6. Why had the batsman begun to detach himself
Answers
Explanation:
BENGALURU: Cricket-inspired poetry has spawned many a verse but none as memorable as Kannada poet Lakshman Rao’s contemplative ode to Gundappa Viswanath, who Made his Cricket Debut 50 years ago.
Cricket fans may have read Alan Ross extolling in verse Richie Benaud, and how leg-spinners “pose problems much like love”. And, of course, Arthur Conan Doyle’s 20-stanza account of how he once got the wicket of the grand old WG Grace.
Yet if there’s been a truly literary work about a cricketer, Kannada poet B R Lakshman Rao’s “Gundappa Viswanath” must be the one. Rao, an avid cricket enthusiast always glued to radio commentary, had marvelled at Viswanath’s immortal Test century on debut. Later he travelled to other cities to watch his batting hero. “Viswanath’s artistry was a big draw, although I started following cricket only after I started a career as a teacher in Chintamani. I even saw that famous episode of Tony Grieg cradling him,” says Rao. But he started work on the poem only in the summer of 1983. “It took me a month to complete it -- after many drafts and much chiseling. More so, because it wasn’t typically my kind of a poem. My poems are generally direct and down to earth.”
Critics cheered it. Poet H S Venkatesh Murthy, among the early readers of the poem, says it goes beyond being merely an ode to the cricketer and emerges as “a major triumph in the symbolism”.
Kannada writer and critic S R Vijaya Shankar says “Gundappa Viswanath” is essentially a contemplative poem. “It speaks of the relationship between an artist and a work of art. At some stage, he has to retire from it, because of loss of poetic strength, skill or age. But art is permanent. The creator is temporary. The creator feels a sense of loss. Nevertheless in a sort of resurrection another talent emerges from most unexpected quarters of life. As hope hangs in the air, a new creation is waiting to unravel itself – as the poet says, `A Balamurali in a bathroom or a Bendre in a bazaar’. No matter where it comes from, art endures.” The poem ends on a note of gratitude to the art and sympathy for the artist. Vijaya Shankar says the theme of the poem reminds him of the last stanza of “Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats, particularly the message of the famous lines: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty – that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know”.
For Lakshman Rao, the memorable day was when he got to read out the poem to Viswanath. “Actor Srinath who knew him well arranged a meeting and I recited it to him. Venkatesh Murthy explained the nuances. Viswanath was happy about it and said he felt proud to be part of a poem that was part of a text for degree students.” And with his trademark wit, Visy had added, “You’ve even put me right up there in the title of the poem. I’m only a middle-order batsman.”