தினச்செய்தி 6 2 2023 பக்கம் எண் : 4
செங்கோல் ஏந்திய செம்மொழிச் சிகரம் – 90
கலைஞரைப் போற்றிய ஆங்கில நடைச்சித்திரம்
– முனைவர் ஔவை நடராசன்
மேனாள் துணைவேந்தர்,
தமிழ்ப் பல்கலைக்கழகம்.
ஓராண்டு காலம், கருமுத்து தியாகராசர் தொடங்கிய தமிழ்நாடு என்ற நாளிதழ் அலுவலகத்துக்குச் சென்றுவரத் தொடங்கினேன்.
தமிழ்நாடு நாளிதழின் ஆசிரியராக அப்போது இருந்தவர் திருவாசகமணி கே.எம். பாலசுப்பிரமணியம்.
பல நிலைகளில் திருவாசகமணியைப் போல இருக்க வேண்டும் என்ற ஆர்வம் எனக்கு வந்ததுண்டு.
திருவாசகமணி, எப்போதும் ஆங்கில நூல்களைப் படிப்பார், அவர் ஆங்கிலத்தைத் தேன் போல் பேசுவார்.
ஒருவரைப் பற்றிய அறிமுக உரை, அவர்களைப் பற்றிய நடைச்சித்திரம் என்று சொன்னால், அவ்வளவு அழகாக எழுதுவார்.
அவ்வகையில் முத்தமிழறிஞரைப் பற்றி திருவாசகமணி கே.எம். பாலசுப்பிரமணியம் ஆங்கிலத்தில் எழுதிய நடைச்சித்திரம் பின்வருமாறு:
He is as near perfection as a mortal man can be, exclaimed Alfred Tennyson about Henry Hallam while they were in College.
Intellectually at least, this is equally applicable to our ingenious Chief Minister, Mr Karunanidhi.
I have no doubt that the verdict of history too will be the same.
Karunanidhi is like Shakespeare, a myriad-minded genius and an intellectual miracle.
William Hazlitt remarks in his essay on “The Ignorance of the Learned” as follows:
“I have always been of opinion that one who has passed through the regular gradations of a classical education and has not been made a fool by it has had a narrow escape”.
Our Chief Minister has escaped such a danger.
For he too, like Shakespeare is a born genius whose mighty intellect and myriad-phased mind had never stood in need of the pedagogic pruning and prodding to enable him to measure the world and master it completely,
“He is so naturally learned that he never needs the spectacles of the books in a college to read nature; he looks inward and finds it there”
. In the words of Emerson, Karunanidhi’s mind has not been “subdued by the drill (and dull notes) of a college education.”
Therefore, in the case of Karunanidhi as in the case of Shakespeare, “those who accuse him to have wanted learning give him the greater commendation.”
Karunanidhi is a rare phenomenon and a rarer miracle in modern India, not only in Tamilnadu.
He is an intellectual giant and a cultural Cupid who strides the modern world with a majestic mien and a dazzling dynamism which are at once the admiration of all and the envy of many.
His political apprenticeship under the late-lamented Arignar Anna has chiselled, chastened and shaped the very rare and variegated talents with which Karunanidhi was blessed byGod at his birth.
As Macaulay said of Byron, it may be said in the case of Karunanidhi also, that every fairy and angel was summoned to his cradle and asked to bless him with every gift and talent it could give.
So much so it can be asserted today that in modern Indian politics there is nobody equal to our Chief Minister with regard to his rich and rare gamut of bright and bewildering talents.
What Whipple says is apt and correct.
“Genius is not a single power but a combination of greater powers”.
Karunanidhi is the master of a genius which has the free and harmonious play of all the faculties of a human being”.
He is, therefore, a Doctor by birth, a Doctor of poetry, a Doctor of oratory, a Doctor of prose, a Doctor of Journalism, a Doctor of cine–story, a Doctor of dialogue writing, a Doctor of electioneering a Doctor of administration, a Doctor of fund collection, a Doctor of party organising, a Doctor of fine arts and a Doctor of human psychology, all in one.
