In Reminiscent Mood (Rajaji: The Artist)

IN REMINISCENT MOOD

RAJAJI: THE ARTIST

 

“So, this is the lawyer from Salem who wished to practise in the High Court at Madras but was caught up in the maelstrom of Gandhian politics! How elegant he looks in his ‘closed collar’ coat of white khaddar and his khaddar turban! And what a balance he has achieved between intellect and emotion, and between speech and silence!” Such were my thoughts as I followed the arguments of Sri C. Rajagopalachariar delivered in measured, level tones, during the discussions in the Subjects Committee at the Nagpur Congress of 1920.

I saw him again a year later at the Swarajya office in Madras, and liked the winsome smile and the words of kindly humour with which he returned the greetings of ‘subs’ like me. The Working Committee of the Tamil Nad Provincial Congress Committee used to meet in the Swarajya office, 2/27 Broadway. I ‘listened in’ one night when the decision was taken that C. R. should defy the Magistrate’s order under Section 144 Cr.P.C. banning meetings in Vellore. Sri E. V. Ramaswami Naicker grumbled like a recalcitrant child, because he was not given the first opportunity to offer Civil Disobedience. But C. R. argued him into acquiescence. Next day, he went to Vellore and disobeyed the order. He got some months in Vellore prison, and wrote his famous Jail Diary. One passage, in particular, dwells in my memory. The music of a piper in some near-by village floated down to C. R. from beyond the prison walls, and put him in mind of village homes and simple festive gatherings. The artist in C. R. appealed to me. Twenty years after, we were together in Vellore prison,–he as the ex-Premier of Madras, and I as an M.L.A. from Guntur. One day, I reminded him of that passage in his Jail Diary. He smiled and said, “Ah! You remember that! Now I am here again!”

Though I was an ‘M.L.A.’ for six years (1939-1945) and displayed the magic letters on the front page of Triveni and on my visiting cards, I functioned as a legislator only for a couple of days: I was returned in a bye-election, and the Congress went out of office soon after. Thus C. R., the leader of the Madras Congress Legislature Party, was my Chief, only in name. I never worked with him in the Legislature, as I worked with Sri Prakasam in Swarajya or with Dr. Pattabhi at the Kalasala, Masulipatam. It was, in fact, the Triveni, which brought us into fairly intimate association in the years before he became Premier. And it is Triveni that today serves as a golden link between him and me.

Sri K. Chandrasekharan, son of the late V. Krishnaswami Aiyar, was a guardian of Triveni before the migration from Madras to Bangalore in 1942. On Sundays and holidays, when he did not have to attend the High Court, we used to call together on contributors of articles and Possible ‘life-subscribers’ from whom we inveigled cheques for a hundred rupees to spoon-feed Triveni. C. R. of course could not pay money. But he had leisure in those days, for he was not in active politics. So, Chandrasekharan, my charioteer in the battle of life, drove me one morning to the secluded spot in Tyagarayanagar where C. R. lived in comparative retirement. We made the usual request for literary contributions, and, to convince him that Triveni was a worthy a medium for the expression of his views on life and letters, we left with him quite a pile of copies of the journal,–the two-monthly of the earlier years, and the monthly of the Current period. We called again after a few days. Eager to have a word of appreciation, I asked him what he thought of the journal. A little sadness clouded his brow as he answered, “You have given years of devoted labour to Triveni. You have spent a fortune on it. You have tried to maintain a high standard in form and contents. You have given me all these copies free. And now, you are waiting for just a word of encouragement from me. All this shows that literary, cultural effort is not having its due reward in our country.”

Our visits to him became fairly frequent, and We used also to meet at Chandrasekharan’s house–the ‘Ashrama’, Mylapore–where C. R. called occasionally along with Sri T. K. Chidambaranatha Mudaliar, the great Tamil scholar. At the ‘Ashrama’, C. R. always refused a chair; he preferred the pials of red cement, smooth and polished, and reminiscent of village homes in South India. He would spend a quiet hour with Sri K. Balasubrahmania Aiyar, K. Chandrasekharan, and their gifted sister, Srimati Savitri Ammal.

