Books and Authors

Why is a classic a classic? T. S. Eliot, a self-proclaimed classicist in literature, has a whole essay on the subject–as authoritative as anyone could think of in this century, comparable to Mathew Arnold’s discourses in the last. But he deals mainly, if not exclusively with the European classics–Dante’a Divine Comedy and the like. Naturally so, for they represent the tradition that influenced him and were also the basic sources of his poetic inspiration.

How I wish that a poet-scholar-critic of that stature had done a similar service to Indian literary classics–the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and the Bhagavata–Inthe modern context, and in a contemporary idiom! The nearest that one could think of are the lectures on the Ramayana by the Right Hon’ble V. S. Srininsvasa Sastri, delivered at the Madras Sanskrit College, and made available in book-form. Sastri was deeply devoted to this book, as deeply as anyone else-with this difference that he never lost sight of its poetic appeal, and never let himself submerge its human characters under the flood of celestial powers and divine associations, while broadly accepting its value system. The result was the emergence of a sensitive study, refreshingly unorthodox, in the manner of Bradley’s Shakespearean Tragedy, if the comparison is not considered banal or blasphemous by the devout believers nearer home!

That is, of course, for an interpretation and a commentary. What about a translation in English, which comes in handy for a generation of educated Indians, who have got used to the idea of discovering, or re-discovermg, their own cultural-spiritual heritage through a medium adopted by savants from Prof. Max Mueller to Sir John Woodroffe? First of all, when people talk of the Ramayana, let them go to the source and think of Valmiki, and not indulge in the unconscious anachronism of assuming that the story of Rama was composed by one or the other oftheir favourite regional poets, of undoubted merit though.

We, of this generation, cannot be too grateful to the late Mr. N. Raghunathan for having given us his translation of Srima Valmiki Ramayanam in three sizable volumes (carefully brought out by Vighneswara Publishing House, Madras). Sad to think that this was his swan song, as well as his magnum opus.He had the rare satisfaction of seeing these volumes in print, before his end (in November 1982) at the age of almost ninety. There were, no doubt, earlier translations by Griffiths and Hariprasad Sastri.

A sound scholar in English and Sanskrit, as well as his native Tamil, Mr. Raghunathan was an impenitent traditionalist, who was not ashamed of going to his spiritual sources, every now and then, to re-charge his intellectual batteries, which were otherwise strikingly powerful. Having spent the best part of his adult life as a leader-writer on one of the best-known English dailies, he came to this job of translation of the classics, rather late in his life, which was, in a way, a pity. He had, of course, taken up the Srimad Bhagavatam first, and saw it in print some years ago, following it up with selected pieces from the Sangam classics. It is true that he had been living with the Ramayana as it were, ever since he knew how to read Sanskrit, but it was something of a pity that he was able to take up the actual translation, when he was well past eighty. Not that we hold it against him, but we cannot ignore the fact that the flesh could often be weak, ever when the spirit is willing!

The sense of excitement, along with the spirit of dedication and capacity for concentration, is obviously there, as could be seen in his foreword, in the course of which he lets us share a little of the thrill of his own experience. “The music of Valmiki is like the thrill of temple bells to the cares of the evening air”, he says, “borne over placid waters, and mingling with the soughing of the wind in the palmgroves; there is moonlight in it, and the silent majesty of the stars.”

It is far from certain that he had been able to capture this music of Valmiki, limpid, lyrical and luminous, in his own prose translation. It is certainly, competent, readable as well as faithful, detailed as well as compact, but less than inspired or inspiring. “In every literary work”, he puts in very pertinently, “there are large patches of pedestrian work. And the nature of the subject largely determines this.” So are there, in his own translation, not surprisingly perhaps. Much of it is prosaic, for a writer known for his admirable felicity of expression in English, though it is possible here to plead the alibi of fidelity to the original.

