WHO IS POET, THE PRAJAPATI?
-Akkitham Achyuthan Nambudiri
-Akkitham Achyuthan Nambudiri
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Why I write? Of course, I require money. Without which none can survive. At present I don’t have it abundantly. When I was a boy it was beyond my care. My father was there to see to it. But now, it is not like that. I have to maintain my family myself. I work with all my senses and limbs for fulfillment of my duties. Thus from the friction of my activities poetry springs up. It is here that I take my pen and the spark within me takes the form of words. Imagine for a moment that I became affluent. Would I then continue the habit of writing? Or would I drop it? I cannot reply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ on the spur of the moment. Why? Money is need. If I wrote, I can have it more and more. I know it very well. Still sometimes I feel that I cannot compose even a single line. If I had been capable of writing sufficient number of poems according to the dictates of my will, my new house at Kumaranallur, my native village, should not have been incomplete even after 15 years of the commencement of its construction. And Mr. M.R.B would not have referred to its incompleteness in one of his essays years back published in Mathrubhumi. |
I shall try to explain my point in some other way, suppose my children are watering the arecanut trees of my humble garden. Water is led through muddy channels to the root of each tree with the help of a spade. When I visit my country house occasionally I observe it. This sight fills me with pleasure and pain at the same time. Punning to the spot I take the spade in hand and do the manual work for sometime myself. Sometimes the intense emotion in me pleasure or pain I do not know- drives me to my table to sit and writes a poem. And alas, many such attempts wore utter failures. But once in a blue moon I had succeeded also. But in my attempt to irrigate the arecanut trees, I had never failed, although I am not a professional farmer.
What does this mean? To me wielding a pen is not always so easy as wielding a spade: I s it not the fact? But it is true that I handle spades perhaps once in three or four months. On the other hand I handle pen hundreds times a day. In certain years on Mahanavami Day too I was forced to write with a pen. The only difference is that on Mahanavami day I handle a pen with a special prayer, “Oh, Sarawati, Please pardon me”
The instrument In the form of a pen is too familiar to me. Still , If I take it deliberately to write a poem, the result is a failure. Several are such occasions. What does it mean? Pen is not always submissive to me as spade is. But to the self residing in me pen is an instrument always submissive.
This contradiction I have felt throughout my life. If this is the situation, how can I promise to you that I would certainly write poetry in future? Here what is possible is one thing – to investigate if I had been writing anything when I was not bothered about money.
The reply is ‘Yes’, I had been more enthusiastically writing poetry in those days. Therefore in the present juncture I can , If I really want to , say that I would be writing more poetry in case I become relieved, from monetary botherations.
Now, the problems become more complicated. How? The fact that material or financial freedom made me write more effectively proves that I was then writing only for some unknown faculty, which has no connection with material or economic situations. How can I have unknown?
Someone may be inclined to say that this is all sophistry or words-play. Because, I who did never deliver a child may perhaps be imagining that women can do it easily. I can’t understand labour pain and delivering mother’s desperation. But women admit that they are not delivering children deliberately. No mother would dare to say either on particular moment she can conceive or on a particular moment she can deliver. This fact is generally appreciated by me also. But some people who have never produced a poem do believe that poets can do it as and when required. Is there not a contradiction in this? Suppose the contradiction reflects in poet’s statements themselves? What then? I refer to the writes who promise to produce movies and sagas within a prescribed period.
“This is the era of artificial insemination, Sir: “ You can say, “ Tomorrow the world be full of test tube babies. When you are capable of swallowing a pill and immediately experiencing the sexual pleasure, the old inconvenience of marrying one another for ever will here after not exist”. May be you are correct. I am not against. I have not neglected and will not neglect all these possibilities. But I say and will say one thing for ever. None of my poems hitherto composed are born out of mere willingness, convenience, control and necessity. Each was born and then perfected in a way which was an embarrassment to myself.
This is the point in short. My skill, if it is mine, in composing poetry is not always under my control. All my willpower, inspiration, balance, everything else are real. But those are not the ultimate causes. I have always been feeling that some wisdom do exist behind or beyond all these powers. That is why I say that I cannot be proud that I was is or will be the final authority of my poetry. This I have felt always. That power which does not obey my will, the will to act or not to act do work even when I am asleep and sometimes I wake up, enter my study, switch on light and leaning on the table traces the lines from memory. This is not a fantasy but a fact. Having the experience of such occasions, I cannot say that my ego is the solo factor responsible for my poetry, I tell you frankly that I am not the root cause for my poetry , but somebody with me, some spirit, which becomes bright only when itself wants to be bright. May be it is one or many, I cannot exactly say.
