A Great Dreamer

When Gandhiji said of Andhra that “it has poetry, it has faith, it has the spirit of sacrifice,” he was referring to men like K. Ramakotiswara Rau. I knew him as a journalist and as a writer but he has remained for me the supreme dreamer, who did not spare himself or his slender resources in making his dreams come true.

The very name Triveni, which he gave to the periodical he started after making up his mind not to toil in the office of daily newspapers or in the dark corridors of the law-courts, was symbolic of his idealism. At various times he gave differing expositions of the significance of that name but they all boiled down to this: he was all out to work for a renascence of culture in which the three ideals of love, knowledge and service would impart new life to India. Narasaraopet was his home town no doubt but it was multi-lingual Madras that gave him the necessary impetus. This lends point to Khasa Subba Rau’s oft-repeated plea for keeping these oases of cosmopolitan culture, Madras, Bombay, Delhi, etc., as Union Government preserves in the arid deserts of linguism.

            Triveni first saw the light of day in Christmas of 1927. C. Jinarajadasa, who was later to become President of the Theosophical Society, was the author of the first article in the first issue. In the subsequent years Ramakotiswara Rau had many gifted men and women to write for him. His list of contributors reads like a muster-roll of greatness. One fact, therefore, I recall with special pride after all these years. Not only did he commission an article by me to make me figure in such distinguished company but he asked me to join him in trying to persuade my chief, A. Rangaswami Iyengar, Editor of “The Hindu”, to write a piece for him.

Ramakoti’s death has cast a gloom upon all who cared for certain values. However, his many friends feel that the present Editor of Triveni will help to carry his great work forward.