“Triveni”: Retrospect and Prospect

“TRIVENI”:
RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT

Introduction

IT IS HEARTENING to learn that a public charitable trust – by name Triveni Foundation – is formed at Hyderabad to have a permanent basis for publishing Triveni uninterruptedly. To all of us connected with it in one way or another – as readers, contributors or publishers – this is sure to be a matter for su­preme gratification. Especially in view of the increasing mortality of similar publications of a serious character the world over.

Obviously, this is not a time conducive for little reviews and literary periodicals. Maybe, it never has been, for a long time. The Pall Mall Gazette and the Review of Reviews, Nation, Horizon, Adelphi and Atheneum, Scru­tiny and The Criterion, which were once the pride of the English intelligentsia, had long ago fallen by the wayside. Encounter, the interna­tional monthly, which stood for cultural free­dom and intellectual dissent, and Punch, the familiar symbol of British humour, have re­cently joined the ranks of the great departed.

In America the Saturday Review (once called The Saturday Review of Literature)is probably defunct. One only hopes that the Par­tisan Review and the Ever-Green Review are alive and kicking, though not shining as before. We have, of course, the New Yorker going strong.

Numerous are the English periodicals in India, which were a byword for cerebral quality and social prestige. Some of the names that come readily to one’s mind are: Modern Review (Ramananda Chatterji); Hindustan Review (Dr. Sachchidananda Sinha); Indian Review (G.A. Natesan) and India monthly (Humayun Kabir).

Against this disturbing and depressing ground, it is quite a pleasant surprise that Triveni quarterly has completed 65 years of its purposeful existence. Even those unsure about the continuity of its publication look nos­talgically to its halcyon days. They are happy to hear of its latest issue.

To ensure its safety, the Editor-Pub­lisher of Triveni has been changing its place of printing and publication, mostly for rea­sons beyond his control. This has happened a number of times, without any glaring change in its quality of content or format and production.

I remember that the inaugural issue of Triveni came out from “Malabari House”, in Vepery, Madras, in January 1928 while its of­fice was formally opened on December 25, 1927. It was a sumptuous, well-got-up volume of 144 pages, printed on fine featherweight pa­per, with a number of art plates for reproduc­tion of sculptures and paintings.

Worth recalling are the words of its Founder-Editor, K. Ramakotiswara Rau, (a young lawyer of Narasaraopet, in Guntur Dis­trict, Andhra Pradesh, who had given up his profession, in response to Gandhi’s call during the struggle for freedom), setting out his aims and ideals in launching the new periodical. He wrote in September 1928:

            “Triveni seeks to interpret the Renais­sance movement as reflected in the various linguistic units of India. The Editor is an Andhra, and in close touch with the literary and art movements in Andhra Desa. But he is anxious to publish detailed accounts of similar movements in other parts of India. He makes an ear­nest appeal to scholars in other linguistic areas to write about the literary and art movements with which they are familiar. Triveni will thus lay the foundations for that inter-provincial harmony and goodwill which is the prelude, to a federation of Indian cultures”.

From this, one could imagine that this pioneer editor cast himself in the ambitious and idealistic role of a one-man academy of art and letters. In the event, he anticipated the work of the national akademis of free India by a full quarter-century and more. He sought to do single-handed, and actually did in the begin­ning, what the Sahitya Akademi had set out to do with infinitely larger resources, with official patronage.

But the fact that this Editor was in the thick of the Freedom Struggle did not make matters easy for the journal. From 1937 to 1939, he was a member of the Madras Legisla­tive Assembly. But what is more to the point is that he was arrested in the August movement of 1942. But he took care to leave the publication in the hands of like-minded friends and well­wishers, including K. Sampatgiri Rao, Nittoor Srinivasa Rao (later Mr. Justice), A.N. Murti Rao and others in Bangalore, where it stayed on for some years.

It was in 1949 that Triveni obtained what looked like a permanent home, at Machilipatnam, when Mr. (now Dr.) Bhavaraju Narasimha Rao of Triveni Publishers, an ardent admirer of Ramakotiswara Rau, undertook the onerous responsibility of printing and publish­ing it. Through thick and thin, through fair weather and foul, he has been in charge of the frail bark, ever since.

It was in the spirit of sacrament, of Bharata treating the Padukas of Rama. After the demise of Ramakotiswara Rau in 1970, it was a case of Bharata holding those Padukas high, without the expectation of Rama’s return.

From Bangalore or from Machili­patnam, a few years earlier, Ramakotiswara Rau was, in all his innocence and credulity, attracted by the offer of a one-time Associate Editor (Mr. Burra V. Subrahmanyam), then a leading lawyer of Hyderabad, to look after the publication of the periodical, as he could well afford to do it. But it proved a wrong step, soon retraced, for return to the safe and secure hands of Narasimha Rao at Machilipatnam.

Sometime in the mid or late ’Sixties, Mr. Bhavaraju toyed with the idea of having a branch office of the Triveni Publishers in Ma­dras and editing the journal from the city, where it was born, while the printing was done at Machilipatnam as before. Though the exer­cise was not as successful as it was expected to be (thanks largely to the gradual disappearance of the ageing generation of its old friends, pa­trons and supporters), it was notable at least for one achievement. The Golden Jubliee Num­ber, a sumptuous production, with varied fare, was formally released in Madras in March 1978 by Professor K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar, Srimati Rukmini Devi presiding, at the Sastri Hall. It was released later in May at Machilipatnam by Dr. B. Gopala Reddi, an old student of Ramakotiswara Rau at the Andhra Jateeya Kalasala, a pre-Independence national institu­tion set up by patriots.

It was always a struggle for Triveni with its limited elite readership and uncer­tain advertisement revenue. It had no good Samaritan like Cecil King (a nephew of Lord Northcliffe), chairman of the Mirror group, who printed Encounter free for some years, to come to its aid. For once, it appeared there might be someone to make a like gesture. And that was Prof. C.V.N. Dhan, a successful edu­cational entrepreneur, of Guntur, who pub­lished it for a few years. It was from here that the Diamond Jubilee Number was re­leased late in 1988 by Dr. K. Satchidananda Murti.

The general experiment, however, did not last much longer. The journal had, therefore, to go to Machilipatnam once again, under the familiar, protective wings of Dr. Bhavaraju Narasimha Rao. He has been shouldering the burden, with admirable patience and forbearance, all along.

We cannot overlook the relentless fact that he is not growing any younger. He is fast approaching eighty, though keeping reasonably fit for his age. He can’t be expected to bear the burden single-handed forever. It is indeed heartening to find that a trust has been formed by his son, B.N. Murty, in Hyderabad to help bring out the periodical from Hyderabad from January 1993. The idea is to ensure the con­tinuance of the institution, not letting it depend entirely on an individual. It started as a votive offering in Madras; our prayerful hope is that it would be a place of worship on the banks of the Musi, in Hyderabad.