Masti: His Writings in English

A Kannada writer of vast creative talents could hardly be expected to contribute in another language like English so much to his lasting credit as Masti. While like Tagore he has attempted with success every variety of literary form such as poem, novel, play, short story, essay, criticism, biography, sketch, dialogue, he has, though not in equal quantity and variety but in no less distinct quality, given us quite a good number of critical essays, biographical sketches and stories in English.

Masti cannot claim to be a stylist in that language but preserves a naturalness of expression which surpasses any of the usual characteristics associated with prose-writing. People, who have watched him in conversation may easily discern the same unaffected, gentle and refreshing stamp in his writing. With no occasion to strain for effect, his language runs like a rill which makes little noise of its existence. His prose toodoes not run to lengthy or involved sentences nor into deliberate short ones after a staccato manner. In whatever way it can be described, it reflects vividly his personality: mild, selective, individualistic and unassuming. At any rate to those who are familiar with his manner and method, no difference at all they convey from his speech or conversation. This identity makes for his being recognised as a writer of uncommon simplicity. Idiomatic of usage and with no penchant towards any known model in English, he maintains an originality that is the man himself.

Turning to his English books, almost the earliest one to see the light of day was “The Popular Culture of Karnataka.” Lectures no doubt they were to university students, still devoid of bookish scholarship, they retain something of the history of the people inhabiting a region of the land, whose culture has a permeating influence on song and story and whose religious ground accounts for the peasantry being fully conscious of their early traditions of living and growing.

About 1941, his “Poetry of Valmiki” appeared to convince readers and students of the great epic, that to understand its beauties one should have lost himself in its poetry as Masti. In sixteen chapters of close analysis of the “Chief Characters,” “The Civilization and Culture,” “The Valuation of Valmiki,” etc., the book abounds in some of the subtlest evaluations of a poet’s unequalled ability of narration of the life of a most ex­emplary man. For sheer enjoyment of Masti’s powers as a narrator in lucid, unsophisticated prose, the volume stands as yet unsurpassed. He made once again Valmiki live in our hearts.

His four volumes of short stories came next which practically fixed Masti in the remembrance of literary students of this particular genre of writing. Experienced short story writers in both Tamil and English estimated them as unfor­gettable for their special quality of gaining on our hearts with a slow but sure emphasis of their art. Some of the stories as “The Curds-seller,” “The Teacher” and “Venkatasami’s Love” can find rarely their equal in literature. Connoisseurs such as Rajaji volunteered to turn the last two stories mentioned into English. As a matter of fact, Navaratna Rama Rao’s English translation of “Masumatti”in Triveni quarterly induced Rajaji to translate from the English rendering into Tamil, and offer it to the Kalaimagalmonthly. The art of writing with no trace of artificiality made Masti superior of his individuality and imagination. However much Masti’s name has become a household one in Karnataka, for litterateurs in other languages, to know of his creativity, the English renderings form certainly the main sources.

“Rabindranath Tagore” was the next publication of his to appear in print and arrest the attention of writers. Masti showed how far a great poet to be understood, despite language barrier, an adoring student of the poet’s writings in translation can justify by ample evidence of his insight into the poetic thought. Some of the selections from Tagore which he has collected in that volume easily tell us how much himself of an authentic poet Masti is to have peered into the realms of a mystic soul like Tagore.

In 1958. “Chenna Basava Nayaka” in English translation by Navaratna Rama Rao became the first historical novel of Masti’s, painting the ground of the times of Muslim rule in Mysore and invoking the justice that was due to the memory of the ruler, Hyder Ali. The book made people realist that after the novelette “Subbanna” which came earlier can be well considered to have exceeded it in powers of delineation of human nature. In places, Masti seems like Valmiki a mere scribe of what he had seen to have taken place actually before his eyes. Epic colour envelops the story, and sometimes the Maharani Santavva reminds us more of Kausalya in Valmiki.

“Chikka Veera Rajendra” no doubt is more striking by its tragedy, and the material woven into historical details makes it more of a permanent achievement for a novelist of Masti’s calibre.

