Dr H. Tulsi as a daughter of Indian soil widely receives acclaims for
her rich contributions to English literary firmament. As a prolific poet, she
has to her credit the anthologies: ‘Old Wine in New Bottles’, ‘Resurrection’,
Sonnet Century’, ‘Ballad and Ballades’, ‘A Nosegay of New Year
Poems ‘, ‘Lyrical Lays’, ‘Symphony Weds Symmetry’, ‘A
Chest of Chuckles’, ‘Tears and Smiles’ , ‘A Posy of Poesy on
Three Themes’, ‘Miscellaneous Muse’ and ‘Stories & Legends in
Structured Verse,’ all the gems in store, attracting the attention of
literary fraternity in the world. As the editor of Metverse Muse, she is
well-known for its structured verses. She sincerely adheres to the elements of
structured verse and adores them from the heart of her heart. She at the same time encourages poets to
follow them and contribute to classical English poetry as a real contribution.
The literary firmament is rich with varied genres in various forms
chiefly poetry, short story, and novel aiming at conveying to the readers a
theme, moral and message respectively for their enlightenment and enjoyment.
Literary pieces like the poem, the short story and the novel without the object
are like the flowers without fragrance. The poem--short or long presents a
theme, the short story, a moral and the novel, a message as true literary
pieces. Dr H. Tulsi’s Stories & Legends in Structured Verse is an
excellent contribution in the form of stories in structured verse to English
literature. They are stories in verse with special characteristics and
distinctive features since they have those of the short story and poetry. The
narrative technique employed in it is par excellence for it marks a distinction
by rendering the stories and legends poetic and narrative merits.
The story in structured verse proceeds to present not only content with
its essential theme but also music by means of its rhymes for rhythmic effect,
echoing from words and word clusters used in it. The story enlightens the mind,
and the poem gladdens the heart by its rhythmic beauty, melody. Beauty is for
melody and the melody for raptures. The story in structured verse is therefore
appealing to both mind and heart. Stories and Legends in Structured Verse
reflects these characteristics in plenty. The poetess Dr H. Tulsi deserves
encomiums from the circles of poets across the world for her assiduous efforts
in the excellent collection of stories and legends in verse.
The story or the legend in prose is not so enjoyable as that in
verse. A story in verse aims at
conveying its content and theme and delighting the readers especially children
by its music rising from rhymes for they love the swing and jingle of its
rhymes. Dr H. Tulsi employs simple language to facilitate them to understand
and expresses her emotions by means of felicity of rhymes when they read or
listen to it. She uses onomatopoeia words like ‘tik’ and ‘peck’ for music
effect in her first elegiac but beautiful poem, ‘An Elegy on the Death of a
Sparrow’,
‘Tik-tik, tik-tika, tika-tik, tika,
Went beating the beak of a little winged
creature,
Mistake not, reader, no woodpecker,
The hero is, of this elegiac feature.
No bigger bird than a common sparrow,
A tenacious warrior once became!
These lines reflect her narrative technique of creating curiosity in the
reader to know what that ‘a little winged creature’ is. Dr Tulsi is good at the narrative strategy of
creating curiosity in the reader to know about the ‘creature’. She tells in the
fifth line that it is a sparrow. She grades the little creature, ‘the tenacious
warrior’, ‘The hero’, the central character like the hero of a film. Readers
learn the fact that she is the lover of birds. She treats the sparrow as ‘a
fellow sparrow’. She does not like its pecking at the mirror. She aptly
expresses her detest towards the bird’s frequent and prolonged mischief of
pecking at the mirror,
And at peck at it for hours and days
Into weeks and months, the war prolonged,
The poetess Dr H. Tulsi, at the same time, loves the sparrow at her
heart as a bird lover. She feels sorry for its absence for some time. It is
like love-hate relationship on her part. Again, she finds the bird missed for
some time and fills her heart with solace, ‘I thought, and heaved a sigh of
relief!’
There is a twist in the narrative of the poem in verse for suspense to
give magnifying effect to the narrative.
Surely, the bird away would fly?
His guarded silence did not announce,
His vigil, perched on a ceiling fan,
(Like a waiting cat, on a mouse to pounce)
The sparrow appears on the scene, the ceiling fan after a gap, ‘His
guarded silence’. Dr Tulsi’s expressions are apt and appropriate to suit the
narrative technique of the poem in verse,
My looking glass was no more gleaming;
And, so my hapless lot did fall
The thankless job of sweeping and cleaning-
Flying feathers, drippings and all!
