For Values Uncommercial

Was it not Oscar Wilde who defined a cynic as one who knew the price of everything and the value of nothing? I do not know how he would have summed up an idealist. As one who knew the value of everything and the price of nothing? There was at least one man in our time who knew the value of a good thing, when he saw it. And he did not count the cost in getting it, if he could humanly afford it. And not for his own benefit either. He went by the name of Ramakotiswara Rau.

To call him a missionary in the realm of periodical journalism might be a conventional way of paying a well-deserved tribute to his single-mindedness and spirit of dedication to a chosen cause. But it would hardly be doing justice to the breath of poetry that he brought to a pitiless world guided by the prosaic values of security, success and solvency. To the casual onlooker, who tends to take most things for granted, he did not seem to wear his poetry on his brow nor his heart on his sleeve. He was too shy and reticent for that. He preferred not to draw too much attention to himself by any of the external aspects that had only a marginal importance in his order of priorities. “Image-building” was not in his line.

It was some three decades ago that I chanced to see him in the flesh for the first time in my life. He was invited to preside over the cultural section of a students’ conference in Guntur. That he was introduced by one of the organisers as a “leading journalist” did not mean very much to the noisy youngsters, fresh from school, who did not quite know a ‘journalist’ from a ‘terrorist’. But one had vague memories of one’s Headmaster (one of the many Dr. Arnolds of those days) often carrying with him an English periodical called Triveni Quarterly. Obviously, he thought highly of the journal and its editor.

Ramakotiswara Rau was essentially a simple man–simple in his dress and deportment, in his talk and in everything else. But neat and tidy he was. Perhaps, he could not help being so, as one came to know for oneself of the utter purity of the man–in thought, word and deed. He had the fairness and absolute candour to declare how impressed he was with the paper in English read by a young man, a student leader, whose political antecedents were not quite acceptable to many of the elders of the day. It was on the role of youth in modern India or something of the kind. If the politics of that student leader did not make the grown-ups favourably disposed to him, his language was much too highflown for the youngsters, with little English and less politics in them. But the chairman of the meeting had no hesitation in declaring it to be the best speech of the day. And so it must have been, as I look on it now. Ramakotiswara Rau’s words always had a ring of finality about them and an air of urbanity. He could at once be firm and gentle.

Not before the lapse of a few more years it was that I began to discover, for myself, the priceless treasures hidden in the numbers of Triveni. The severe simplicity of its cover pages would give no clue to the quality and variety of the contents. Once the outer crust is broken by the sharpening intelligence of the initiated reader, he has found an opening into the limitless realms of gold. I can never forget the hours of unmixed delight that I used to spend in the Municipal library at Tenali and the Connemara Public Library in Madras inporing over the bound volumes of Triveni preserved from its very inception. It was an exciting encounter with the best minds of the day.

Humayun Kabir discoursing on the philosophical theories of Kant and Hegel, Hiren Mukerjee expatiating on the features of Indian Federalism, Dr. Pattabhi scattering his homely wit and mature wisdom on a wide variety of problems from the pros and cons of office acceptance to the economics of Khadi. How is one to describe the coruscating brilliance of the political and literary pieces of the young Mr. M. Chalapathi Rau, including the ‘Indian Caravan’ and ‘Viceroys of India’ ‘G. K. Chesterton’ and others? Iswara Dutt could be seen in the pages, refining his brush for the paintings in his portrait gallery. The editor’s Triple Stream would be a much-needed change from an array of such multi-coloured springs and waterfalls to clear springwater, cool and soothing.

If the journal represented the triple stream of art, literature and history, the editor symbolised, in his person, the triple stream of love, friendship and empathy. The first was necessarily restricted to a few. The second extended to a wider circle that cut across all barriers of language, region, and religious faith. The third he could withhold from none of his contributors, whatever be the degree of personal acquaintance. He was quick to recognise promise, not as a patron, but as a friend and elder brother. He was absolutely sincere and could at times be sentimental–embarrassingly so. He would go out of his way to tell the young writer what he liked in him, and what he should do well to guard against. Quite a few brilliant young men, who became well-known writers and journalists, in due course, would have preferred to be office superintendents or, middling lawyers in the moffusil courts but for Triveni and its editor.

The twenty-five reprints sent by Ramakotiswara Rau were cherished by his contributors in the good old days more than as many Rupees from other hands. (And this when a Rupee meant a lot more in its purchasing power than it does now.) More than being a writer himself he was the cause that writing was and grew in others. One man tried to do, as a labour of love, for the Indian Renaissance. What a number of institutions are now proud to do for a price and an army of individuals for a living. The periodical that he started was not only his shield and armour. It was a mirror to his soul. Many an editor there is who lives on his periodical. Ramakotiswara Rau lived for it. Each issue of Triveni was, for him, a dream come true. It was a continual process. He is gone from us. But the dream remains. For, without dreams, life won’t be worth living. At least, for those not content merely to exist.