Chennaveera Kanavi (1928-2022), one of the most widely read and critically acclaimed modern Kannada poets, passed away in Dharwad on Wednesday, leaving behind seven decades of poetic work. The poet in him was as much a product of Dharwad literary culture as his love for writing poetry. He was Nadoja, an honour conferred upon him in memory of the first Kannada poet Pampa, who is described as Nadoja ‘someone who belongs to all nadu (places)’.Kanavi was born on June 28, 1928 in Hombala, a village in the Gadag region of north Karnataka. Before he came to Dharwad to study, he inherited the intellectual concerns from his father Sakkareppa, a school teacher, who used to recite tatva pada (philosophical songs) and mystic poems of saints like Sarpabhushana Shivayogi and Nijaguna Shivayogi to the boy Chennaveera. Native folklore and cultural practices also left an imprint on the future poet.When he came to Dharwad, Kanavi stayed at Prasada Nilaya (Boarding) of the Murugha Matha Lingayat monastery. The intellectual activities of the Matha introduced to him Kannada scholars and Hindustani musicians like Mallikarjun Mansur. It was here that Kanavi was drawn to 12th-century vacanas and pre-modern poets like Harihara and Raghavanka. His mind had imbibed the Kannada poetic traditions.Kanavi’s formation took place in Dharwad, which produced half of the Kannada Jnanpith awardees including Da.Ra. Bendre, V.K. Gokak, Girish Karnad and Chandrashekhar Kambar. While he was doing his BA in Karnatak College and MA at Karnatak University during the early ’50s, Dharwad was already a literary town. In north Karnataka, colonial modernity had instituted educational and cultural institutions, besides the print culture. The modern Kannada literary culture, pioneered by Shanta Kavi, had come of age with a great poet like Da.Ra. Bendre and his Geleyara Gumpu (Friends’ Circle). As Kanavi’s friend and literary critic G.S. Amur observes in his preface to Kanavi Samagra Kavya (Complete Works of Kanavi) (2003) he was a real successor to the poetic tradition constituted by Bendre and his friends. When Kanavi in his early 20s published his first collection of poetry, Kavyakshi (1949), Bendre wrote a preface and encouraged Kanavi’s poetic growth throughout.The literary system in Dharwad was conducive to younger poets and writers like Kanavi. In Karnatak College, he was in the company of litterateurs and erudite critics like Kirtinath Kurtakoti and Shankar Mokashi Punekar. As a passionate lover of kavya, he started ‘Kavyanubhava Mantapa’, an informal association for reciting poems and exchanging ideas. Both Bendre and Gokak participated in the meetings.Also read: Akbar Ilahabadi to Akbar Prayagraji, and a Ghazal Worth Returning ToFurther, Kanavi involved himself in literary activities and published poems in the magazines of his time. Inspired by the autobiographical poems of Bendre and Madurachenna, another leading poet of Geleyara Gumpu, he wrote an autobiographical poem Bhavajeevi (1950). Some parts of the long poem appeared in Betageri Krishna Sharma’s Jayanthi, a leading journal of the Navodaya period.However, after his studies, Kanavi was appointed secretary to the publication wing of Karnatak University’s extension activities, and later became the director of Prasaranga. Unlike most writers of his generation, he could not become a teacher, though he wanted to. Two towering figures of the period, Bendre and Gokak, were teachers and the former was known as Bendre ‘maasthar’ (teacher-master). Kanavi’s socialisation as a teacher could have added a different dimension to his writerly self.What is interesting about Kanavi’s seven-decade-long literary journey was his commitment to the genre of poetry. He did not dabble with playwriting or fiction, but he encouraged his better half, Shantadevi Kanavi, to write short stories. He continued to write poetry during all phases – starting from the beginning of modern Kannada poetry, known as Navodaya (Renaissance), through Pragathisheela (Progressive Movement) to Navya (Modernist) and Post-Navya periods of Kannada literature. Therefore, he was hailed as ‘Samanvaya Kavi’, a synthesiser of all trends. Though he did not like the cliche, he genuinely responded to these literary trends. But his commitment was to good poetry, not any literary ideology. His remarkable achievement was his ability to retain his distinct voice, coming out of the anxiety of influences.Kanavi’s oeuvre consists of 18 collections of poetry, and they deal with varied themes: nature, love, friendship, children, people, places, democracy to mention a few. But they are all contemporaneous. Therefore, there is a temporal dimension to his musings, and some of his poems may be read as conversations with time; to quote one example, “If I could catch hold of the animal called time, I would have thrashed it.”His poetry, according to Kirtinath Kurtakoti, is highly personal and descriptive. In his ‘Nambike’ (Belief), Kanavi writes, “My faith is like the sky/Real but without a foundation./ However tall I grow/ I can never reach it/It is always out there/I have never touched it (…).” His nature poems testify to the beauty and eloquence of his poetic descriptions. He has painted unforgettable portraits of contemporary writers in his sonnets. He was indeed a sonneteer par excellence.Also read: Verse Affairs: The Heart’s GimmicksKanavi’s worldview is that of a humanist. He was a keen observer of life, and turned everything beautiful around him into poetry, though at times he could express his despair while documenting the world in his words. For example, in one of the poems, he writes, “The wicked can be wiped out, that is fine/But where are the good ones?” He did not take himself to the street as a political activist, but his poetry responded to the political events of his time including the communal virus. He opposed the Emergency and was jailed during the Gokak Agitation, a movement in defence of Kannada. His lines such as “Karnataka is born, let Kannada be its breath…” marshalled the movement.When the world is becoming prosaic, there are several takeaways for us in the life of this poet. He was a conscientious writer who cared for the craft of writing poetry. Poesy for him was a techne, in the Greek sense of the term. He was methodic and meticulous in the choice of diction and syntax as much as in his daily routine, which he imbibed from his father and his stay at Murugha Matha. He would never attempt anything without thorough preparation. Above all, as Bendre identified it in his preface to Kanavi’s collection Nela Mugilu (1965), he had imbibed in himself the ‘Dharwad Tatva’ – ’vinaya’, an ability to absorb the best from all sources.Chennaveera Kanavi is popularly known as Chembelakina Kavi (Poet of Beautiful Light) as his residence is called Chembelaku and light is a recurrent image in his poetry. He died on February 16, the day of Bharata Hunnime, the full-moon light. The scientific truth may not agree with it, but it is a poetic truth.N.S. Gundur is a professor of English at Tumkur University.
