Book Reviews

ENGLISH

SUNDARA KANDA: HANUMAN’S ODYSSEY Translated by B.S. Murthy (Self Imprint, F-9, Nandini Mansion, 1-10-234, Ashok Nagar, Hyderabad 500020 2005. 290 pages. Rs.150)

There are two classics in Sanskrit that get repeatedly translated and commented upon. But none of us exclaims: “Oh, yet another translation!” Such is the fascinating appeal of Sundara Kanda and the Bhagavad Gita. B.S. Murthy, novelist and translator of the Gita has now come up with Sundara Kanda in this excellently produced paperthat has a Madhubani painting of “Anguliya Pradhaana” on the cover. Why Sundara Kanda?

“If Mahabharata’s Bhagavad-Gita is taken as a philosophical guide, Ramayana’s Sundara Kanda is sought for spiritual solace. What is more, many believe that reading Sundara Kanda or hearing it recited would remove all hurdles and bring in good tidings! Well miracles apart, it’s in the nature of Sundara Kanda to inculcate fortitude and generate hope in one and all. After all, isn’t it a depiction of how Hanuman goes about his errand against all odds! Again, won’t it portray how Seetha, on the verge of self-immolation, overcomes despair to see life in a new light? Besides, how Hanuman’s Odyssey paves the way for Rama to rescue his kidnapped wife!”

The translator has attempted a sloka-by-sloka re-creation of the original. Well known as the bija-kanda of Valmiki’s epic, this is the Book in which the past is narrated by Hanuman to Sita and the future is described by Trijatha to her. Thus, reading this Kanda is considered to be as efficacious as reading the entire epic. The Kanda begins at the take-off stage of Hanuman’s journey to Lanka. B. S. Murthy places easy readability as the prime criterion and hence there would be no point in classicists raising their brows at the very first couplet:

“Egged on by peers Vayu’s son
Enshrined by man as Hanuman
Enthused himself to shoulder
Search of Seetha Rama’s spouse
Snared whom Ravan to Lanka
Sea across that hundred leagues.”

There is of course a plethora of inversions as if the translator would set the clock by a century. The philosophy of translation has undergone a radical change in the ensuing decades. Even a scripture like the Bible has to bow to the winds of change!

All the same, the story-line keeps us engaged though I do feel the absence of some of the finest and most poignant images such as Seetha’s state on seeing the signet-ring as one drinking from a cup that has a mix of nectar and poison (amritam vishasamsrushtam). The titles tickle the enquiring mind as appropriate signposts: womanizer at work, carrot and stick, itching for fight, odyssey in a nutshell...

Andhra Pradesh is Rama-country and coming from Hyderabad, B.S. Murthy’s version is most welcome.
Prema Nandakumar

‘Critical Essays on Indian English Writing’–D. Ramakrishna, Atlantic Publishers & Distributors, New Delhi, 12 essays over 141 pages in hard: Price Rs. 350.

Scholarly in content and meticulous in treatment, all the twelve essays under an attractive book jacket make a marvelous reading. But for one, that the rest were all published earlier in standard literary journals, bears testimony to the quality of these collected writings. The new essay on V.S. Naipaul’s Indian odyssey from darkness to light is as illuminating as the rest of them.

The works and times of A.K. Ramanujan, Nissim Ezekiel, P. Lal, Mulk Raj Anand, Shiv K. Kumar, Rabindranath Tagore besides V.S. Naipaul are dealt in depth in dedicated essays. Of course, the author’s long acquaintance with Ezekiel and Anand add as he deals with their life and times. Besides, the Indian literary scene in general is surveyed in Contemporary Indian English Literary Scene, Multiculturalism and Indian (English) Literature and Indian English Prose Writing. The beauty of the book is that all these essays written over the years make a composite whole and from the way they are structured one gets the full picture of the Indian English Writing as it evolved through the writings in fictional and non-fictional prose and poetry. Well up to a point that is, till the advent of the ‘classic authors’ as the writer calls the founding fathers of Indian English Writing. Of course, the essay on V.S Naipaul is but an exception. After going through the book, one might wish that the author, in time, would come out with a sequel to this work to cover the current crop of Indian English Writers with the same objectivity with which he dealt the works of the old timers.
B. S. Murthy

