In his work on translation, George Steiner takes up the example of Shakespeare’s play, Othello . “Why is your speech so faint?” Desdemona asks Othello, and this moment in the play, is the first instance of their shaken trust. Steiner says that Shakespeare’s awareness of the “unvoiced intent” in language was unfailing, and he was sensitive to its two-fold motion. Steiner further says that as we grew closer to other men and women, we begin to “hear in” the altered cadence, intonation and speed of that which is said, thereby understanding the ‘true movement of the articulated’. Which is, we begin to hear that which is unsaid. This is not just how we negotiate through speech in the real world, but it is also how we understand the arts — literature, music, dance, and theatre.
Vachana — which actually means a promise or that which is said — is a literary genre in Kannada written in verse form. They are not exactly poetic in the sense of metre and rhyme etc, but are short compositions which take a leap from the social to the ethical and spiritual. Just as Kannada films have made use of novels, poems and short stories, they have incorporated the verses of the vachanakaras into several films: while some films are centred around the historical figures from the vachana movement itself —for instance, Jagajyoti Basaveshwara (1959) to Allama (2017).
In the masterpiece of a film Kittur Chennamma (1961), T.G. Lingappa composes Akka Mahadevi’s vachana “Tanu Karagadavaralli” (B. Sarojadevi as Chennamma), immortalised by P. Susheela’s superb rendition. If you listen to the song a couple of times the meaning slowly begins to open up. You understand that Akka seeks a real self which lives beyond the ritual of bhakthi. But how does Lingappa draw our attention to the twin territories of meaning that this song traverses in? Without impoverishing the lyrics, how does he achieve it? The song is set to Puriya Dhanashree, a Hindustani raga. It opens with a short exposition of the raga, and the instrument in conversation with the singer is the veena: you notice that both these have very strong Carnatic music inclination. As the song proceeds, everything from the way it is articulated to the way the stresses are structured – it has a Carnatic expression, except that the percussion instrument is tabla. Even the pace of the song defies the nature of Puriya Dhanashree, which tends towards a slowness. This, according to me, is a process of reversal, or perhaps the twin motion of music – where the obvious markers don’t entirely form its intrinsic meaning. Even in this grand confrontation of styles, Lingappa creates a profound, coherent experience of introspection. This to me is a great example of what Steiner says in translation theory – grasping the “unvoiced intent”. Meanings therefore lie beyond the tangible.
Curiously, one can see some similarities in Jagajyoti Basaveshwara that released two years earlier than Kittur Chennamma . G.K. Venkatesh also uses Hindustani ragas (Jogiya, Kedar etc.), but articulated completely in the Carnatic mode by Honnappa Bhagavatar (“Madakeya Maduvage”). He deploys the Kanda Padya style of rendition: in this mode the lyrics of the vachana are emphatic, for a stage artiste like Honnappa Bhagavatar it gives the freedom for extempore improvisations, and most importantly, it plays up the inherent drama of these verses by which the listener can make a leap from the literal meanings.
In both these cases it is clear that the composer’s vision emerged from the vision of the poet. The nature of the composer’s music meet the thought of the poet, hence, sensibility and representation establishes a cohesive image. Philosophy says that such a phenomenon occurs only in a moment of surprise or awe, which later on becomes admiration and responsibility: this is the true nature of sublime.
Kannada films have been continuously using vachanas. Let us take the more recent examples of Kallarali Hoovagi (2006) and Allama (2017). “Akka Kelavva Naanonda Kanasa Kande” (rendered by Nandita), leaves you speechless, literally, you have no words to express how the music distorts meaning. It is not so much the multiple idioms of music that it throws in, but its complete lack of direction. The self-indulgent song is so much in love with its own self, that it is blind to the thought or aspiration of the vachana. This is true of the vachanas in the film Allama as well — overdressed, yet so bald. The music has no sense of the mystic poet Allama Prabhu’s works and is so synthetic that it is glib.
This journey of music to meaning and vice-versa perhaps brings us to two conclusions: it is a Babel tower situation, and we need to put together our act of translation all over again. We have to bring back that Desdemona who could feel the “faint voice” of Othello. Two, music is inextricably connected with the idea of the sublime. A glossy exterior can never be substitute for the soul.
Rousseau believed that a human being’s interest in music was because he could feel the presence of other similar human beings through it. It offered a connection and glimpse of a moral community. The vachana literature is one of resistance, where thought and action were equally privileged -- the antaranga and bahiranga as they called it. As we increasingly begin to live in our own narcissistic selves, the voice of the poet or his social-ethical sublime is no longer heard. We are dressed as someone else, and so is our music.
Inner Voice is a fortnightly column of film music.
