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Rama Rao V V B
Rama Rao VVB: Dalit Poetry in Telugu – Some Aspects
Multi-hued Dalit Sensibility – A Rapid Survey
Is Dalit sensibility different? Isn't all sensibility the same?
My answer is 'yes' for the first question and 'no' for the second.
Sensibility, among other things, is a product basically of upbringing
- dependent on environment and capacity to feel – dependent on
exposure and social intercourse. Having answered the basic questions,
I come to my own exposure to the genre – yes, genre for it is rightly
claimed and rightly acceded, thanks to democratization of at least
freedom of poetic expression - of dalit poetry in Telugu with
authentic dalit sensibility. Though I cannot write dalit poetry
authentically, I can certainly empathize with that as one of the many
kinds of poetry and write about it too. Editing, compiling and
translating Telugu free verse of eleven years (1985-1995), a brave
self-imposed task, I had to traverse the entire gamut of free verse
produced in that period and dalit poetry then had been emerging as a
strong, pronounced trend, which compelled readers' attention.
Dalit free verse in Telugu
By the 80's of the last century, dalit poetry had become a strong and
powerful trend. Originally inspired by the emergence of dalit poetry
in Marathi, it found its way into the neighbouring state of Andhra.
(My friend Devaraju Maharaju translated many works from Marathi.)
Dalits began to build and develop a mystique of their own besides the
already existing politique. They wanted to demolish the untenable
superiority of some over other many and pull down the birth-based
distinctions. It is an expression of a community conscience, scarcely
realized to have an existence of its own. Upper class culture, for the
oppressed, is not automatically or actually synonymous with
intellectual or poetic excellence. After Sahitya Academy came into
being in Delhi in 1984, in 1987 All India Dalit Writer's Meet took
place in Hyderabad. Literature produced by dalits must ensure getting
its rightful place of pride and dignity. This led to a kind of
effulgence. The aspiration, anguish and even vituperation showed
urgency both of recognition and immediate amelioration.
Towards crystallization
Dalit writing, more importantly poetry, drew public attention with
strongly worded vivid pictures of heinous discrimination. Whatever the
tone, likeable or pungent, vicious or highly provocative, it is
written with a pointed purpose, to sting the complacent and the
leering into active thought. The idea is to focus attention on the
dreadful reality, poking them in their ribs to intense soul-searching
or, even shocking readers by seething paroxysms of fury with a wiry
virulence. Here are some samples:
The five elements are taking bath
Transcending the lines on the forehead
Feet are now sprouting from Brahma's face (M.Venkat)
While those wounds throb through generations
Walking erect on roads with head held high
Don't differentiate tears: don't divide wounds (Pagadala Nagender)
Earthen kadai and grease-clung cooking pots
Pig huts and penal pounds
What a conspiracy have you hatched (Pydi Teersh Babu)
Instead of giving his floor dung-wash, we piss on it
Rip open his entrails with the sickle we have tucked in the waist
We'd skin him and with that on a drum we play around (Karri Vijayalakshmi)
Thus went the trend, drawing both bouquets and unorchestrated
brickbats. Democratization did become a reality and not all are
democratized as is widely believed. Those dalits who reaped the
benefits are really few and the liberalization and franchise did not
help all. There was a backlash too. People began to shun the oppressed
on the plea that the policies favoured them. This created some bad
blood. Some of the oppressed did not get the benefits but still had to
bear the brunt of ill will from the upper castes which were not given
even promises. But the social milieu did lead to crystallization in
the sense that those who could go up (with or without state help)
began to voice the grievance of the oppressed with a surer power and a
louder voice.
Crystallization and flowering
Take a look at the following, some whole poems and some only excerpts
to drive home the point that there has been maturation both in form
and content. Sociological murmuring and loud protest and pungent
criticism alone are not the poetic reality for the new poets. Here
comes poetic sensibility too in a very big and poignant way. When
passion gives way to cool rumination, realism yields place to
imaginative exuberance and a kind of delicate sensibility.
Dalit diversity in the Telugu speaking state may not be identical with
that which obtains in the other states in our country. Here is an
excerpt from a telling, revealing piece. It turns the flood lights on
the plight of the totally ignored, reminding us of the protestant poet
Milton's scathing social satire in the line "the hungry sheep look up
and are not fed." It holds up the mirror to the human condition in all
its rawness. The poem is about a wandering, homeless, nameless little
girl who is known only as Dakkili girl. Dakkili refers not so much to
the name of the girl as, possibly, to her profession of rearing
donkeys for a living. There are ameliorated Dalits and the left out
ones. The peroration at the end speaks of the authenticity of the
speaker's feeling. His heart goes out to the lowest of the low who
were never given a chance to rise. How far the chances offered after
Independence to the dalits have fulfilled the aspiration of the
lawmakers is beside the point though it is still all the more sore.
The suggestiveness inlaid endears the speaker of the poem to all
readers.
... … …
I used to drink donkey's milk too
In the donkey the little girl drove
I used to see my mother
It felt as though the season of milk
Put its foot in my tummy
"Donkey's milk! Donkey's milk"
At the little hawker's song,
The street's face used to be lit up with Arundhati's smile.