The Walking Shiva of Varanasi (Life, Legends and Teachings of Trailingaswami) by Dr. V. V. B. Rama Rao. Published by Richa Prakashan D-36, South Extension Part-one, New Delhi –110049 (India). Price: 9NR. 150.00 USD.4.00

The book “The Walking Shiva of Varanasi” by Dr. V. B. B. Rama Rao is a treat for those who are after the gold of spiritual consciousness and can savour the comforting wonders of divine attainments as they get manifested on this earth through the lives of saints and sages to be seen or experienced by a few blessed men and women of this world. The book will be of great value and interest.

The author gives an elaborate account of the great swami’s life right from his parentage–birth, childhood, youth, his work, the healing miracles and then the great departure. The swami’s ever seeking of seclusion and the devotees ever thronging to him makes for interesting reading.

The author gives detailed account of the swami’s wanderings and the many miracles he performed even the bringing of life to the dead. Trailingaswami’s yogic powers were tremendous and well known all over India.

It is recorded that the swami was born in 1607. He left his mortal body in the year 1887. He knew the time and declared it. To quote from the book, “There was quite a flutter in the entire city of Kashi when the news spread that Trailingaswami would leave the earthly body. He became the talk of the town….....the swami’s great departure was just ten days away. By then all those who had been very close to the swami were there, Sadananda swami, Kalicharan swami, Brahmananda swami, Bholanath swami were all there besides two other paramahansas. Mangal das Thakur was with him as always. The swami explained to all those assembled there various spiritual matters till the day before the final moment came.” Then the author goes on to narrate in detail the unique way the great Trailingaswami bade adieu to the world.

Amongst the foremost disciples of the Swami, Umacharan Mukhopadhyaya seems to occupy a prominent place. He was blessed to be in the Guru’s company for most of the time and receive all the training and diksha, Kalicharan seems to be another close disciple of the swami. Mangal das was swami’s constant attendant.

Two renowned saints who happened to be contemporaries and friends of Trailingaswami were Sri Ramakrishna Paramahmsa and Sri Shyamacharana Lahiri, the great Guru whose life and work are described in the world famous book, “Autobiography of a Yogi”, by Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda. Some of the great yogis and saints who met the swami and revered him were Bhairavi Mata, Mata Rajyalakshmi Devi, Brahmacharini Shankeri Maa and Fakir Abdul Gafoor.

The chapters VII to XVIII of the book are devoted to Trailingaswami’s teachings the subjects being “Guru sishya upasana, Purvajanma – Parajanma (Previous life - After life.), Self-Realisation and so on. Then the author gives an account of “The breaking of Shat Chakras”. This chapter contains a detailed account of the chakras.

A note on the history of Telugu and Trilinga Desa, pages showing the Shat Chakras and then a list of helpful books in Telugu, Hindi, English and Bengali are informative additions in the book. The cover photograph and design are well chosen as befitting the subject of the book. There are valuable quotations from Pothana, AdiShankara and Emerson. The book is a boon to spiritual seekers and will in all probability be widely read and enjoyed by many.
A. Satyavathi

CROSSING THE MIRAGE: B. S. Murthy, Hyderabad: Self Imprint, 2003, pp.iv+244, Rs.150/-

Here is a work of fiction in English, presenting a cluster of erotic exploits of both men and women. It is an interconnected web of love tales of the protagonist Chandra, his wife Nitya, her ravisher Vasu, and of Satya, the constant lover of Vasu’s wife Prema. The narrative moves from Hyderabad to Bombay to Hyderabad to Calcutta to Kakinada and to Hyderabad.

