A Generous and Honest Critic

PROF. K. VISWANATHAM
Andhra University, Waltair

Aano bhadraah rtavo yantu visvatah

To pay a tribute to Sri Ramakotiswara Rau is to have one’s belief in human goodness and ideals strengthened. Even chance acquaintance with him made you realize his purity and candour. It was said of Burke that if you talked to him for five minutes: sheltering from rain or stepping aside from a drove of oxen you would say: “This is a great man.” I wish I knew Sri Ramakotiswara Rau more intimately than I did. My acquaintance with him was that of a contributor with the editor of a first class journal, a journal dedicated to the cause of Indian culture, Triveni. My first article to be published in the Triveni was Falstaff and the Sonnets. I remember with pride that day when I saw myself in print in the Triveni. Today it is a commonplace in criticism that the Sonnets contain the plays in some embryonic form. I pointed out in that paper years before read large literature on the Sonnets that the Falstaff story was implicit in the Sonnets.

It is when I sent my paper on Lorca, I think, the Triveni promoted me as Reader (it printed my designation so) though I was only a Lecturer. But some mistakes are prophetic. Coming events cast their brightness before, perhaps. Within a short time the University did promote me as Reader. I do not mind if the Triveni commits such mistakes about my status and they come true.

On another occasion I sent him a paper on Richards and Signifies. It could not be printed in the Triveni as Sri Rau felt that the article was high class, far above the range of the Triveni. A colleague of mine related to me how the editor judged the article. It seems Sri Rau read out to this colleague of mine (not a student of English literature, mind you!) a sentence from this paper and asked him if he understood it. The sentence is: “To love poetry as ‘revelatory’ is crab’s locomotion; to love poetry as ‘intuitionist’ is a step forward and a right one.” My colleague blinked naturally and threw up his hands in despair. If a university teacher could not explain this sentence, how can the common reader read the article with understanding and appreciation? ‘Revelatory’ and ‘Intuitionist’ are technical terms; one who has not read Richards fails to understand and crab’s locomotion is, perhaps, difficult too. I argued with Sri Rau in a letter that not every reader understands every article in a magazine and there would be readers for the Richards article. I was up against the Editorial wall. The paper published elsewhere had the good fortune of being read by Richards himself then holidaying in Kashmir and I received his Speculative Instruments with the Author’s best compliments.

Sri Rau had great regard and affection for me. In a public lecture arranged in the University he referred to me and my contributions lovingly and exhorted young men to contribute articles like me to the Triveni.

Kind words are better than coronets.

In a letter dated 5-2-54 he wrote: “Your very cordial letter is before me as I write. It brought me great consolation in my mood of depression. And I was glad to learn that you were promoted to a Readership. Prof. V. Subba Rao of Guntur sent me the number of English Studies containing your article on Shakespeare’s Poetics. I read that as well as the reprint from Amritavani. In every bit of your writing I perceive bright indications of your wide study and critical acumen. But I somehow feel that you are not doing yourself justice. So many quotations and allusions in an article are apt to obscure the main theme...The wealth of detail is bewildering. I am anxious that you should write ‘straight on’ putting more of yourself into it and use the barest minimum of quotation. This is a layman’s view. I am no scholar.” I quote this letter to point out his cordiality, his humility, his well-meant criticism of my writing, his appreciation of scholarship, etc.

Added to these he had a passionate love of personal integrity and independence. He abandoned unhesitatingly and without regrets anything that reduced even by two centimetres this area of a personal vision and conviction. He was an individualist, not a Committee man, as we say. That is why, I guess, he quit his berth in the Southern Languages Book Trust.

In an earlier letter dated 21-11-53 he refers to the tiresome editorial work. It is a most personal letter that I have preaerved–a cri de coeur. He longs for rest which God gave him a few weeks ago. “I am now living in my home town and in the house built by my father–a prosperous lawyer–in 1895 when I was a baby. I am utterly exhausted in body and mind. I cannot exert myself any longer. But I must attend to Triveni work till I can find a successor. Even the looking into Ms. and proofs is tiresome work. I have cut out all travelling, public speaking and broadcasting. My talk on Stoicism on the 7th inst. from Vijayawada was in the nature of a farewell broadcast. I have asked A.I.R. to omit me from future programmes. I am dead tired. I read your article on Logical Positivism in English Studies. But I find it highly technical. It shows great wealth of learning and highly developed critical faculty...I am posting a copy of the Oct.’53 Triveni...Please accept it with my compliments. The best bit in this number is the personal explanation posted at the beginning. It is the cry of pain from an agonized heart. Please do not be distressed on my account...I long for rest, sleep and forgetfulness of three decades of suffering. Do write to me.” I do not know the ground of this wounded and bleeding letter. I only know that he would abandon and sacrifice everything for the sake of the Triveni.

