Kotinganahalli Ramaiah
Image credit – youtube.com

Whose should write songs for this age?
The song breathes elsewhere
Words don't get along for a song, 
There will be no poem.
There will be no protest song for this time, this age.
Till, we are clear about our protest.

I met Kotiganahalli Ramaiah on a couple of occasions at the Terahalli Betta, with friends and musicians, where I was introduced to his cave of writings, his prolific imagination and commitment to children's theatre. We (maraa, a media and arts collective) invited several of his students to perform at independent music concerts organised in different public gatherings and protests. We believe in resistance music and have been trying to identify its roots, its trajectory and politics through conversations with different protest singers in India, since 2015. What came about was the formation of a collective with artists and performers called, Relaa, a democratic front for cultural resistance. We learnt of Ramaiah's enormous contribution to the women's movement, the Dalit movement and other social movements led by people. He wrote songs based on what he experienced in the protests and were geared towards building a collective consciousness in an unequal and casteist society that we live in. He recently turned to poetry because he can recite them on his own. When I saw his first published book of poetry, I felt angry with myself for not being able to read it with the flow of the language, but I felt it was necessary that these poems travel - as songs, political imaginations and translations. He was writing furiously, to combat the insidious strategies of the State and the ruling party, in a climate where it was an offence to protest. We invited him to launch Bevaru, a newspaper, on women workers' in the city. Only those who do physical labour, sweat.  Shortly after, in 2019, we heard that his writings were burned down due to a short circuit at home. For a writer who writes with pen and paper, to lose his writings in an unexpected fire - is tragic. The visual resurfaced in my dreams several times, where I saw different reactions of an imaginary writer - laughter, tears, anger, acceptance, desperation to save what is lost. What we lose tangibly, can only be retrieved in memory.

Listening to Ramaiah's poetry, one can feel the words pierce through perception and prejudice. It has the quality of breaking and forming simultaneously - a constant movement and flow. In its very essence, his poetry is ablaze, protesting tradition, feudalism and untouchability. 

In my dream, I met him several years later, where he showed me what escaped the fire. Could there be clues for us there for the future? Sentences from one poem, punctuations from another, missing words - could there be something afresh waiting to be born from what  the remains? A vision for the future?

One year later, we went down to meet him in the Betta, where he lives. A window overlooking the Dargah, the mesh on it half burnt, heaps of books, papers and diaries, empty pens, an open book, smell of handwriting and a large bin full of beedis. He is writing furiously. His frown has gotten deeper. His bass voice resonates  with echoes of  generations, alive and dead. Three full dairies of revisions to cope with the disease of our times. His form meanders from poetry to songs to floating concepts to pedagogy.

"At an age, when cremation rituals have changed, when we cannot gather at  funerals, when protests appear distant, when untouchability becomes more visible, when the worker appears migrant,  the same songs will not work. We will have to write new songs, rewrite old songs or find ways of contemporising old writings, songs, poems. Remember the time when revolutionary songs were made into item songs, Bhakti songs! We will have to sing protest songs like item songs, like devotional songs. At an age when protest is dead, what space do protest songs have? What is the meaning of putting words together into songs, into poems - who is listening?" 

When Sambhaji Bhagat, a renowned protest musician from Maharashtra, waited for the audience applause after his performance, he reminded them that "this is not entertainment. Don't ask me to sing the next song, think about what you heard." I remember, when we spoke to several protest musicians, they said, sometimes the movement also uses us as fillers, as entertainers, someone who can break the monotony of men who deliver long speeches. We dreamt of space where the protest song could exist for itself, as a clear articulation of political vision and imagination. But who is listening, is still the question?

Ramaiah has been writing 'protest songs' for the last 40 years. I wanted to be a poet but became a songwriter. The movement demanded that of me. "I could write songs between protests, I could find  connections between them." 

"I stopped writing protest songs in 2010. Songs had the potential to travel to the farthest ears. The songs were born from my struggle and I had faith that my songs would speak to people. I worked in Mandya, Mysore, Bijapur and Kolar. I felt the songs could raise questions, awareness and belief in people, that things can change one day. My songs could be performed on the street, for people who faced oppression on an everyday basis, because of their caste, occupation, religion or gender. These songs were about the pain that people are experiencing. To write songs, one has to have a sense of where one lives - I absorbed the environment that I lived in, in a world of suicides, murders and unaccounted deaths. I search for reasons that lead me to a deeper search for words to remember. I search from what I learnt from ideologues like Ambedkar, from nomads whose ways of life are outside the market, from folktales and proverbs, from women whose wisdom is unheard, from students who show us how to know. I search for words to point the ironies from what I learnt from them in light of where we live. I search for words next door, in the next gully, above my roof, below my feet and in the air. I search as far as the azaan travels. I search for words in language I do not know, I search for words  in the sound of language, I search for words in incomprehensible silences scattered after gruesome acts of violence. When my songs failed, I started writing poems. I feel it helps me clarify continuities between the past and the present, besides,  reciting my poems is something I can do "

We shared a quiet cup of black tea.

