Iseebirds: The thrilled Black Redstart

Black Redstart (Phoenicurus ochruros) is a very common bird during winter, and tends to flicker its tail a lot. They are just thrilled! Spotted this one in the interior of Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary.

D.R.Bendre: Singing bird is throat of the tree

‘Tis but a likeness of the Dream Divine

Envisaged by the Peace of Buddha when

It sat in penance on the Everest

Of Buddha’s Grief and glimpsed it in the cave

Of contemplation deep; the only blossom

That ever the tree of joy bore on its blossom.

I was at Dharwad and within the city is located DR Bendre National Trust next to his home. The Trust also has a sort of a museum of Bendre that has collections of pictures and lines from his poems. What put me off was indication of him being ritual driven that too in the fag end of his life, it surely is not sign of enlightened soul. I have read about Bendre sometime back and recall that he carried the reputation of spiritually inclined and mystical in his expressions. Influenced by Tagore and Aurobindo, as also Emerson so on I was looking forward to know him better. But these references cautioned me.

Lines on Tagore…

With war of words we are weary:

Our cheerless life was dreary.

Master! You gave us light

And songs of deep delight.

Such grand, prophetic utterances

And song of deep deliverance

Are God’s gift to you.

Your peers there are but few.

I had bought a book The Spider and the Web (GS Amur) –lots of typos (errors are crime). Two others book I went through were DR Bendre: The Poet and Poetry (Kirtinath Kurtkoti) and Bendre: Poet and Seer (VK Gokak). The latter can be considered a definitive reference since Gokak had over the years become, from a disciple to close friend and confidante (“Bendre was a very near phenomenon to me”), further Gokak too like Bendre has been awarded the highest literary award of the country: the Jnanpith. His writings are lucid and gave insight into Bendre. I must add, most blogs take me about a maximum of four days, in rare instance a week (travelling and taking pictures of birds not included), but Bendre had me in deep quandary. I was troubled and confused, on the one side he is compelling while on the other he seems to be carrying the burden of tradition, indeed an enlightened soul would have seen through it but Bendre seemed hopelessly enmeshed and increasingly intellectual in his deal, but remarkably he does reflect universality and hint at Upanishadic excellence. When Bendre saw Ganges he exclaims standing on bank “How can ever one compose a song comprehending the river which Siva’s head could not compose?” Gokak mentions this in context to Bendre “overwhelmed with the sight of sublimity of nature”. I find this quite confusing why sublimity of nature has to be through religious myths? Why the river cannot be seen as a river? But then I realise Ganges hold on Hindus and poet’s burden of ancient tradition, one need to add that through this he does bring out overwhelming difficulty in putting words to wonders of nature. (I guess you need to be too much entombed in temple squatter’s worldview to understand these subtleties, which Gokak could, insignificant me cannot and will not, liberal Karnad can. I am wondering what is common here!! I am also wondering why Dalits or Tribes don’t find mention in Jnanpith award list. Some narrations are difficult to plug in, that difficulty is also a choice!).

Dattatreya Ramachandra Bendre (1896-1981) is one of the most prominent Kannada literary figures and for many years was instrumental in determining the course of history of Kannada literature. He wrote under the pen name Ambikatanayadatta, and was arguably the foremost inheritor of great poetic traditions originating with Pampa –the adikavi. Bendre was in a way renaissance figure of sort in the resurgence of Kannada literature, ‘a mix of passion of folk and sophistication of tradition’, he united the bhakti and gyana, lokik and alokik. He initiated many publications and even started a group of literary friend (Geleyara Gampu, popularly Gampuians) that expanded to include young talents, their intent being commune. VK Gokak was a student when he got attracted to this group and maintained a lifelong association. Here he narrates his first meeting with Bendre, he had taken his poems for his reaction. Bendre listened with patience, even approval. It was after giving me a full hearing that he began to speak. The discourse lasted for more than three hours. Mrs Bendre was impatient with long waiting since it was high time for dinner. But Bendre’s imagination had soared, in his characteristic way, past the kitchen right up to the stars. My soul was suspended in the web of his philosophic talk. And when we rose to depart, I was a changed man. I feel my soul will remember that talk long after it has ceased to be a denizen of earth.

Bendre was driven by passion that found expression through religious symbolism and deep insight into nature of things. His poems very immediately moves from apparent to profound, the dexterity is breath taking, though my awareness is based on translations but the commentaries by eminent scholars gives an insight into ‘peculiar genius’ that was Bendre. For Bendre conflict between good and evil is a human conflict based on ethical values but from divine point of view the problem of good and evil doesn’t exist. The problem of being and non being, on the other hand can be solved on the divine plane. There is Nietzsche here, this is where greatness of Indian thoughts finds expressions. Bendre says “be a seeker then come forth with your songs”.

In one poem Shravana Monday he brings out images that have metaphorical relation with each other. ‘The

devotees singing the praise of God, and caught in rhythmic pattern of their song, are like the fish and koel, trying desperately trying to reach another order of reality through faith which is instinctive and natural. Their sorrow is not personal grief but existential anguish. What they have is simple faith which is irrational, and they are simply waiting for the breaking up of the pattern so that a new pattern of reality may emerge’. Some of Bendre’s poems are difficult to comprehend and needs further study, the nuances takes time to reveal. Poetry, according to Bendre, escapes or should escape the tyranny of meaning which is commodity of market place. That culture which insists on verbal meaning and is intolerant of any other value is decadent. In moments of creative ecstasy, he finds words can only profane his meaning “These tremulous strains hit beyond the heights and find the windpipe to be too small to pipe them. How can I ever utter the words that the tongue can never reach?”

Something strange rose

On an unknown horizon

And crept into sight.

It took form as creation

In the pupils of the seeing eyes.

Words build the theatre

With emotions playing the role

Of actor. They reach

The hearts of people

Giving them strength and joy.

On each bough and each

Twig, a different kind

Of flower. The origin is one

But the names are many.

You and I are the source.

Names must name something

To have the stamp of the real.

(Seeing and Creating)

In another instance he mentions poetry as place of violence in creative endeavour, violence here means ‘the power to destroy in order to purify’. Purify? I haven’t really got that one!! He does however strive to show the need for objectivity in art. “Leave my suffering and my delights to me. But I will give you the poetry of my pain, the melody of my mirth. And if your heart melts at the strains like sugar-crystals, will you not permit me to taste its sweetness?” That surely is quite a charming take.

Some of his poems translated from Kannada…

The Evening

The face of the sky was bitten pink by the queen of colours,

Then it was evening.

Near the edge of land, the cloak of mist had fallen

carelessly, And was now and then rising with the wind.

The quarter moon, like a chogachi flower, ha slowly

opened. There was silver above.

The stars like jasmine flowers

Were scattered in the hair of the night.

The round, big eyed girl with a big belly

Was returning home with her pot of water.

The path to the well, like a small kitten

Was following her, tangling her feet and falling behind.

The cool rain wind was stealthily playing with her saree

And out of fear, often, would let it go.

A parrot from a heart was following in the shadow,

And was unaware of what it was doing.

This poem The Bird of Time has become my favourite…

The Bird of Time

The Bird of Time is winging, winging.

Above, around, below,

By leagues and leagues, with leaps and bounds,

In the twinkle of an eye,