The Atrophy of the Hyperbole

A Srinivas Rao                                                         

12-11-2019

I must state that this post is to examine whether this group is still breathing or as some millennial might state have migrated to more "happening” pastures. I thought I might post something that is not an obituary or memoriam and usher in the light through the self-wrapped drapery. I thought i might remark about the atrophy of language in our times.

I am I must admit quite alarmed by the overuse of words like Amazing, Cool, Absolutely, Humongous, Awesome, and other such words that underwhelm the language skills of some of us though this is not strictly with the millennial generation is more alarming by generations twice removed too. I can almost wince at how my teachers at school, who would box my ears with such careless usage. I was often accused of being pretentious if not pedantic in my use of words depending on which teacher admonished me for attracting their attention deliberately at times. I am sure most of them might swoon if not spin in their graves (for most of them were convent Christians) if they heard modern English usage among the great unwashed in WhatsApp English. I know I am inviting opprobrium by sounding elitist in an inverted way. It is as though these words are meant to exaggerate the idea, event, object, accomplishment or person in a manner that flatters but eventually means nothing; a language characterising nihilism. It is not even that this is an evolving usage of the language that adapts and flexes according to occasion. Some of these words don't even fit into context of the usage and yet are thrown liberally in the face of people to demonstrate belonging to some "in-group" that is possibly a fictional if not an imagined community of the "cool" id not callow and callous too.  

Consider the usage of awesome, a most annoying word now that was supposed to mean the quality of inspiring awe, quite like what Moses felt when beholding the burning bush or that of the Prophet when crushed by Gabriel uttered the word "iqra", or even what Arjuna might have felt when beholding the Vishwaroopa. But we can’t watch a spectacle in a mall and call it awesome! That renders pedestrian the whole idea of awe. It is not that the thesaurus provides less synonyms for the word but then wisdom is discrimination in usage. Words have shades of meaning, and resonate when used appropriately. Akin to awesome is the usage of the word amazing. That which never ceases to cause wonder. Adbhuta in the vernacular (I curl my lip when I find some using the term “vernac’ by the same ‘crowd' to indicate those who might have poor English language skills). This is like heaping insult to injury for being one who is so linguistically challenged that notwithstanding an absence of self-awareness compounds it with elitist disdain. There is a vacuity in linguistic imagination in casually using Amazing as equivalent of “nice”. “There is this amazing place you must visit…or that’s an amazing outfit on that amazing girl. Can you imagine the lyrics of the hymn “Amazing Grace” and substitute it for nice grace! How come we are so linguistically impoverished with the dictionary and thesaurus on our fingertips but with gutterspeak on WhatsApp?

Another word is the use of absolutely for all the wrong reasons. Any common assertion can’t be absolute. The absolute in real terms means the ultimate truth. It is the final graveyard of philosophers quibbling on the nature of reality if not truth. It is Brahman, it is "I am that I am" of Yehowah, it is the Mahashunya, the great void of the Buddhist defined in the obverse. Are you going to the party tonight, Absolutely!!! I can see Socrates throwing his cup of hemlock at the person crying he doesn't want to die, forget unexamined life but unexamined language? I remember a quaint but interesting question by a student who asked that if the Jains don't have a concept of absolute in their philosophic categories does it influence the nature of their art?! Wow! That’s a brilliant question. While the teacher sputtered and looked for easy answers the Jains did produce some outstanding small scale metal works that used negative space (just a simple empty cut out of a Keval Jnani in ‘Kayotsarga’ pose) as an obverse of the absolute. That is absolutely amazing!!! Fortunately the usage of the word humongous has declined. Rarely have I seen people use it in the right sense. In most cases it is used as synonymous with amazing or tremendous though its real use pertains to enormous magnitude or of a monstrous size. The first time I heard it a decade or so ago I felt small for not being a part of my little lexicon, it was only upon looking it up I realized my folly.