He pecked and fought; I cleaned and swept!
In trying my best to chase him away.
When the sparrow is cut by the ‘fan’s whirling blades’, she is filled
with the sense of pity for it. Her anger
vanished forthwith at the sight of the crippled sparrow. She narrates the
helpless suffering of the sparrow. The narration of the sparrow’s suffering is
so moving that the readers visualise it struggling for life in their presence.
The merit of her narrative technique is that the readers of the marvellous poem
too share the suffering of the sparrow,
Before long, his breath turned rasping
And, trying to fly, his crippled wings
Could only flutter. Though he was gasping,
To life ‘s thin thread he sought to cling.
Her narration of the sparrow’s suffering moved her. She offers a fine
comparison between the crippled sparrow and a faded flower. The comparison is
apt and befitting as the flower fades away to fall not to regain life and
continue to bloom in gleam on the stem. It wilts and withers and falls to the
ground as a fallen leaf, the dead leaf,
Cut by the fan’s whirling blades,
Finally wounded the poor bird lay
His flaccid body, (like a flower that fades),
Suffering began in a pathetic way.
Her anger for the bird’s mischief of frequent and prolonged pecking at
the mirror vanished soon at its pathetic suffering. She expresses her profound
feelings for the pathetic suffering of the sparrow,
Pity gushed forth; my anger was wrecked;
Compunction alone my heart now ruled.
All nooks and corners I ought to have checked:
By dame Smugness Why I was fooled?
She not only feels lapse on her part in checking it but also expresses
her profound feelings towards the sparrow as she is sympathetic towards the
bird’s suffering as a lover of birds. She refers to the greatness of the
sparrow,
O sweet sparrow, has a lapse on my part,
(Through mere oversight) felled you so?
You are small in size but large your heart;
Forgive me, O bird, before you go.
In the poem ‘Come Again O Angel Bird’ she recalls the bird’s ‘pleasant
way’. She paints the beauty of birds in the word picture with colourful words,
describing the head, the beak, the figure, the size, the wings, the tail and so
on,
A long and graceful beak, you had;
Your pretty head was spherical:
The wondrous way you stood mid-air
Was almost like miracle!
Dr H Tulsi narrates her personal experience and attachment with the
sparrow. Her love and affection for birds particularly sparrows is clearly
evident in the poem, ‘Come Again O Angel Bird’. She treats them as fairies,
Though ‘Honey-bird and ‘Humming bird’
You’re called, and ‘Sun-bird ‘too,
The apter name of “Angel bird”
Would be my choice for you!
Dr Tulsi portrays birds, beasts and insects and various other objects of
nature. She does not confine to the portrayal of the birds like sparrows,
larks, swans and so on but animals like elephants; and insects like
butterflies, bees, ants and so on-- the non-human world, she loves to portray.
She at the same time criticises the follies and foibles of man as poetess of
social consciousness. Her poetry reflects the fact that she has sensitivity to
suffering and shares the pangs of suffering in general.
As a poet, Dr Tulsi paints beauty as part of her pictorial quality by
offering picturesque and vivid descriptions to arrest the readers’ attention in
all poems especially in the poem, ‘Errs, the Past and Pays, the Present’.
Of myriad starry blooms, in grace
Vying with each other.
The beauty of the fairest flower-
Outstanding all the rest-
A passing gorgeous butterfly
Happened to arrest.
She lively describes the beauty of birds in her poem, ‘Come Again O
Angel-Bird’. She compares the beauty of wings to the petals of lotus and to the
‘fairy’ and her descriptions marks a distinction,
“Your wings were shaped like lotus leaves.”
… … …
As you flit from flower to flower
Like ‘fairy’ more than bird,
As a poetess she loves humanity at large. He loves human and familial
relations: mother, son, wife and so on. She significantly loves the mother’s
unrivalled relation and concern. Mother is to feed her babies and brings them
up. She saves all in their infancy.
Mother’s milk has no alternative. It’s ‘instant milk’. It’s for better
than ‘other milk’ in the poem ‘Mother’s Milk’.
‘Mother’s Milk saves us all
Time, work and money.
‘Other milk’, we’ll have to buy;
We cannot get it free.
