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BOOKS
Local and universal
PARTHA CHATTERJEE
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The message of this book: familiarity with one's natal cultural
environment is the key to a good understanding of the world.
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SUGATA SRINIVASARAJU is a respected translator, journalist and
essayist. His mother tongue is Kannada, and he is deeply immersed in
Kannada literature and the culture that has inspired it. He is a “senior
member of the editorial staff of Outlook, India's premier weekly
newsmagazine”, according to the introduction on the inside back jacket.
The photograph accompanying the text reveals a thoughtful face, in
keeping with the consistently sensitive, probing quality of his writing.
His second collection of essays, Pickles From Home: The Worlds of A
Bilingual, carries over the concerns voiced in his first, Keeping Faith
With The Mother Tongue. He is keen to bring to the world the nuggets of
classical and modern Kannada literature along with its philosophical and
sociological underpinnings.
Sugata believes that one must master one's mother tongue and
appreciate its subtleties, alongside English, which, by its reach, is a
window to the world of knowledge. The acquisition of knowledge and the
negotiation of realities, imagined and temporal, can happen best in the
initial stages in a natal cultural environment. The possibility of
understanding the scientific world of the West increases if there is an
organic identification with and knowledge of one's indigenous knowledge
base. The author observes: “I have referred to the native and the wider
world. They automatically imply the local and the universal. Again,
these are not mutually exclusive domains. The local also contains an
enlightened universal in it and to constantly point out that out is one
of the intentions of this book. The local not only looks intently at its
own details, but also looks up at the broad sweep and expanse of the
sky. Therefore, we need to consider the conceptual prospects of two
universals. One vision of the universal is obtained by curating
commonalities; another grows organically from the particular.''
In the essay “Pickles From Home” with the sub-title “Does The
Ultimate Celebration Happen Only At Home?” the writer observes on
Aravind Adiga's winning the Man Booker Prize: “Adiga accompanied his
father to Australia immediately after his matriculation; [Bhimsen] Joshi
went away to neighbouring Maharashtra in search of greater
encouragement for his music; and Raja Rao went away to France for his
literary sojourn. In the busy parts of their careers, they were rarely
in touch with their ‘original homes' or ‘native places'; but yet the
homes they left behind have not forgotten them. ...Their relatives,
friends, teachers and classmates have been plucked out of nowhere to
comment on their success; their preference for the local food; the jar
of pickles that accompanied them in their long journeys across the
world; their love for the Kannada language and of course, their pining
sickness for home have all been reconstructed and recorded.”
The irony recorded within such situations is not to be missed.
Bhimsen Joshi, Kannada-speaking and inextricably a part of the related
cultural world, went out into the broader world of Hindustani music to
win laurels as few did, after having first made Belgaum, and then Pune,
his base. As for Raja Rao, whose poem in Kannada describing the glories
of native culture, published in 1931 in Jaya Karnataka, he became an
erudite, boring exponent of fiction in the English language with works
such as Kanthapura and The Serpent and the Rope. Aravind Adiga, a fine
journalist based in the West, despite the Man Booker Prize for his novel
White Tiger, has not made any headway in the literary circles of
England and the United States, perhaps because of a somewhat belated
discovery that his fiction is a bit too journalistic.
There are essays on a variety of subjects. One is titled “A Writer's
Habitat” and carries a sub-title “Does A Place Make A Writer?” He quotes
his favourite Kannada poet D.R. Bendre, who, when asked why he had
turned down an invitation to an international poets' meet in Geneva,
answered, “My fights with folks in Shukravarpet [a street in Dharwad]
are not yet over, what do I do in Geneva?” The same essay ends with the
wry declaration: “Whether a writer roams the world or stays at home, he
essentially seeks the universal in a small world around him.”
K. BHAGYA PRAKASH
GANGUBAI HANGAL PERFORMING at a function in Bangalore in August 2006.
Sugata Srinivasaraju says that he came away with "a sackful of stories"
on the two occasions when he got to meet her.
In “A Breathless Hate Machine” (with the subtitle “Is the IT
State Of Karnataka The New Bastion Of Hindu Intolerance?”), Sugata
states, “Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa's New Year card had a
solemn wish. He hoped 2009 would be free of violence, hate and that
peace would flourish. It now appears that it was purely a personal wish
and not that of his government, party or the larger saffron parivar he
belongs to.” There is trenchant criticism of the attacks on churches in
the State in 2008 and the thrashing of women at the Amnesia Lounge Bar
in Mangalore by votaries of “Hindu Rashtra”. Need one add that Mangalore
is a town with a sizeable Christian population? Sugata understands the
machinations of State politics very well. The 2008 attack has him
responding thus: “When the attacks on churches broke out, it [the
Bharatiya Janata Party] distanced itself from [its militant arm] the
Bajrang Dal, which was seen as the major aggressor, and arrested its
local chief, Mahendra Kumar.” He further explains, quoting a BJP leader
from Udipi: “He was with us for 30 years, but he was sent out as he
developed electoral ambitions and we found that his group was collecting
hafta. In fact, the Congress funded him during the last Assembly polls
to divide the BJP votes.”