Alternatively the usage of words like traction, bandwidth, etc have only betrayed that our usage of language is more cabalistic and not individualistic though the proponents of this American slang betray their need to belong to some imagined community of callow but cool membership. Individualism in language must weigh its words not necessarily against gravity but in terms of discovering one’s own idiom. That is not a usage of language like “distressed jeans” deliberately warped to reflect an absent individualism. I recollect an insightful though debatable point made by Fr Valson Thampu the ex-Principal of St Stephen’s that wearing distressed jeans mocks poverty as an inversion, thereby banning them at school (I generally disagree with him on many other things but this).

In India we have had a considerably sophisticated theory of language that puts many a literary theorist to shame today. Apart from the notion that the word nd its meaning are inextricably intertwined in an eternal embrace; it also maintains that words have three levels of meaning. The first is the denotative or "abidha", the second is that it is metaphorical "lakshana", and third that it is suggestive "vyanjana". meaning emerges when there is resonance across levels that is the nature of language and the apposite usage of words. Even with speech the Indian idea is that unuttered speech rests in equilibrium in the recesses of the heart and is "paraa' then it stirs and gives rise to an urge that is noticeable "pashyanti", then it gives a middling thought that becomes choate, and finally explodes as speech "vaikhari". 

I know that some would comment that I am lamenting the loss of not nuance but indicating that I belong to a generation on the lip of senility in making much ado of convention. I believe that I am lamenting the contamination of the commonplace with hyperbole and insisting that the world is so drearily unremarkable that unless highlighted by hyperbole and exaggeration it might slip through our fingers to reveal our own bankruptcy if not absence of the emperor’s robes. But this is reducing the figurative in language to a hypobole if there were a word like that. Else lets invent fun words as synonyms for groovy without excavating an older usage and bedeck them in distressed jeans.

 A Melody in Search of a Lyric

Kayao Shri Gowri Karuna Lahari

I would not qualify as Bhadralok not least because I am not Bengali and whose drive to be among its ranks is at times Pickwickean, I am not really "cultured" enough. Just that I am neither fan of its tongue nor of Robindro Sangeet and have at times begrudged the apotheosis of its great poet Tagore. I remember arguing with Prof Prabodh Parekh, an expert on Rabindranath Tagore at a lecture on aesthetics as to why it seemed that everything that Tagore did was so inestimable and addressed with such reverence, including painting that I did not see as much merit in. He countered whether I expected a deconstruction or a "Derrida" of Tagore. I held my tongue consoling myself that probably the genius of Tagore was accessible only through his poetry and not though any other means including music. When Kushwant Singh suggested that Bengal doesn't read or study Tagore but worships him there was a riot. It is my understanding however limited that the brouhaha created by Shanti Niketan over the apparent plagiarism of the a melody "Tomar holo shuru, amar holo shara" (a beautiful lyric and melody too, a Western one) was ironic given the many melodies Tagore picked up not just in India but in Europe and elsewhere to immortalize his poetry through song enroute to becoming a prophet for his people and Gurudev to the rest of us. Of course when Tagore did it he was merely inspired, as indeed he was, and one must hasten that one cannot retrospectively apply our present day values to what happened a century or more ago. 

This piece is just a small tickle in the ribs to one such melody. This is just a playful observations and I have no intention to rile up the Bengali gentry. The British seized Mysore in 1831 on grounds on misgovernence and deposed its King Krishna Raja Wodeyar III. The Wodeyars lobbied at London and though Krishna Raja III died in 1868; succeeded in returning the throne to his adopted son Jaya Chamarajendra Wodeyar X in the Rendition 1881 who ruled until 1894. While creating the office of the Dewan C Ranga Charlu he also commissioned a State Anthem. This was the famous lyric "Kayao Shri Gowri Karuna Lahari" composed by Basavappa Shastry the court poet was well set to Carnatic paddhati. The simple lyric and melody was set to Dheera Shankarabharanam raaga with its equivalent in Hindustani as Bilawal. When heard with its gamakas it seems so quintessentially Carnatic. The lyric is constant with its last verse modified with each ruler. The lyric also served as a morning prayer at schools in Mysore state for many years. 