One could say that it is a well-constructed novel, rounded, and doling out poetic justice in large quantities. The two characters the author fails to accommodate in the well-knit circle are Ashok and Rashid, who help the protagonist in the early stages to break out of his shell and become what he is.

The style is pedantic and academic, making the reader run to a dictionary for help a number of times. The writer has a sly tone, a tongue-in-the cheek - occasionally even a cynical-attitude to his subject. And he has a penchant for quibbles and punning [‘inescapable escape’(17), ‘I could’ve met my man at work to work out the rest’ (36), ‘to impart class to attract the classes’ (38), ‘what a miss, why surely she’s a Miss’(72), ‘apologize to her telling the telling affects of poetic justice on my life’ (223), etc.] But he has either a poor grip over or a disregard for idiomatic English [‘If only she were after you’ for ‘took after you’ ‘his children haven’t gone after his wife’ for ‘haven’t taken after his wife’; we fmd misuse of phrases [‘what with’ (89,90) and ‘bottom line’ (194), ‘she wetted her eyes for words’ (141), ‘at the steering’ for ‘at the wheel’ (187), ‘what wondered him was’ (56), ‘deep breathed’ (21), ‘we’ll register marry’ (101), ‘you’ve wide open my eyes’ (192) ‘kind edged cruelty’ (152)]; the frequent omission of comma, and the very frequent non-inversion of the predicate in the Interrogative [‘where it all went wrong?’] jolts the reader. The author gives his own language to his characters: they all speak in the same style; there is no attempt to individualize them through their speech.

The book is about love, calf-love, love of a courtesan, illicit love, adolescent love, physical love, love-making, and pretty little else besides. The writer does not use a single four-lettered word; yet it is as erotic as any writing bordering on pornography. There are two instances (124, 233) where the language is decorated with deliberate sexual images. The writer even tries to propound a philosophy of love, linking it at some point with the Bhagavadgita!

Using a kind of interior monologue for most of the narrative, the writer attempts to analyse and project the inferiority complex of the protagonist, resulting from his inherited ‘unhandsomeness’; and this is the ‘mirage’ he has to cross, with the help of his wife. Crass materialism of Vasu, gullibility of Nitya, primness of Prema and the prejudice of Satya, are the personal mirages these characters are called upon to cross. They all, all except Vasu succeed at the end, and the pairs live happily ever after!

There are many books of this kind we come across in the West, most of them blatantly pornographic. There are books like Nana, Lady Chatterly’s Lover, and Lolita, which are considered classics. This book is not honestly pornographic, and is certainly unlikely to be a classic. Possibly a few adults may find their own adolescent dreams or experiences reflected here. But the book would very likely help to titillate the young adolescent reader and college goer (if he/she can be made to read books at all, that is.)
S. K. Sarma

Vallabhajosyula Subbarao Collected Writings - Edited by S. Krishna Sarma. (pages: 168, price: Rs. 120). Maruth Book Depot, Kothapet, Guntur- 522 001.

In the eyes of Vallabhajosyula’s sketch on the cover, one could discern peculiar pathos and in the photograph inside a strange determination. As you read on, you would discover these traits in his writings.

For the non-starters, Vallabhajosyula Subbarao (1904-1963) strolled on the Andhra academic stage like a colossus for two decades as the Principal of Hindu College, Guntur. As Prema Nandakumar laments in the blurb, the gain to academics was a loss to literature – “If only he had a longer life-span and the needed leisure, he would have definitely blossomed as an Alexander Pope of our times, for humour and satire are singularly absent in Indian writing in English”. One need not be lover of poetry to be absorbed by Subbarao’s verse for it is characterized by its strength of content and the vigour of expression. Can one picture Subbarao’s poetry better than K R Srinivasa Iyengar, who carried the last word on the Indian writing in English – “The mastery of language is impressive, the versification is sprightly, and the rhymes invariably produce the desired comic or devastating effect”.