Ramaiah's window looks out to Usman Thatha's Dargah, a place for many pilgrims who come up the hill to see their wishes fulfilled. It was Friday, 1:30 pm, the voice cracked through the loudspeaker of commitment to morals, scriptures and ethics to overcome difficulties. To me, this loud voice seemed to convince the pilgrims out of sheer desperation, not to falter with their faith in god, for there is no escape from death. We heard the discourse about a pure river; surrendering to the Prophet; and crossing obstacles to make it to the banks of the river. We had to wait till the loud delivery was complete. After a few beedis and a long silence, I asked him if he understood Urdu. He smiled and said, "Not a word, but I sense the intention, the purpose, the conviction of the orator. It is an art, to convince your listener about what is being said. Words have the power of piercing deep, especially when a fascist Government is in power." 

Ramaiah shared how the most crucial and urgent action is with children. Perhaps, the protest finds its way to a Government school classroom, where morals are injected, prejudices are born, where imagination is killed. He shared pedagogical ideas, where he pointed erasures in existing literature. "Why is Shiva in Kailasha and not the Smashana (cemetery)? Why is Shiva not seen not eating meat? Brahminical ideas are seeded in the classroom, where children grow up with the notions of purity and filth. They have to be nipped in the bud, else they sediment further and grow like wild creepers, impossible to untangle, after a certain age. New texts have to be written to subvert cultures from within, where children don't lose sight of their 'nelagurthu' (recognition of the land through what it signifies, for lack of a better word in English, landmarks). Landmarks carry the strongest retention of memory for any individual. Even if landmarks disappear, the memory of it stays, in the body, and in language. Against any propaganda that is further infiltrated, landmarks will stand as a strong counterpoint. The relationship between aesthetics and poetics is critical for children to understand at an early age.

Aesthetics is a long, never ending journey that we rediscover at different stages in our lives. Essentially, it is an inward journey to a point where the past, present and future collide where it allows for radical transformation in a collective consciousness, Historians will have to take stock of what they cut and kill from textbooks. There is a deliberate and conscious effort to systematically present ideas of equality, secularism, sovereignty within a casteist, patriarchal society. We need to focus on scarcity, that which the likes of which have never seen before, in order that it imprints itself on memory. I had never seen peacocks before, but when I went to class three, I saw two painted peacocks at the doors of my classroom. For some reason that image sticks with me much more than any other peacock that I  have seen subsequently. Words begin with the alphabet and meanings associated with alphabets  stick for eternity. This is where change needs to begin, at the heart of de-politicization. A need not be for Apple, apples are alien to us.  Instead it can be A for ant and anthill, where children can imagine the journey of ants around a spectacular structure such as the anthill. B can be for bats which are the only mammals that can fly for any length of time, so that one can imagine the possibility of flight. B can also be for boat, so that one can see the whole environment where a boat can be afloat, water, wind, labour etc.; Where the entire ecosystem of a boat is seen afloat. I have built the alphabet in this manner, so that children can absorb landscapes and imagination while learning the alphabet. Imagine songs coming from here, they will be sung and heard, in  everyday life, let alone at protests. We will need to set our focus right, on the next two elections. And we need to prepare the next generation of deciding voters" After working with several movements over the years, Ramaiah's turn to theatre in education is significant, where he pushes the boundaries of imagination, with his plays, songs and stories.

After 30 years, a child artist recently wrote a letter to Ramaiah telling him how he finally understood Ratnapaksi, a children's story written by Ramaiah, which has been adopted and performed extensively in schools. His student shared that he realised the story had so many layers to it, and it continues to resurface in his life. The Ratnapakshi story is a metaphor of a tranformative economy, where wealth is discovered in its baseist form. And stories contain with themselves, seeds of survival. This is protest. 

Ramaiah's rigour in crafting dialects makes his writing unique and timeless. I observed that in Ramaiah's songs and poems that all dialects of Kannada are interwoven smoothly to reveal the heterogeneity of the language. "There is no one Kannada, there are a hundred Kannadas. Spoken, heard and preserved inside us. In everyday life, you are likely to hear these dialects commonly. My poems borrow from this flow of language, in everyday life. I can bring in Uttar Kannada, Mangluru, Kolar dialects, into one song, so different listeners can connect but also are estranged at the same time. However, in the structure of the poem I maintain flow, rhythm and tone. The language should speak to this time.  I learnt it from Kailasam, who amalgamated languages from his environment so seamlessly, by retaining its beauty and simultaneously exploring all its dimensions. Only when a language is uttered out loud, one can recognise all its contours and complexities. Imagine if Kailasam was alive today, he would have been the most radical writer. A poet can be a dangerous revolutionary."