He is therefore a Marvellous Doctor like the encyclopaedic Roger Bacon, the Franck Friar of Oxford and a Universal Doctor like St. Augustine of England.
Dr. M. Karunanidhi is one of the handsomest persons in the modern political world.
He is our Apollo Belvedere. His height and his gait, his lips and his teeth, his nose and his eyes as well as his mid-parted hair with its bright and curved forelocks balanced on his forehead, and his well-trimmed, aesthetic moustaches high-lighting his manliness constitute a picture of grandeur and charm, which is rare indeed.
He is usually cool and calm, smiling and cheerful but is stern and serious when necessary.
A generous and genial person though he is, revelations of his granite and determined soul are not altogether rare.
He is a man of action.
Dr. KARUNANIDHI AS A POET
“Poetry is the eldest sister of all arts and parent of most” says Congreve.
Poetry and politics are strange bedfellows but Karunanidhi has made a balanced and harmonious blending of both in himself He is not an artificial, labouring and plodding versifier of the type which is only too common in Tamil Nadu today.
He seems to be a poet to the manner born with a natural and inherent aptitude and appetite for spontaneous and soulful poetical effusion.
Well could he echo the famous couplet sung by Alexander Pope:
“As yet a child nor yet a fool to fame,
I lisped in numbers for the numbers came.”
Of course, he is not a cultivated and polished diamond but fresh from the ore with its fragrance and smell.
With his characteristic frankness he himself has confessed to the lack of any knowledge of the correct rules of grammar and the complexities of prosody.
But he is not ashamed of it at all.
He is a pragmatic poet of great power and effect.
This fierce and flood-like lava of the fiery and burning poems gushing forth from the virulent volcano of his valuable tongue destroys all that is deadly, poisonous, mean, superstitious and dirty in our modern society.
The major portion of his manly poetry is a mighty piece of propaganda, sweet and spicy, subtle and sumptuous.
All through his poems lie strewn and scattered his admirable words and picturesque phrases which are at once vital and varied, virulent and valuable like diamonds and rubies, pearls and corals, and sapphires and emeralds.
His poetic pieces as much as his prose writings and creations are suffused with a humour which is subtle yet brittle, saturated with satires which are sharp and devastating, littered with insinuations which are lively yet lawful, paved with pleasant puns which are ingenious and inimitable and above all, punctuated with anecdotes which elicit peals of laughter!
Again, his innate genius for rhyming is inimitable.
The irrepressible and spontaneous response of his artistic soul to all that is aesthetic and sublime has been responsible for many overflowing pieces of poetry enshrining the charms of nature.
Neither Theocritus nor Ariosto had a finer or a more healthful sense of the pleasantness of the external object or loved better to luxuriate amidst sun-beams and flowers, the songs and nightingales, the juice of summer fruits and the coolness of shady fountains.
Nooks and dells beautiful as fairyland are embosomed in his poetry’s most rugged and gigantic elevations.
The roses and myrtles bloom unchilled on the verge of the avalanche”.
Hence in his last tour of the United States, he got inspired by the sight of a landscape of thrilling natural beauty and a poem of felicitous emotions burst forth from him spontaneously on the spot, which was however, enjoyed and appreciated in its English translation by his American friends.
“A poet is the translator of the silent language of Nature to the world”.
Karunanidhi’s poetry could be as fluent, fine and felicitous as it is also fiery and fierce.
We are transported with joy and hilarity when we could listen to the recitation of his lively poems by his own self.
Dr. Karunanidhi once declared: “If after the success of my demand for State autonomy someone should ask me as to what reward I would like to have, I would reply:
“I want a poet who sings in my glorious Tamil.”
What an amazing passion for his angelic Tamil to protect which he has sought incarceration on innumerable occasions.
No wonder the World Organisation of poets has awarded and honoured him with the title of the greatest living poet today.
This is a unique recognition of our Tamil as a world language and a son of Tamilnadu as a World Poet.
May we therefore echo the words of Bulwar Lytton in reference to our Kalaignar too :
“It is strange so great a statesman should be so sublime a poet.”
தொடர்புக்கு: “thamizhavvai@gmail.com
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