The writer's insights into local politics give the reader food for
thought; he/she may well ask, “Is this not the way politics works in
India as a whole?” It is not merely a rhetorical question but a
reflection of contemporary Indian political reality. The mendacity
reflected in the BJP's actions in Karnataka under Yeddyurappa will find
its mirror image in similar acts of deviousness indulged in by other
political parties such as the Congress, the Communist Party of India
(Marxist) or the (CPI-M), the two Janata Dals, the Samajwadi Party and
the Bahujan Samaj Party. The bitter truth is that all Indian political
parties are united in one common goal – corruption. It seems they have
but one agenda, that of looting the nation.
Sugata's perception of Indian politics does flounder occasionally. He
is right when he says in the essay “The Adivasi Precipice”: “A strong
reason for the Maoists to cultivate the tribals is because they need to
cohabit the dense forests.” However he is wrong when he opines, “Instead
of the Maoists, if people from the Sangh Parivar were to engage the
tribals in the jungles of Dantewada and Lalgarh, then perhaps the colour
of their rebellion would be ‘saffron' instead of ‘red'.” First and
foremost, the Sangh Parivar serves the interests of Hindu businessmen of
the Baniya caste. The only goal of the Sangh Parivar is economic
domination through political subjugation. The sole reason why it may be
interested in the tribal people is to pauperise them by seizing their
forests and lands in order to exploit the vast mineral wealth that lies
beneath. Need one add that the BJP and like-minded organisations such as
the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa
Hindu Parishad have the covert backing of the U.S. because they could
help further that country's commercial ambitions, and by extension,
political influence? One must not forget that the BJP's primary aim is
to serve the economic interests of upper-caste, upper-class Hindus in
India. The U.S. government, with far reaching roots in capitalism, would
find a perfect ally in the BJP.
Sugata is on firm ground when he deals with socio-cultural matters.
In the moving piece on the mercurial Hindustani classical singer Bhimsen
Joshi titled “Bhimsen Joshi : A Son Remembers”, his talent as a writer
and translator blooms. The writer declares, “There was a surprise
waiting to ambush me in the crowded labyrinths created by book stalls
put up for the annual Kannada literary jamboree in Bangalore recently.
The elderly Ramakant Joshi of Dharwad's Manohara Granthamala pulled me
aside, took out a few folded sheets of paper from his cotton sling-bag,
placed them in my hands and said : ‘You'll like this. I translated this
into Kannada from the Marathi just yesterday.'” It was a poignant piece
by Bhimsen Joshi's eldest son, Raghavendra Bhimsen Joshi, by his first
wife Sunanda.
It would be an understatement to say that the singer was a bad
husband and a bad father. In Sugata's translation, Raghavendra remembers
him thus: “In your youth Sunanda had stood by you in every which way
...and Bhimanna, you had yourself built the mandap for your wedding. You
had such rapturous love for my mother, Bhimanna, that for her plaits
that flowed to her knees you brought a basket full of flowers.” After
his father's funeral, Raghavendra recalls: “When we immersed the ashes
in the Indrayani river, memories of immersing my mother's ashes came
back to me intensely... Hey Bhimanna, you'll never abandon us and go
away, will you?”
M.A. SRIRAM
Bhimsen Joshi performing at a programme in Mysore in January 2011.
Sugata is at his best in the moving piece on Bhimsen Joshi.
Sugata Srinivasaraju uses the English language in an unorthodox
but highly expressive manner. In his essay on Gangubai Hangal, the great
Hindustani classical singer, titled “Gangubai Hanagal: Anecdotal Life”,
he says, “The two times I met her, I too gathered a sackful of stories
to take home.” He then goes on to describe how Gangubai in her old age
had become a virtual prisoner of her family. Manoj Hanagal, her
grandson, wondered if his grandmother could not get the Bharat Ratna,
now that Bhimsen Joshi had got it. “All I heard from Manoj was not
stemming from an innocent pride in the colossus, but there was a cold
calculation entwined. It saddened me immensely as to how in her old age
Gangubai had become a prisoner of this young man's ambition and
pettiness.”
The premise on which the book is based is captured in the subtitle
“The World Of A Bilingual”. It must be remembered that those artistes
who have succeeded in their chosen fields in independent India have been
first fluent in their mother tongue before mastering English. Satyajit
Ray's films reveal his intimate connection with the Bengali soil and its
culture, as do his stories for adolescents. He was a Bengali first,
then an Indian and an internationalist. His films ring true because they
are rooted in a culture. Ray's contemporary, Ritwik Ghatak, was a
brilliant short story writer in Bengali while still in his twenties. His
pathbreaking films won him posthumous fame internationally because they
were able to bridge the gap between the local and the universal. Sugata
Srinivasaraju, a worthy bilingual, puts forward through his work the
proposition that knowing your mother tongue well will help you
understand the world you are rooted in and the culture that flowers from
it, which in turn shall open the doors of perception while encountering
other societies and cultures.
The author owes a huge debt to his father, Chi Srinivasaraju, of whom
the obituary in The Hindu said, “There are persons who create a void in
the cultural panorama of a community by their passing away and then
there are those who create similar voids in the innermost recesses of
individuals. Chi Srinivasaraju has at once created both of them.” His
father's over-arching influence can be felt in every page of this volume
and the earlier one, Keeping Faith With The Mother Tongue.
Sugata Srinivasaraju has a thoroughly modern sensibility, thanks
largely to his father, of whom he says, “The basic orientation of my
writing so far, its underpinning, has been hugely influenced by my
father's humanism, his serenity, his atheism and his lifetime work for
Kannada language and literature.”
This is a probing, highly enjoyable collection of essays to be enjoyed by most people. |
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