Click on the link below to listen to the official version of the lyric and melody. 

https://youtu.be/co1jIQvj_b8

In 1893 Sarla Devi the neice of Gurudev Tagore was at Mysore and picked up some melodies that struck her as likely to meet the approval of Tagore to set his poems to music.  According to an archive of Rabindra Sangeet "Gitabitan.com" she remarked ".. I had come up with a unique bouquet of music when I had been to Mysore. There seemed no respite till I could unload my basket under Rabi-mama's feet. He would gleefully pick up one at a time and own them with his own set of lyrics. 'Anandaloke mongolaloke ...' is a song the tune of which I had come up with.

The Carnatic gamakas were removed and straight notes replaced them and adorned the puja lyric of :Ananadoloke mongalaloke" a magnificent prayer song the Lord penned by Gurudev. Classified as Rag Jhijhit Mahisuri Bhajan in ektaal (though the pace can be sometimes tediously slow). Like "Kayao.." this too became a popular prayer song sung at schools and elsewhere. The lyrics almost sound like Sanksrit and has barely inhibited their immediate meaning. When Tagore visited Mysore in 1919 at the invitation of Sir Albion Bannerjee the first counsellor under Dewan M Kantharaj Urs he heard the original Kayao as the State Anthem. 

Listen to this version by Debabrata Biswas in his silky voice this is an unedited compilation Anandoloke ( 6.28 min to 10.48 mins). 

https://youtu.be/8E9yP9TosCc?t=372

Not only was this displacement of a melody from Dheera Shankarabharanam raaga from Mysore to Calcutta but the melody continued its journey further. At the turn of the 19th century the Brahma Samaj and as indeed several leaders trying to reform the Hindu way of life. Swami Vivekananda too was toying with the idea of how to 'virilise" what was considered the passivity and effeminate strain in the national psyche. One idea that the Brahma Samaj attempted was to contain the messy diversity of faith and practice of Hindus to make them akin to the monotheistic traditions of the Abrahamic faiths who claimed One God, One Book and One Church (not really). In its pursuit the Brahma Samaj selectively chose hymns and verses from the Vedas and other sacred texts that highlighted the impersonal Transcendent God. One such mantra was taken from the Rig Veda (X.191) exhorting men and women to unite under a common aspiration; and Tagore chose the same Mahisuri Bhajan raag to set this to music in taal Dadra "Sangachhadhwam Samwadaadhwam". The result was little short of success if not disastrous as the meter did not lend itself effortlessly and resorted to artifice to get back to its starting point as anyone who has sung the mantra (itself clumsily edited) to "Anandoloke" will point out. The point that the Rik was already metrical was overlooked and its original sonorous chant was really trampled upon. I am no purist but the idea of the mantra as an oral sound cathedral almost 3500 years of uninterrupted chant was reduced to just another "Ananondoloke". Roberto Colasso the Italian scholar echoed the Shatapatha Brahmana "Meters are cattle of the Gods" highlighting that the form of the poetry was as critical as the content in the mantra and inseparable. Indeed as scholars down the centuries emphasized that the union of form and content are as singular as the word and its meaning, Shiva and Uma. In a final twist, I discovered that the RSS too adds this mantra to its repertoire albeit also not faithful to the original chant but possibly as anthem to a collective consciousness among its faithful. 

This version is by the Ramakrishna Mission

https://youtu.be/ZF21YkreS1Y?t=18

"Kayao Shri Gowri Karuna Lahari, Toyajakshi Shankarishwari" Thou great Goddess, lotus eyes, wave of compassion and consort of Shankara" 

May we find commonality in our differences and a common melody in our disparate lyrics.