While we were talking about this, he reminisced about two songs he wrote during the Shaheen Bagh protests; one about the fruit seller and the other about a flower seller. He turned to Narayanswamy, who has been working closely with Ramaiah for over a decade. Ramaiah asked him to sing a few verses of the song and Narayanswamy said he could not remember the verses. The song was lost and no one knew where it could be found. "I am a songwriter, I write the song and give it to the singer. It is their responsibility of the singers to memorise it, sing it; not lose and forget it," he said angrily.

There is an attack on memory. My duty as a songwriter and a poet is to shake people out of their memory lapse. To rejuvenate what is lost, to remember what we lost as a collective, to recollect that which was stolen and what destroyed our imagination - this is resistance, to fight the amnesia, a disease that needs urgent attention.

When I asked him, which language should songs and poems be written in? Who should be reading them? He said, "songs need to speak to this time, this age. We have to move with what the generation wants to hear."  What about rap, I asked? "Yes, I have heard rap, I appreciate their experiments, but somehow I feel it does not speak to the common man. People will find it difficult to memorise rap. It may be in protest that they rap, but the performance is limiting because it is not everyone's song. Also, there is no clarity in our protests. We need to work closely with the deciding voters in the next two elections. Hence, in my alphabet series, there is V for vote, not van or something apolitical. Children can easily understand the concept of vote, and even better the concept of sovereignty."  

I regret not learning Kannada as my first language. When I look at my bookshelf, I regret that there are not books in many languages. The tragedy is that much of Ramaiah's songs and poems are not translated into English. And part of it, may have to do with the fact that his wisdom cannot be translated easily, in another language.  In a recent song, written by Ramaiah, he welcomes us all to the hill, to Anataragange, where Usman Thatha's Dargah is adjacent to the poet's modest house. Narayanswamy, is proud of being his only student and has sung most of his songs and poems. For a concert, we at maraa organised, called Here to Stay, we invited Narayanswamy to sing some of his new compositions of Ramaiah's poems. He opened with an invitation to us all, by saying we are surrounded by nature, birds and animals, that we have missed looking at. Welcome to the betta.

Swagatha, Suswagatha, ye charane priyare swagatha
Swagatha, Suswagatha, ye charane priyare swagatha 
Betta mele, yel ooru, yel orral ondaluru
Betta mele, yel ooru, yel orral ondaluru 
Deepa belegade maneanthe
Kavita katheleya Mane Marante

The essence of the song is an invitation to anyone and everyone to come and witness to inhabit a place consciously. He is surrounded by a landscape that has deep crevices and everyday mysteries. He speaks of seven villages on top of the hill. And describes his house, as a home devoid of light, but is illuminated by the shadow of poetry. The third village is the village of Kuppalli, resounding with the beat of tamte drummers. The seeds of Adima (a theatre school) sprout here. He describes the Dargah and how people have shared rituals, festivals and practices even though they are from  different castes and faiths. It is the home of the snake goddess. Kolaramma is here. He describes the local history, colours and climates with ease and playful rhythm, because where we live is where history begins. Antaragange flows within. Come, but come without polythene and plastic. Don't break the bottles you drink from.

Ramaiah's poems and songs are not didactic, but everyday questions appear in them. He gestures to practices that  have been suppressed and travel from afar. His metaphors are relatable and accessible, and convey the lived experience and cruelty of untouchability. Ramaiah writes in lament, in anger, with empathy and in deep contemplation. His philosophical questions stay with the listener and resonate, beyond real time, so that we may wonder.

An excerpt from one of his famous poems, hat has been translated by Tejaswini Niranjana, published in Steel Nibs Are Sprouting: New Dalit Writing from South India (2013), The Story Footwear Tell, reveals a radical possibility of defying history as a moment fixed in time. "There is no strict rule that feet should always be on the move. 

Maybe they will move on or they will not. 
Maybe they will move forward or backward. 
History is generous and will not fault them, 
even when feet are unmoving."

The poem asks us to find a time when feet can be worshipped without journeys, without history's long journeys. Ramaiah's utopias imagine new beginnings, fresh starts with a sense of strong memory. We hope to find ways to decipher his writings to search for 'scarcity', not that which is already saturated. In scarcity, we could recover lost and forgotten verses; in the obscure and strange, we may find new forms of protest. Meanwhile, may he continue to write furiously.