, making it clear that he is the object of her frenzied longing. The poet too–in defiance of logic and commonsense–is now madly in love with the kuyil, and the hours pass out slowly for him! The next day the poet is inexplicably drawn to the garden and receives a shock when he sees his kuyil shamelessly flirting with a monkey! The poet makes a wild movement to kill the monkey, but both beast and bird escape his wrath, and are nowhere to be found. The unhappy disillusioned poet spends a wretched night, and the next day again he makes his way to the garden. This time he finds his kuyil flirting no less shamelessly with an old bull. As on the previous day, he makes a dash for the intruding rival lover, the bull, with the same exasperating result. On the fourth day the poet goes to the garden, not so much to keep his appointment with the kuyil, but to be revenged on her forher wantonness and perfidy. The sight of the kuyil, however, softens him a little, and he restrains himself. Marking the arrested stroke and his distorted face, the kuyil asks him not to judge her in haste but to be patient and listen to her story. Kuyil though she is in form, she is endowed with human understanding and human speech. How could that be? The mystery was once explained to her by a certain *Muni <https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/muni#history>*or *Rishi <https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/rishi#history>.* The kuyil had been the lovely daughter of a Chera chieftain of the hills–and “kuyili” had been her name. Her cousin Madan (the name means “bull”) loved her, and she agreed to marry him out of pity for him, not because she loved him in return! But her parents decided –as parents often do – that she should marry another chieftain’s son, Kurangan (meaning “monkey”). About the time of the marriage, while kuyili was in the woods, a charming prince met her and declared his love and offered marriage. This was true love indeed, and while they were lost in their love oblivious of their surroundings, Madan and Kuraugan surprised them there and made a murderous attack on the prince who counter-attacked them in self-defence. All three died, but the prince before dying assured kuyili that they would meet again and achieve the fulfilment of their love. The Rishi further told the kuyil that the prince was now a poet, Madan and Kurangan had become a bull and a monkey respectively, always following her, and they would also try still to prevent her longed-for reunion with her prince, now the poet. From all this it is clear to our poet-narrator that he is the prince, and that the events of the two previous days were but mere make-believe fashioned by the vengeful bull and monkey. The poet now seizes the kuyil in mad rapture to kiss her–and lo and behold! she turns into a woman again, flawless in her beauty. But the rapture fades all of a sudden, the poet wakes up with a start, and he sees only the better mat, the crumpled papers, and the other usual concomitants of his study room! (Dr. Prema’s “Bharati in English Verse”) The machinery employed is subtle and intricate, for the main story is encased in crystal spheres of other subordinate or continuing stories within it. The recurring theme is love and its perpetuation through a series of transmigrations of hero and heroine of humans, birds and beasts. Narration and description are beautifully matched and humour and pathos and high adventure are intertwined in a living and throbbing whole. Traditional poetic diction in Tamil had for long degenerated into obscure struck out of ordinary, even colloquial speech. It is the only poem of Bharati which speaks the universal language of love and can appeal to all, unburdened by literary or critical conventions. By the same token, it would be more difficult to translate it into any other medium with the bouquet intact. In the end, the poet unveils himself as the Prospero of this cold-capp’d edifice and brings us down to the earth without a jar or hitch. This poem reveals to us Bharati’s intense love of nature. The opening lines begin with the splendour of the morning sun arising out of the deep. Its flame shines all the more bright against the dark ground of the sea. The echoing seashore and the glove are all lit in the freshness and glory of a dream. The song of the innumerable birds touches the heart of the poet Bharati’s “Kuyil Pattu” discloses the splendour of human love with a keen sustained undercurrent of allegory; the material love with a spiritual glow pervades the entire poem in an exalted diction; simple words, hurled by the poet’s creative spell, speak lofty truths from height of emotional excellence, and candour. Music, O sweet music; And when music fails, And when music fails, Only cacophony. Beat the rhythm, beat the rhythm: And when rhythm fails, Mere confusion. Divine the poetic voice; But when poetry fails, Only the dross of the earth. The song of the cuckoo is indeed an extraordinary poem. It is not only a poem of escape but also a criticism and interpretation of life. It satisfies the three-fold aspects of poetry and it may hold its highest place among the artistic creations in the realm of poetry. 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