Very early in our acquaintance, I noticed that his style of conversation–in its humour, its gentle raillery, and its many similes and parables–was self akin to that of Sri Masti Venkatesa Iyengar of Bangalore. I had learnt to call it the ‘Masti manner’. I now found that it was also the ‘C. R. manner’. I ventured to draw his attention to this resemblance between himself and Masti. “Don’t you know,” he said, “we passed through same College at Bangalore, breathed the same atmosphere, and came under similar influences?” Then he said he liked Masti’s writings published in Triveni in the English garb. “I read the story ‘Masumatti’ and admired it. After finishing it, I turned to the first page and noted it was written by Masti in Kannada and rendered into English by Navaratna Rama Rao.” Here, as usual, came a simile. “It was as if I liked a pretty child, playing in the street, and was then delighted to find that it was related to me as a grandchild!” He rendered ‘Masumatti’ into Tamil, and afterwards wrote an Introduction to the four-volume edition of Masti’s stories in English translation.

Our acquaintance ripened into friendship. He wrote several articles to “Triveni” and always made anxious enquiries about the journal.

After the Satyagraha prisoners, mostly legislators, were transferred from Vellore to Trichinopoly in 1941, we had, both of us, a long spell of leisure in which to meet oftener. We spoke of common friends in Mylapore (Madras) and Basavangudi (Bangalore). When the news of the premature demise of Thirtharappan, son of Chidambaranatha Mudaliar, came through, I felt desolate, for I had known Thirtharappan–alias Chelliah–for some years and developed a fondness for him; he was so tender and so gifted. I yearned that day to be in the company of someone who cared equally for Thirtharappan. I sought out C. R. and was comforted by his gentle, reminiscent talk. “Have you read Chandrasekharan’s note on Thirtharappan in The Hindu?” he asked me. “There is an unsigned paragraph, but why do you think Chandrasekharan wrote it?” “I know the style. All of you express yourselves in the Triveni way!”

Of his work as Premier and as leader of South India, a great deal has been written. He has been, by turns, the most loved as well as the most distrusted of leaders. The storms gathering round him have sometimes forced him into retirement or threats of retirement. But about his intellectual eminence and his administrative ability, there is not the slightest divergence of opinion between his admirers and his traducers. He has not always followed the lead of the Congress, and sections of Congressmen have found it difficult to reconcile themselves to his attitude to the ‘Quit India’ Resolution of August 1942. But one can understand his point of view even without complete agreement. He claimed, and exercised, the right of individual Congressmen to go out of the organisation and criticise its methods. There is neither dishonesty nor disloyalty in such an attitude. And it is the correct position for any citizen to take up in a time of crisis, when frank criticism of public policies is needed for clarifying the issues.

I like to think of C. R., the scholar and philosopher, the lover of poetry and music, the man with a genius for friendship. Only last month, Sri Masti Venkatesa Iyengar mentioned to me, “Do you know, C. R. has written to Navaratna Rama Rao telling him that he liked his story in the September number of Triveni?” Next day, I met Sri Rama Rao by accident in Sri D. V. Gundappa’s house. When I asked him about C. R’s letter, he replied, “Well, it is true that he has written to me. But I don’t trust his judgment in this matter. He always addresses me as ‘Dearest Rama Rao’ and signs himself ‘Yours most affectionately’. Now, how can such a man judge my literary work dispassionately? He is prejudiced in my favour.”

Here is an example of great cordiality on C. R.’s part. Here is also a touch of modesty in a revered old scholar who was an ornament to the Civil Service in Mysore, and is now held in the highest esteem all over Karnataka.
–Reprinted from Triveni, Dec. 1947

“It is difficult to think of Madras and India without Rajaji. He served India with great distinction in a variety of ways. We shall miss him immeasurably. We have lost a very great man and I have lost an old friend.”
–Dr. S. RADHAKRISHNAN