P oems do not change with the passage of time. But the modes of perception and interpretation of poetry change with the expansion of the reader’s internal world and when reading communities of varied socio-cultural background comes into the picture.
Quite often, intellectual and ideological perceptions, add new dimensions to our reading, they could even take us away from genuine merits of poetry. The practice of summarising or evaluating a text, solely based on the authenticity of sensory details is flawed, because even great writers are confined within the walls of personal experience.
Their imagination too is partly controlled by that spectrum, yet, they thrive to achieve universality. They eschew details that are alien to them for the fear of sounding artificial.
These theoretical musings are relevant in the context of evaluating ‘Mysoora Mallige’ (1942), the first collection of poems by K.S. Narasimhaswamy, (1915) one of the most enduring poets of modern Kannada. This endearing bunch of love poems has been a perennial favorite ever since its publication, 75 years ago. For a long time, his fame rested solely on this collection and his poetry at large was marginalized both by the votaries of his love poetry and its detractors. Literary critics of succeeding generations have changed their approach and they have focused on other aspects of K.S.N.’s poetry.
However, the reading public and listeners lured by ‘Sugama Sangeetha’, had ears only for the songs culled from this collection. This situation prevailed as long as the poet and his readers belonged to the same echelons of society. There is a noticeable decline of its admirers during the last three decades.
Light music played a crucial role in bringing back poetry to oral/musical tradition. Many poems of ‘Mysoora Mallige’ achieved overnight fame because of great composers and singers. Great poets were recognized more because of their song-poems rather than non-musical poems.
Even medieval Kannada poetry and folk poetry were absorbed by the society in similar modes. The popularity of ‘Mysoora Mallige’ was a direct consequence of this phenomenon.
However, this collection has many other attributes that making it enduring. It’s interesting to note that a film and a stage production based on the life and times of Narasimhaswamy are named ‘Mysoora Mallige.’
In a particular sense, ‘Mysoora Mallige’ held a mirror to the dreams and aspirations of a generation in the cultural history of modern Karnataka. It’s not a re- construction of reality. In addition to this, it gives appropriate shapes to the emotional and sentimental longings that invade youthful hearts of all times, by making use of experiences and linguistic tools that were available to the poet. The characters that inhabit these poems hail from lower middle class families as well as the agrarian communities that were familiar to the poet.
Narasimhaswamy made a conscious attempt to portray the romantic features of rural and semi-urban communities from the vantage point of a young man with an exposure to modern education. His admiration for Robert Burns the Scottish poet becomes relevant in this context. Everyone, but the protagonist and his beloved is a mere visitor to this cocooned universe. It is a land of milk and honey. Sadness is a passing phase and pain is caused only by temporary separation.
‘Mysoora Mallige’ is a single stringed instrument, particularly in the context of the great love poems of Bendre. But this is its distinctive feature, rather than its limitation.
Ultimately, the genesis, communication and selection of experiences in literature are rooted in societal realities, in a state of flux. A close scrutiny of the poems in ‘Mysoora Mallige’, usually described as ‘a-social’ and ‘sugar-coated’ substantiates this premise. It’s a portrayal of Indian families under the sway of western influences. K.V.Subbanna puts it succinctly: “The poems of Narasimhaswamy contain the politics of east-west confrontation. Our life-styles, man-woman relationship and domestic life underwent a change after the advent of western culture. These poems depict the consequent modifications.”
Of course, the experiences depicted in ‘Mysoora Mallige’ are exclusively male-centered. The female point of view is either muted or male-constructed. However, the woman is treated as an equal even though her role as a home-maker is not altered.
This collection is a combination of love poems within and without the comfort zone of wedlock.
These poems have little to do with folklore in their content and form. The language is closer to the urbanized Kannada of the lower middle class Brahmins. However, this dialect is capable of expressing the dreams and disillusions of the society at large. Narasimhaswamy has focused consistently on the travails of the common man and he has developed a subaltern world-view. This collection contains the seeds of his later poetry which is a monument for the perseverance and fortitude of human beings.
The themes and characters in “Mysoora Mallige’ are revisited in his succeeding collections. They are accompanied by a world-view which is more mature and complex.
The woman has now become a symbol of mother earth and the poet takes pride in projecting himself as her successor and in rejecting the uncaring father-principle.
‘Mysoora Mallige’ has long ceased to be the nucleus around which Narasimhaswamy’s poetry was read and evaluated. This is as it should be. However, it has carved a niche for itself as a manifestation of a particular phase in the life of every human being. It is the first step in a long and fruitful journey undertaken by one of the major poets of Kannada.