In a letter dated 4-3-58 he wrote to me about one of my papers in a burst of enthusiasm: “I am glad the Modern Review printed extracts from your article. It was indeed one of the finest things published by me in the Triveni. Friends in Madras also spoke highly of it. I am grateful to you for your co-operation.” (Sri Rau’s appreciative outburst is only paralleled by Sri Narasimha Rao’s similarly worded appreciation of my paper Keats’s Quintuplets.) Sri L. C. Jain, Secretary, Bharatiya Jnanapith wrote to me about this very article: Translation: Free or Faithful, “Even as a literary piece it is superb.” Sri Rau used to talk highly of my scholarship to several friends. How did I deserve this warmth on his part towards me? Like a Hindu I can trace it to my ‘purvapunya’. Most people take delight in maligning others or debunking others’ achievement. Here was a person who praised me glowingly to others. I am blessed if I deserve a tithe of that praise. The fruit of friendship, wrote Bacon, is like the pomegranate full of many kernels. “A man can scarce allege his own merits with modesty, much less extol them. But all these things are graceful in a friend’s mouth which are blushing in a man’s own.” An editor is like the breeze that carries the fragrance of a flower to far-off places. Sri Rau gave lebensraum to my articles in his illustrious Triveni. I wish I were a poet to pay him “the mead of a melodious tear”. My article may be a poor return for the wealth of affection and regard he had for me. But with the poet I will say:

I think good thoughts, whilst others write good words.

I see him before me a fragile delicate sensitive face which reminds me of the late E. M. Forster whom I had the good fortune of meeting at Cambridge. I have tried to build my study from the letters Sri Rau wrote to me. His passing away is a blow to the world of high class journalism. One feels as if a warm-hearted friend, a generous and honest critic is suddenly removed from one’s side. A great and illustrious editor is no more. The death of a noble and pure soul is an addition to the heavenly Synod of Nobility and Purity. The torch is dimmed and

I know not where is that Promethean heat
That can thy light relume.

He was a crusader for the things of the spirit and the mind; he was a martyr for values and convictions. He never allowed the world to taint him. He had all the purity, the grace, the detachment of a drop of rain which has left the clouds and is far above the earth.

Nothing
Is worth our travail, grief or perishing
But those rich joys which did possess his heart
Of which he is now partaker, and a part.

His finest living monument is the Triveni:

And so sepulchred in such pomp dost lie
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.

And the best service that we can render to his memory is to see that the Triveni flows like a mighty river in the land spreading the rich alluvia of thought and expression. Triveni is the hope of the Andhras and its editor the pride of the Telugus. It is the braided Glory of the Nationalistic Movement, the full-petalled Flower of Sri Rau’s patriotism. Sri Rau looked upon Triveni as his darling child. Triveni was the soul of Sri Rau. You can easily separate the fragrance from the flower, the moonlight from the moon than you can Triveni from Sri Ramakotiswara Rau.

Sri Bhavaraju Narasimha Rao is ably conducting the journal. Thanks to him I am a member of the Advisory Board of Triveni. In my humble way I shall try to further the cause of the Triveni–a worthier cause than many for which we lay waste our powers.

Sri Ramakotiswara Rau was a dreamer like a lonely peak touched by Thunder’s might and encircled by Lightning’s flame. His dreams were the clustering clouds pouring life-giving waters into the lotus of Love. Waters flowed from the beauty-drenched Peak in three streams, banded themselves at the base and spread over the land of Indian Renaissance murmuring of Beauty, Poetry, Grace in Art, History and Literature of our ancient heritage. Sri Ramakotiswara Rau never made concessions to the glistering Present for Time never forgives such weak concessions. Hence Triveni remains a living Garden of bright-eyed flowers

That take the winds of March with beauty.