…
… …
That ‘Mother’s Milk’ is best of all,
Entirely I agree,-
Not for reasons one or two,
But for reasons plenty!
Mother’s Milk saves us all
Time, work and money,
Other Milk, we ‘ll have to buy:
We cannot get it free.
Mother’s milk excels other’s milk. A famous Telugu writer opines that
mother’s milk is far superior to servant maid’s milk. There is a clear-cut
difference in the way there is a difference between the students to pursue
their studies in the mother tongue and those to pursue their studies in other
language. In delineating mother’s role, Dr H. Tulsi excels all others. She
describes mother’s love and affection, giving the supreme status to Mother’s
milk.
Dr H. Tulsi enriches her narrative technique by her use of humour and
irony in stories and legends. In poems like ‘Poojaas—Poojaari’s Price’, there
is sense of humour’. In poems like ‘The Cunning Son’, she ironically presents
the father-son relation and the son’s selfish goal.
Her descriptions are microscopic and realistic. She expresses a
situation in ‘Felow Exiles’ in an ironical way, The last line of the stanza is
superb to tell the readers about the situation,
Just then, the wayward imp ‘Electricity’
Suddenly decided (Oh, what a pity).
To again play truant—his favourite game-
And now my fan was merely a ‘name’.
In the collection, the legends in verse are on par with her stories in
verse in all respects. They are classics
in epical stature. The pictorial quality of her graphic description of events
and actions is in profusion,
Peering at her after some time more,
I saw what a haggard look she wore;
Darker and darker grew her complexion,
By the Sun’s and
the Wind’s cruel inter-action.
‘Fellow Exiles’
The narrative technique handled in the legends of varied origins is
superb. ‘Ordeals
of Orpheus in Vain’, ‘Pygmalion Learns a Lesson’, ‘Death of Balder’,
‘Ilhaitaina’, and ‘How Ram Wing Sita’ are more interesting than other legends.
In all legends her picturesque descriptions of persons, situations and actions
are in plenty,
Orpheus could, with mag’cal melody charm,
Birds and beasts, rocks and rivers too!
Spell-bound would listen all, with quite calm,
Hypnotised by it, streams with water blue,
Changed course to follow him, ere they knew!
Wildest beasts turned mild and mobbed in peace;
In their presence, even lambs were at ease!
So sweet was his music, so moving his words
That tears flowed even from ghostly herds ‘ Ordeals of Orohews in Vain’
This handsome youth Ram is called:
Supernal strength has he.
Noble none like him there is;
Of kindness he’s is a sea.
…
… …
Boundless is his charity;
Forgiving is his heart.
‘How Ram Wins Sita’
Dr H. Tulsi portrays variety of characters-- right from a beggar to a
worshipper (Poojaari) and from a miser to a noble king, to delineate the
spectrum of society, referring to their flaws and faults; follies and foibles
to represent the age. She ridicules the people’s negative traits like fear,
anger, cunningness, miserliness, vanity, and ego and virtues like love and
peace. She, as a poetess and woman, detests evil traits and welcomes virtues as
a perfect human being.
Dr H. Tulsi’s another distinguishing skill of using words and
word-clusters for word-pictures. They are culled and used in utmost care for
using them to suit the context. She resorts to the phrases particularly the
word-pairs like ‘whiffs and wafts’, ‘power and pelf’, ’birds and beasts’, ‘dogs
and dragons’, ‘Muse and Music’, ‘rocks and rivers’, ‘nooks and corners’ and so
on to mark a variety effect to her expressions.
Dr H. Tulsi employs various verse forms: elegies, ballads, Shakespearean
sonnets, limericks, quatrains, ballades, Spencerian stanzas, pantoums, tankas,
roundelays, and so on dealing with various themes in variety in a befitting
manner to reflect her appreciation of metrical verse with syllabic structure.
Dr H. Tulsi is well known for poetic merits unrivalled and the narrative
technique par excellence especially in her Stories and Legends in Structured
Verse, presenting various themes and morals in it. The collection of
stories and legends is a new jewel in her crown as a poetess. She deserves all
appreciation for her prolific contribution to the English literary firmament. I
wish her all success in her rich literary contributions as a poetess and in her
relentless service to Metverse Muse as the editor.
Notes Cited:
Tulsi, H. Stories & Legends in Structured Verse, Metverse Muse, Vishakhapatnam,
2023
