SriSri’s Surrealist Poetic Puzzle
"కాకి కేమి తెలుసు సైకోఎనాలిసిస్
ఆటవెలది ద్విపద కత్తగారు
5,3,2, ఆముక్తమాల్యద -"
"kaaki kEmi telusu saikOenaalisis/aaTaveladi dvipada kattagaaru/5,3,2, aamuktamaalyada -"
O Lord of Seven Hills, what is the meaning of this? Even if we break our heads, it is difficult to fathom its essence. It is not proper (scholarly unbecoming) merely to brush it aside as “just a meaningless little rhyme”. Surrealist poetry is like that, its style. Yet, even if we contemplate very strenuously, even if we think very deeply, we may not decipher it. It’s baffling.
What is the essential point in this poem? What is the puzzle (1) here?…. Who is this great poet? Who else? “This century is mine” – so he said , so he declared with a thump on his thigh, Mahakavi Srirangam Srinivasarao (2). By joining the first letters of his surname and his name, he coined the pseudonym: “Sri Sri”. Thus evolved a most meaningful, rhyming, poet-stalwart. Who else but he, could pen such surreal poems? Of course, people also say Narayana Babu also too wrote surrealistic poetry.
What is surrealism? We know its goal (i.e., to baffle the reader, hold him captive, and grab his attention. Make the reader stop in his tracks!), but what is its quality? SriSri explained its quality with an example. If we read it, we would go a bit crazy, become perplexed.
"జీబ్రాకు, Algebra చిహ్నాల
లాంకోటు, పాంకోళ్ళు తొడిగి
సాహిత్య పౌరోహిత్యం యిస్తే
వెర్రికాదు, Sur-Realism రా సోదరా!"
If we get (grab) a zebra
Drape it in a long (trench) coat with algebra symbols
Put him on wooded sandals
And bestow priesthood, of literature
It is not crazy, but surrealism, dear brother!
This definition makes us all stupefied, dumbstruck. [Translator’s addendum: Among Telugu community a common disparaging remark is – 'అడ్డగాడిద'. “You are an upright donkey with two feet”. Quite likely, SriSri may have such an epithet(s) in his mind while composing this poem. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, deep in his sub consciousness, he had this vivid image; he must have encountered such a situation. After all he worked at the All India Radio, also he had a stint at a newspaper. So, he must have crossed paths with such a person. A totally incompetent nincompoop, dressed in a suit, given a big title (like director, editor, managing director, program director) and was put in charge of a key literary/journalism program. Perhaps, such a person has acquired lots of formal degrees, like B.A., M.A., from a university. What a havoc on Telugu literature and culture, it would create? How can a gifted artist, poet, scholar work under such oppressive pitiable conditions? Perhaps, these are the underlying factors, colorful images that prompted SriSri to compose this poem. Of course, on the face of it, the whole thing looks a bit unrealistic, surrealistic. A dream scenario. But that is the beauty of it. There is enormous humor embedded in the little poem, but only very few readers can grasp it! We must also remember here one more important factual detail: SriSri was a student of zoology. Zebras are a sort of (hybrid) cousins of asses and horses!]
In (Dr. C. N. R.) Narayana Reddy’s “Modern Telugu Poetry: Traditions and Experiments” (doctoral thesis), we find a reference to this poetic puzzle. Dr. Reddy’s comment is like this: “Because Amukta Malyada is a rather tough mature literary work (prabandham), he wanted to poke fun at it by using those numerals, 5,3,2. Perhaps.” Thus C.N.R. too left the riddle as an unsolved poem, he gave us no convincing answer. On top of it, Dr. Reddy tried to ascribe his own opinion to SriSri by saying, “SriSri wanted to say – irrelevance (out of context), meaninglessness, and jugglery of sound are the characteristics of surrealism, surrealist poetry”. One may portray surrealism (poetry) as absurd poetry, but it is not proper to say such poetry as meaningless. In any type of poetry, there will be some shrewdness, but it will only be one of the factors. Just a part; meaning – shrewdness alone cannot determine what is poetry and what is not. Here, in this context, we have to discuss one very pertinent incident related to our poet.
I think, during the sixties (1960’s), the very famous literary critic, late, Sripada Gopalakrishnamurty wrote a long essay on “Modern Telugu literature” in “Bharati” magazine. It went on for months, that review article. In that essay, he praised “Mahaprasthanam”. While paying tribute, Sripada said of SriSri, “in later years somehow the poet lost his talent, as a consequence, he started playing rhyming games with miscellaneous poems.” As an example, the critic offered this –
తురాయి కంటె
ఆకురాయి కంటె
కీచురాయి కంటె
హిమాంశురాయి (3) గొప్పవాడు
“Greater than a turayi
Greater than a file
Greater than a cricket
Is Himanshu Roy – the greatest (4)
Copyright by the author 2014, except the original cited Telugu poems.
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