Before It Rains Again by Mudnakodu Chinnaswamy
Liverpool, U. K. : erbacce-press
Poet-playwright-essayist Dr. Mudnakudu Chinnaswamy needs no introduction to Kannada readers. With six collections of poetry and 30 works in all to his credit, he has been discussed widely, his poems have been anthologized, and his poetry-readings in Karnataka and abroad have fascinated varied audiences. Rowena Hill also is well-known to Kannada readers as she studied in Mysore University for a few years and has translated medieval Bhakti poetry (
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Though the poems in the collection deal with different themes such as relationships, religious bigotry and nature of poetry, the major part of them deals with Dalit experience, as Mudnakudu confesses: “It is inescapable for a Dalit writer to write about his people and the life he has lived.”
Pampa, the first epic poet of the 10th century, stated movingly: “ manushyajati tanonde valam” (‘Decidedly, human beings are one’); and after Pampa, many other poets, the great Vachanakaras of the 12th century, and the poet-devotees of the dasa cult have repeatedly condemned the caste-hierarchy of Hindu society and the resultant suffering of the ‘lower’ castes, especially Dalits.
After Independence, the Indian constitution also has forbidden any kind of discrimination on the grounds of caste, religion and sex. It is a sad commentary on the Hindu society that still Dalits and those belonging to ‘lower’ castes continue to suffer. It is this unjust suffering, inscribed in the Hindu society, that forms the major concern of Mudnakudu.
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However, what is specially to be noticed in Mudnakudu’s poems based on Dalit experience is that he doesn’t scream from rooftops or preach condescendingly. On the other hand, for his powerful means of communication, he depends on such tropes as irony, innuendo, inversion, sarcasm, and allusion. Consequently, as Keki N. Daruwalla notes in the blurb, Chinnaswamy’s poems “hit the reader in the gut.” We can consider a few instances of the way irony and innuendo work dramatically in his poems.
One of the most anthologised poems of Mudnakudu is “If I Were a Tree.”
Through brilliant irony, this poem points out that whereas trees and plants, birds and beasts, rain and heat do not discriminate between man and man, it is only the human being (supposedly the most intelligent specie) who discriminates on the basis of caste and class: “ If I were a tree / the bird wouldn’t ask / before it built its nest / what caste I am. / When sunlight embraced me / my shadow wouldn’t feel defiled. . . .” The poem “Sandals And I” utilizes both irony and inversion to register the heartless treatment meted out to Dalits; though all are supposed to be ‘God’s children’ Dalits are denied entry into temples: “ When I go to the temple / I don’t leave my sandals outside. / I stay outside myself.” Similarly, many other poems register the pathos of Dalit-life in India: rain is life-giving and life-sustaining, but the same rain makes the Dalits homeless destroying their poor huts (“Before It Rains Again”); a Dalit has to toil throughout his life – for others (“Written On My Forehead”); the agony and anguish of a dalit who has to spend his entire life cleaning others’ filth (“Filthy State”); etc. In fact, truly a Dalit in Hindu society can say echoing Shylock, ‘Suffering is the badge of our tribe.’
In the post-independence India, Dalit-poetry and Dalit-autobiographies are drawing attention of the reading public here and abroad. However, Anand raises a very piquant question in his monograph T ouchable Tales : just as the readers find Dalit literature ‘touchable,’ do they also treat the writers as ‘touchables’? The implied answer is ‘no.’ Mudnakudu asks in despair: “ Is there no end / to this filthy state?” We can only hope against hopes that sooner than later, this ‘filthy state’ is going to end.