However, I have had thoughts about it. Who is that somebody within me? Here I remember after one minute’s pause, a sentence by William Faulkner, He wrote “An artist is driven by demons” . Is this not an indication that Faulkner also had a feeling equivalent to that of mine that he was not the root cause of his creative talent but some spirit or spirits hidden in him? Alright, but I cannot swallow his statement ‘without a pinch of salt. The word he wrote was ‘demons’. I believe that the force residing within an artist’s inner world is not many, but one. However, that single force may contain different phases or different shades. I agree to this. Further, I believe that this single force cannot be described as ‘Demons’, but it is God himself. Maybe an artistic creation could be conducted when one’s self is inhabited by a demon or several demons. But I believe it will never be great, supreme, absolute art if it is influenced by demon and no such a piece of art will endure through centuries. Only the God’s presence in art will be able to make itself exist or extended to distant regions of time and space, I believe.
Could this humble comprehension of mine be proved with an example? You may ask. I don’t pretend that it could be . I don’t know, whether William Shakespeare was b all means a great individual or not. How far Oscar Wild was an ideal personality? You may raise such questions. I don’t think that such questions can be easily answered. But I happen to remember at this moment the story that Kalidasa did cut the branch of a tree on which he himself was sitting and that he became Kalidasa only after he became a devotee of Kali and gradually her Dasa. However, if I stick to the principle that great art will be born from a great man only, that is absurd. I am not a master or a seer of all the under currents of this phenomenon of worldly existence. If I stick to my limited experience I may fail. Because reasoning is being practiced by individual. Every individual is different from others having his or her own limitations. Every brain, every one’s ego is only a small particle of the great, eternal fullness.
Why it is so? Question may again come up. I say frankly that I don’t know. But one thing I can tell you. I never assimilated the idea that this universe exists on more reasoning. I never felt that reasoning is the only thing under the sun real or true. Faith also is an important fact, a fact as hard as the earth under my feet. Beings, particularly humans do love their parents not because of their reasoning power. Though in the analytic stage faith and reason are differing or warring forces, they are practically not so. Is it not a truth that nobody knows whichever parts in human constitution do contain the elements, mind and soul? That is what I indicated when I said that I am not responsible for my writing but somebody else residing in me is responsible for it. To what extent, I am or the ego in me is responsible for the imaginative but really fundamental force is very very doubtful. Because I think it is fullness. To have a conception of the fullness by a mortal or partial or incomplete faculty itself is inconceivable.
If this is so, now could I say that the unknown power residing within me is definitely single? How could I say that it is not demons, but God himself? It is here the entity of inner self, my faith, my sense of reaon incites me. This visible universe is indivisible. What exists here is the one thing, the self within me. He is something born from mere goodness. But from the material point of view he can’t be dissected into good and bad. Though he is beyond materials point of view, ultimately he is the Good. The ‘Sat’. He himself is Ananda, the bliss. It is the voice of this Sat-Chidananda what Kahlil Gibran described as this, “ To my spirit a lover’s sigh is more soothing than the music of a lyre.” If we plant him deep within us, we are sure to be capable of projecting our personality higher and brighter; why? The fight within us between good and bad, the friction, produce fire, as it is born from the friction of churning of Arani. If that fire is preserved in coconut fibre it will exist, could be made flames according to necessity. I don’t know, how far beneficial is the struggle to keep poetry in the form of mere spark.
Here, after writing pages and pages I discover, even now I have not been able to explain why do I write. But I don’t consider this as a serious failure. I am incapable of not only explaining this, but also why I was born. Or why the cycle of karma does exist. I can’t but stare at that question now and then. When I stare at it I am willing to be pure or to purify myself. When I try to do it I do experience some extreme pleasure and some extreme sorrow. Such extreme emotions are being transformed into images and designs. Sometimes atleast I happen t think like this, it is this context that I doubt, why should I hesitate to state that I am writing to find out myself. To what extent it might be harmful? ‘KOHAM’? ( Kah Aham?)