By the time Rajaji retired from official position of the Governor-General of India, Masti had started dwelling on his adorable human qualities aided with acuteness of intellect and goodness of heart, drawing him to portray him exactly as he found him. In many places in the two volumes, which appeared much later, one can trace without doubt the intimacy which Masti had felt for his hero and the admiration for the man in teaching every individual of any intellectual worth that came into contact much to learn from his conduct both in private and public life. Perhaps, as Rajaji observed at another context concerning one of Masti’s creations, it may not be necessary when making a long book that everything done or said must be put in writing. The selection of material to pinpoint a trait or tendency would be sufficient. According to modern biographers in the wake of Lytton Strachey, few samples of both excellence and blemish in the character of an individual written about could make the reader feel less of fatigue and remember easily the whole of the picture portrayed in light and shade. Because Masti did not choose any other for his model, he did what he felt due to make his Rajaji live in the pages of his book. Without dramatic condensation too, the story of Rajaji fares no less in its ultimate whole to those wedded to recollections too dear to omit.

Coming to his “Essays and Addresses” contained in a separate volume published almost at the same time as the two volumes on Rajaji, they are of immense value to most of the modern writers who get into a feeling that nothing will be sensational or of immediate consumption by the reading world, unless both the manner of telling as well as the substance contained would satisfy the curiosity and eagerness for change in the readers. Eighteen chapters contained therein provide different aspects of Masti’s profound interest in all life. “The thought was all based on the idea about national welfare which came to me as a growing boy and young man from contact with great elders, and has regulated my outlook through the years,” is the plea made in the introduction to this volume. Conscious, as he says, of English not being his language, and hence the possibility for errors creeping in any such writing attempted, he is not on that score guilty of grave slips or ill-constructions of any kind requiring improvement. The addresses, some of them, especially delivered to writers make deep impression by their sincerity for improving their standards. One very important emphasis of his on writers is salutary in every sense. He has asked writers never to imagine that without good living and noble thinking one could achieve the objective of endurability in the long run. Talents for crea­tivity and skill in writing are entrusted to the writer by a Higher Power and the remembrance of it should save him from falling a prey to coveting the latest attitudes of Western writers. In between some of the abstract thoughts, there are delightful short sketches of eminent men in public life such as Sir M. Visveswarayya, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Tagore and Ram Mohan Roy. They show how much power of observation Masti possesses in delineating their character and mind. One piece particularly: “Tagore: A Personal Impression” is a vivid picture or Tagore drawn with utmost sensitivity and felicity. Perhaps none other of Tagore’s admirers here has so unforgettably port­rayed Tagore’s figure and personality in lines of consummate art. Delivering a lecture on “A Cultural Programme for New India,” he has shown what an amount of worthy material is in our country for drawing upon and how his faith in the future of our countrymen is never allowing of despair. One essential aspect of our growth depends, according to him, on remembering that “our culture touches the whole of our life and if we wish to make the programme for improving in culture we have to take a look at all our life.” Nothing could be more timely and salutary to our countrymen, trying to imitate most of Americanism in fashion of dressing and talk.

A true writer’s credentials show out in private and public when he retains an unsophisticated philosophy of outlook. Masti’s two tiny companion volumes published recently under the titles: “Thoughts on My Life” and “Thoughts on Religion” sum up his testament of faith in both man and religion. Notes penned from day to day in somewhat of a diary of his thoughts on life, breathe an abiding odour of the pent-up feelings and emotional upsurges which he had undergone and which seek an outlet in calm assessments of his own reactions to society and life. He says that supported by the feeling that God has been present with him, he has clung to a little reali­sation of his own self as his sole resource in life. How soothing to imagine of a writer of vast experience expressing such sentiment at a time when most others will be tottering on their legs and groping their way in the darkness of their souls

Masti’s ambition, if he has ever felt or wished others to know, would be to feel contentment always and to spread the same sense of uninterrupted healthy outlook around him in domestic as well as company of friends. To hold the pen to the last is the Dharma of a writer. Tagore wrote till his last and Masti even while past ninety, holds firm the pen to explore still the regions of healthy imagination.