Let's Relax Now - No Warning Bells!

Like Kamla, I am tempted to call you Sridharsir. The supplementary post was so profound, every word weighed deep and dear. From one eloquent line in Bhratahiar, you have been inspired to write so much into human psychology. Thereby inspiring us into becoming better humans. I read this post once with all my head alert and then once with my heart open, and now can almost recite it. It was so potent. I am your first critic Varalotti, and would hate to become a cloying fan. But of late, your posts are vying with each other to teach us simple and sombre home truths. Thanks for that. May you and yours be blessed.

Dear Sridhar,

I liked the 2 poems you have posted ...like you had written, they are purely meditative in form....and your second post on small talk was really more interesting....i too believe that these things take away so much of our energy!
I also liked your thoughts when you visited Mr. Krishnapremi and the observations and what he said later ! very profound.....
Here i remember my friend from college who would visit me and we would sit together for hours ...but in silence...my mom would pass by every now and then and later would ask me, did we have a fight , was that why we were so quiet?....but this friend was one of the kind who would read books of the likes Richard Bach at that time and we felt it was waste of time to talk...but our silence would have communicated a lot between us....

And this what Meena has quoted too...

Krishnapremi's silence reminds me of the quote, " IN THE END, WE WILL NOT REMEMBER THE WORDS OF THE ENEMIES BUT THE SILENCE OF OUR FRIENDS".

Your post on Bharati has inspired such deep thoughts in all of us, ..i am wondering how it is going to be when you start dealing with raw emotions in your forthcoming post ....well maybe we will all surprise ourselves, or learn from each other.....well lets wait and watch!

Varalotti,

After imparting unto us the quality of listening, you have given to us something worth listening, worth reciting, worth memorising and something worth repeating. And above all you have given us something that we cannot criticise or even comment upon.

Honestly Varalotti I also liked your supplemental post as well.
And I love the way you have been frightening the ladies about your next post. Well, I am eagerly waiting for it, with my heart and my pen open.

Sriranjani

Nice to know that you are a fan of Bharatiyar and that you are happy to read these poems.
regards,
sridhar

Hi Krishnamma,
thanks for the kind words. Yes the next post is going to be really, really heavy. As I was finalising the first draft around midnight yesterday, I felt very heavy and could not sleep for a long, long time.
A warning to all ladies, be prepared. Those who do not have enough courage to look deep into their own minds (the sight is frightening), please stay away.
sridhar

Seena,
Books on the history of Tamil literature mark out Bharati's period as a kind of watershed. Before Bharathi you needed a Tamil Professor to explain the poetry. With Bharathi it is simple, straighforward, easy to understand but very difficult to appreciate the depth of the meaning.
I am happier still to know that you have picked the best possible lines of the second poem as your favourite.
regards,
sridhar

The entire credit goes to the "meesai kavignan", Bharati. His words are so powerful that the translation almost wrote itself.
sridhar

Dear Vidya,
With a poet like Bharatiyar, it is enough if you have an open mind to enjoy his great, simple words. Once you do it, once you let his words enter your mind and do their work, all the rest like a good translation or even a good lecture on the subject matter of the poem, are quite incidental. You do not have to strain yourself for that.

Even a normally dull man, if he falls in love with a beautiful girl, then the girls presence is enough for him to become a poet. In this case Bharatiyars poem played the role of beautiful girl for this dull man to come up with a good translation. Thats the crux of it.

All your words of praise should go to my Tamil teachers in school and college who first recited this poem when I was in an impressionable age and made it an inseparable part of my being.

The entire poem collection was entitled "Yoga Siddhi". The poems quoted above did not have any titles. I gave them titles for easy understanding and better appreciation.

Surely will consider your request to post more of Bharati's poems, especially on Parasakthi and the glory of womanhood.

Thanks once again,
sridhar

Dear Vandhana,
No post of mine is complete without your short, cryptic and sweet comments. As you have rightly said, these poems of Bharathi are meant to be drunk, not in a gulp as drunkards do, but sip by sip as connoisseurs do, all the time maintaining the golden silence.
regards,
sridhar

Well to be very frank Kamla, my knowledge about Bharatiyars poetry is only slightly less frugal than you. Tamil has better nuances compared to English. This does not come from my bigotry. But my living experience with these two languages. Language gets its beauty and subtle nuances only over long periods of usage. In that way Tamil has a seniority of a few thousand years over English.
As I already stated Bharatiyar started a new Saga in the history of Tamil literature. He wrote poems which an ordinary man could understand and appreciate. He did not write for bearded intellectuals. He wrote for us, those who are trapped in our daily lives. If the translation was good, the inspiration was from the great poet.

The incident with Krishnapremi was what I experienced first hand. I hate the so called Godmen who are chatterboxes wasting their energies on pointless small talk. Krishnapremis energy is conserved and manifests itself beautifully when he elucidates Bhagavatham.

And finally Kamla Madam, one small request. If posts like these are going to add a Sir to my name, then I may have to seriously think of toning down the content. Whatever I say and write, I shall always remain "sridhar" (no need even to capitalise s) to you and all the ILites.
regards,
sridhar