Yes, Let me humbly recast the saintly saying;
Apare kavya samsare
Koham eva Prajapatih?
And when I am in quest of myself, what happens, if I discover that I am nil but there is one thing which is a mixture of he, you and me, but which is absolutely different from he, you and me? Can’t I say that I am in quest of that Poornabrahma?
“Now therefore inquisitiveness for Brahma” ( Atha Atah Brahmajijnasa) says “ Brahmasutra”. Does this contain the explanation why I write poetry also? This deserves to be seriously pendered upon. The word ‘now’ and the word ‘therefore’ are usually notated as man grown above to the nature of beast and as he is in that higher pedestal. If so, why poetry is not the outcome of that quest of human faculty?
What does this mean? To me wielding a pen is not always so easy as wielding a spade: I s it not the fact? But it is true that I handle spades perhaps once in three or four months. On the other hand I handle pen hundreds times a day. In certain years on Mahanavami Day too I was forced to write with a pen. The only difference is that on Mahanavami day I handle a pen with a special prayer, “Oh, Sarawati, Please pardon me”
The instrument In the form of a pen is too familiar to me. Still , If I take it deliberately to write a poem, the result is a failure. Several are such occasions. What does it mean? Pen is not always submissive to me as spade is. But to the self residing in me pen is an instrument always submissive.
This contradiction I have felt throughout my life. If this is the situation, how can I promise to you that I would certainly write poetry in future? Here what is possible is one thing – to investigate if I had been writing anything when I was not bothered about money.
The reply is ‘Yes’, I had been more enthusiastically writing poetry in those days. Therefore in the present juncture I can , If I really want to , say that I would be writing more poetry in case I become relieved, from monetary botherations.
Now, the problems become more complicated. How? The fact that material or financial freedom made me write more effectively proves that I was then writing only for some unknown faculty, which has no connection with material or economic situations. How can I have unknown?
Someone may be inclined to say that this is all sophistry or words-play. Because, I who did never deliver a child may perhaps be imagining that women can do it easily. I can’t understand labour pain and delivering mother’s desperation. But women admit that they are not delivering children deliberately. No mother would dare to say either on particular moment she can conceive or on a particular moment she can deliver. This fact is generally appreciated by me also. But some people who have never produced a poem do believe that poets can do it as and when required. Is there not a contradiction in this? Suppose the contradiction reflects in poet’s statements themselves? What then? I refer to the writes who promise to produce movies and sagas within a prescribed period.
“This is the era of artificial insemination, Sir: “ You can say, “ Tomorrow the world be full of test tube babies. When you are capable of swallowing a pill and immediately experiencing the sexual pleasure, the old inconvenience of marrying one another for ever will here after not exist”. May be you are correct. I am not against. I have not neglected and will not neglect all these possibilities. But I say and will say one thing for ever. None of my poems hitherto composed are born out of mere willingness, convenience, control and necessity. Each was born and then perfected in a way which was an embarrassment to myself.
This is the point in short. My skill, if it is mine, in composing poetry is not always under my control. All my willpower, inspiration, balance, everything else are real. But those are not the ultimate causes. I have always been feeling that some wisdom do exist behind or beyond all these powers. That is why I say that I cannot be proud that I was is or will be the final authority of my poetry. This I have felt always. That power which does not obey my will, the will to act or not to act do work even when I am asleep and sometimes I wake up, enter my study, switch on light and leaning on the table traces the lines from memory. This is not a fantasy but a fact. Having the experience of such occasions, I cannot say that my ego is the solo factor responsible for my poetry, I tell you frankly that I am not the root cause for my poetry , but somebody with me, some spirit, which becomes bright only when itself wants to be bright. May be it is one or many, I cannot exactly say.