Becoming young donkeys, we used to flock around braying like asses
A mere glance at us would show the ecstasy
Of a suckling mother in the Donkey Mother's eye.
For a handful of food or a joined palm full of gruel
The little girl used to become a Buddhist bhikshu before our hut
Whether it is her entrails weeping or the lips smiling
Even the four-faced wouldn't be able to tell.
Betwixt hunger and untouchability
She used to wriggle like a fish in a tank gone dry.
We used to have at least a hut:
The girl used to wander homeless under the sky
In this country where the wish-fulfilling cow's ordure is holy with its urine
That girl of the fifth caste reposed trust only in her donkey.
I always keep ruminating about her.
Now that the Dakkili girl is not to be seen,
Nor my childhood's Donkey Mother,
Both eddy in me.
Standing at the crossroads of classification demanding their due
It feels like the 'horn' bugle is sounding in me
The soft grains of cooked rice becoming swords
Appear to be declaring war against me and my comatoseness.
(From Yendaluri Sudhakar's Dakkili Pilla)
The ingrained and deep-seated hurt and anguish lead to bursts of
emotion and in many cases bluster. This is evidently trying to cut at
'brahminical' (here it is not the twice born but all the castes)
tyranny, thoughtlessness and unfairness as can be seen in the
reference to Arundhati, Kamadhenu, the four-faced and Saraswati.
Scriptures are selectively mentioned if only to illustrate the rampant
injustice meted out those beyond the so called caste Hindus.
For the unbrahmin accent of the little girl
Even Saraswati wouldn't be able to write its phonetics.
Extolling, romanticizing and even deifying the personae and incidents
(perhaps a vestige of the much maligned Brahminism) is made to appear
justifiable and, if not normal, at least it is an understandable
response.
In Telugu the original gusto in the unity of shared suffering does not
seem to be as intense as it had been earlier. This may be owing to the
factor of distancing even among the oppressed as a class. There are
poets belonging to the Muslim minority, Christian minority and so on.
Then there is that sociological 'divide' between the different
denominations, which are not relevant either to the production or
enjoyment of the inclusive dalit poetry. This circumscribed perception
may be only a passing phase, a feeling radiating from understandable
rivalry for securing more political power for one's own community.
Here are some poems with deep poetic sensibility from poets who belong
to the under privileged minorities, Dalits or not. Bird Song is the
title of the poem written by Iqbal Chand, which reads:
Amidst crowd
the bird
having gone on singing singing
flew away-
None noticed it
Wh would this world
ever understand
the language of love….
This very short composition, like an ideal poem, creates a context for
itself. Here is creativity at its suggestive best. A good poem lends
itself to interpretation. The bird, the song, the apathy of the
public, the disgust and the sadness felt is brought out with delicate
subtlety.
Where do I go this night is a poem by Jugash Vili:
Dense darkness
Thunder and lightning
Torrential rain without let up
Where do I go this night?
Drawing my face into the curve of your neck
You said softly then
"Is it t
at all these aren't
in you already "
Darkness, thunder, lightning, are all outside; internally a dread of
loneliness This is transparently a love poem, antaranga kavita,
intimate, innate, individual feeling. Only the ladylove's curve of the
neck is the refuge and solace. The prospect of separation pinches
hard.
Here is an excerpt from the poem Through the Eye of a Needle by Wilson Sudhakar:
… …
Mothers!
When reckoning by column centimetre
Would those, who wouldn't give a column in print, grieve for you?
On the corpses of those violated
Except for fighting for Freedom of Expression
In readership equation, while writing
Gossip on Brad Pitt-Angelina Joli's breakfast
Britney Spear's pet dog
Only the stick-thrust vaginas open
But of the truth seen eyes shut their mouths, Mother!
If you want to live even in death among fashionable men
You should become Priyadarshini Mattoo
And die as the captivating fashion model Jessica Lal...
Then the Capital of the educated in human chains,
Flood India Gate observing nightlong candle vigil
When like Mallika Sheravat gossip of hot sex
News travels fast and goes right through their brains
The whole country bundled up grieves as if of their own daughter's death
Just as more publicity is given to Meera Paibee's nudeness
Than for her protest in Manipur's Kangla fort
To make Television Rating Points swell
While newspapers cry hoarse
Human Rights and Women's activists beat their breasts
While cases closed are reopened
Publicity camels, like child's play,
Pass easily through the eye of a needle.
The uniqueness of the composition lies in juxtaposing topicality with
the tears in the nature of things. This is pervasive contemporary
reality, which is not always given its due. The Biblical echo is hard
to miss.
Consummation devoutly to be wished
The point worth noting is that dalit poetry or dalit literature does
not remain only as the expression of a community or a section for
long. With their aspirations and their imaginative fervour and
sensibility, they show the tendency of merging into the main stream
enriching poetry in a sublime sense. The day may not be far off for
the label just to vanish, making poetry the voice of the imaginative
and the perceptive, no matter of what birth or lineage a poet happens
to be from.
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