“But who that has read Viswamitra’s description of the onset of night...can deny the poet’s command over the secret springs of style?”, adds the author. Nor can we justly deny it to the author himself, who was an acknowledged stylist in his time, with a flair for the lordly latinities and measured cadences of English prose. Marks of this could be seen more in the brilliant essay on “The World of Valmiki” (originally read in 1954), now included at the beginning of the book, than in the main body of the translation itself. Discussing the dominant notes of Valmiki’s symphony, he says:

“Compassion and renunciation–these are the twin poles round which the universe revolves. And Sri Rama is the axis that upholds it in its essential truth (Satya) and in the integrity of its undeviating order (Ria). Valmiki knew this in his bones, as the saying goes. But he had to figure it all out and to put it across. He had to show the Timeless functioning in time, to unweave the worlds worked into the cosmic design and show them in their inter-connection and modes of operation.”

I would have been more than content, if the bulk of the translation was half a brilliant as this passage.

Poetry is an unending stream, from Valmiki to Viswanatha down to the modernist poet of protest. It is also local and universal in one, temporal and timeless at the same time.

Poetry is an overpowering passion, a magnificent obsession, with Dr. Amal Ghose, a poet himself and a catalyst who can draw poetry from the four corners of the world. Under the imprint of the Tagore Institute of Creative Writing International, he has recently released The Album of International Poets. An impressively, beautiful production, it presents hundreds of short poems in English-­original and in translation.

In the words of the Associate Editor, Sandra Flower, “the Album represents a spiritual search for souls that speak the language of light” and she prays that “the dark concerns of this universe have been illuminated in the achievement of this poetic dream”.

Ruth Cassel Hoffman says in “Ebb and Flow”:

The waves lick the sand
smooth beach without smudges
Footprints disappear
... ... ... ... ... ...
Go down further deeper
Coral reef
impenetrable untouched
exasperating counter-force
and insolent growth
The sea meets its match.

The present human predicament seems neatly summed up in “Downhill” by Julia Vinograd:

I don’t have a home,
and I live there
all the time.

“The impulse” behind their effort is pointedly explained by each ofthe poets at the end of the collection.

In his comment on the arduously journey, which took him about five years, the Editor, Dr. Amal Ghose, says, “It is an interesting journey marked by many a swing and sweep towards the unsurpassed majesty of all-alluring revelation of the poignant sparks of that dramatic inner self which ever creates and recreates fierce dreams and lovely concepts of victory and triumph for creative poetry.”

This reviewer hopes that the reader will be able to share the fruits of this journey’s victory.

There are journeys of other kind. One of them is an Islamic Journey, Among the Believers by the noted writer, V. S Naipaul, one of the subtlest and most sensitive of non-believers alive that I could think of.

This journey, by no means easy or comfortable, takes him from Khomeini’s Iran to Zia-ul-Haq’s Pakistan, through revivalsit Malaysia to resurgent Indonesia. Islamic fundamentalism, in various stages of its powerful manifestation, is the basic theme of this exciting and brilliantly readable book.

Naipaul’s technique is not only highly sophisticated but altogether impeccable. He reports what he sees, without any comment or criticism, but with an unerring eye for detail and an undoubted flair for precise expression. The result is infinitely more devastating than a well-argued denunciation of the fanatical and the irrational, all in the same of the faithful and the Holy.

How do we retain or achieve perspective in the writing of History? By preoccupation with systems or the use of the normative method in the pursuit of facts?

These and many allied problems are discussed in the symposium Historical and Political Perspectives edited by Dr. Devahuti.

The general question of systems and norms is lucidly analysed by Prof. Om Prakash, who concludes: “Perspective of systems should never be allowed to substitute the normative perspective and should also not be ignored to the extent of absolutising the latter. It is better if the perspective of systems is allowed to operate through the normative context, if necessary.”

A wholesome advice not always followed in the thirty-odd papers that go to make this useful symposium.

One wonders if a similar guideline is indicated in the writing of biography as well. We can hardly expect to see it followed in a Soviet publication on Nehru. Jawaharlal Nehru, by A. Gorev and V. Zinyanin, is quite an informative and presentable volume, brought out by Progress Publishers, Moscow.

Not surprising at all that the book begins with a reference in the foreword to a glimpse of India’s land mass “shaped like a human heart” by the first Russian (may be Yuri Gagarin) from the space ship and ends with a reference to the Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Co-operation (signed years after the death of Nehru).

The last word, of course, is said by the late Mr. Leonod Brezhnev, who described Nehru, as “a man who seemed to embody the wisdom, the big heart and great soul of the Indian people, their striving for Independence and progress.”