However, I have had thoughts about it. Who is that somebody within me? Here I remember after one minute’s pause, a sentence by William Faulkner, He wrote “An artist is driven by demons” . Is this not an indication that Faulkner also had a feeling equivalent to that of mine that he was not the root cause of his creative talent but some spirit or spirits hidden in him? Alright, but I cannot swallow his statement ‘without a pinch of salt. The word he wrote was ‘demons’. I believe that the force residing within an artist’s inner world is not many, but one. However, that single force may contain different phases or different shades. I agree to this. Further, I believe that this single force cannot be described as ‘Demons’, but it is God himself. Maybe an artistic creation could be conducted when one’s self is inhabited by a demon or several demons. But I believe it will never be great, supreme, absolute art if it is influenced by demon and no such a piece of art will endure through centuries. Only the God’s presence in art will be able to make itself exist or extended to distant regions of time and space, I believe.
Could this humble comprehension of mine be proved with an example? You may ask. I don’t pretend that it could be . I don’t know, whether William Shakespeare was b all means a great individual or not. How far Oscar Wild was an ideal personality? You may raise such questions. I don’t think that such questions can be easily answered. But I happen to remember at this moment the story that Kalidasa did cut the branch of a tree on which he himself was sitting and that he became Kalidasa only after he became a devotee of Kali and gradually her Dasa. However, if I stick to the principle that great art will be born from a great man only, that is absurd. I am not a master or a seer of all the under currents of this phenomenon of worldly existence. If I stick to my limited experience I may fail. Because reasoning is being practiced by individual. Every individual is different from others having his or her own limitations. Every brain, every one’s ego is only a small particle of the great, eternal fullness.
Why it is so? Question may again come up. I say frankly that I don’t know. But one thing I can tell you. I never assimilated the idea that this universe exists on more reasoning. I never felt that reasoning is the only thing under the sun real or true. Faith also is an important fact, a fact as hard as the earth under my feet. Beings, particularly humans do love their parents not because of their reasoning power. Though in the analytic stage faith and reason are differing or warring forces, they are practically not so. Is it not a truth that nobody knows whichever parts in human constitution do contain the elements, mind and soul? That is what I indicated when I said that I am not responsible for my writing but somebody else residing in me is responsible for it. To what extent, I am or the ego in me is responsible for the imaginative but really fundamental force is very very doubtful. Because I think it is fullness. To have a conception of the fullness by a mortal or partial or incomplete faculty itself is inconceivable.
If this is so, now could I say that the unknown power residing within me is definitely single? How could I say that it is not demons, but God himself? It is here the entity of inner self, my faith, my sense of reaon incites me. This visible universe is indivisible. What exists here is the one thing, the self within me. He is something born from mere goodness. But from the material point of view he can’t be dissected into good and bad. Though he is beyond materials point of view, ultimately he is the Good. The ‘Sat’. He himself is Ananda, the bliss. It is the voice of this Sat-Chidananda what Kahlil Gibran described as this, “ To my spirit a lover’s sigh is more soothing than the music of a lyre.” If we plant him deep within us, we are sure to be capable of projecting our personality higher and brighter; why? The fight within us between good and bad, the friction, produce fire, as it is born from the friction of churning of Arani. If that fire is preserved in coconut fibre it will exist, could be made flames according to necessity. I don’t know, how far beneficial is the struggle to keep poetry in the form of mere spark.
Here, after writing pages and pages I discover, even now I have not been able to explain why do I write. But I don’t consider this as a serious failure. I am incapable of not only explaining this, but also why I was born. Or why the cycle of karma does exist. I can’t but stare at that question now and then. When I stare at it I am willing to be pure or to purify myself. When I try to do it I do experience some extreme pleasure and some extreme sorrow. Such extreme emotions are being transformed into images and designs. Sometimes atleast I happen t think like this, it is this context that I doubt, why should I hesitate to state that I am writing to find out myself. To what extent it might be harmful? ‘KOHAM’? ( Kah Aham?)
Yes, Let me humbly recast the saintly saying;
Apare kavya samsare
Koham eva Prajapatih?
And when I am in quest of myself, what happens, if I discover that I am nil but there is one thing which is a mixture of he, you and me, but which is absolutely different from he, you and me? Can’t I say that I am in quest of that Poornabrahma?
“Now therefore inquisitiveness for Brahma” ( Atha Atah Brahmajijnasa) says “ Brahmasutra”. Does this contain the explanation why I write poetry also? This deserves to be seriously pendered upon. The word ‘now’ and the word ‘therefore’ are usually notated as man grown above to the nature of beast and as he is in that higher pedestal. If so, why poetry is not the outcome of that quest of human faculty?