Having roused their appetite, perhaps, it won’t be fair to the readers of this review if I were to fail to let them savour a sample of Subbarao’s verse in “To my American Air Hostess of the A.I.I”- ­

“….Enquiring of each of us what we want,
In a voice that is Musical chant,
Sustaining our spirits hour after hour­-
A butterfly flitting from flower to flower.
Not gathering but dispensing honey,
And shedding joy for love not money?……”

However, if one lays store on the ‘mind of science’ and not ‘the poetry of the heart’ still the collection has plenty to offer. Displaying the versatility of Subbarao as a thinker and writer, the collection contains, besides poetry, long and short, his lectures, radio talks etc. His 1959 radio talk is a revelation and would be valid for all times to come. Consider this: “We must realize that truth has no value except as it contributes to the richness of man’s personality and solution of his problems. The discovery that the height of Mount Everest is 29,OO2ft. and not, as previously supposed, 29,OOOft. may be, for aught we know, an advance in the direction of truth; but the life of man is very little affected by this knowledge. It is not just any truth that is important but the truth we need as human beings.”

However, for those who delight in light reading, there are playlets too. Mr. S. Krishna Sarma is to be complimented for bringing out this edition that would help the present generation, and hopefully the future generations as well, to understand and appreciate the genius of a man of letters of the generation gone by, and get benefited thereby.
B S Murthy
RIPPLE MARS: Readings from Ravuri Baaradwaja’s Elegiac Pentad, translated by Dr. V. V. B. Rama Rao. Published by Ravuri Bharadwaja, 159, 2RT, Vijayanagar colony, Hyderabad, Price Rs 100/- Pages 115.

The jottings in the Elegiac Pentad “Ripple Marks” are the outpourings of poet Bharadwaja’s grief occasioned by the death of his wife Kantam. The bonds of love between the poet and his wife are so strong that the grief of the poet transcends the physical and earthly planes and reaches the etherial and the sublime. Man and woman, the mundane and the spiritual, the human and the divine, all merge into one. The objects of Nature and the Universe constantly move, one into the other, in the imagination of the poet.

What the poet sees and hears, feels and responds in his world of imagination is Kantham, who lives in Eswar, Eswar who finds a place for himself in the heart of the poet! Man, woman and God are all one entity. Is not Eswar half-man and half-woman in human form?
The poet’s grief, poignant as it is, consoles and soothes him and the reader. The vibrant ripples of the poet’s emotion move the poet and the reader alike and transports them to the margents of thoughts, explaining and comforting both to accept the inevitable.

The jottings of the poet in prose and verse in the diary is poetry of the highest kind, philosophical, metaphysical, spiritual and at the same time earthly. The depth of feeling, the expanse of thought and the breadth of vision leave the reader astonished and breathless.

It is not an easy task for a translator to bring out the delicate and highly sensitive nuances of the thought process of the poet from Telugu into English. Dr.Rao has done a commendable and enviable job in keeping fresh the original flavour and fragrance of the thought and emotion in his translation in an easy and appealing style. In the English version the reader is in the company of the poet. This is a book which lovers of literature cherish.
D. Ranga Rao

TELUGU

RAMAYANA PAVANI; Janaki Jani, Kakinada; Sahiti Prachuranalu; Rs. 50 / US $ 5

It is not enough that books are just published. One has to get it printed. Even after getting it printed, it is not that easy to sell the copies. We are not accustomed to purchasing and reading any book. We expect it to be presented to us with compliments. Mr Janaki Jani is fortunate in this regard. This book has now come to third reprint. Pavani (Hanuman)’s tale in Ramayana has been very grippingly told, keeping the original Ramayana in view. One does not find an attempt on the part of Janaki Jani to exhibit his literary skills. Instead one finds, his anxiety to depict the story of Hanuma as in the Ramayana is evident right through. Any work that aims at universa1 good stands and is welcome.

Hanuma’s story as in the Kishkhindha, Sundara and Ayodhya kandas has been so ably rendered by the author that the book makes you read with out putting it down at one stretch. Bapu’s title cover is indeed a highlight.

The ancestry of Hanuma, ministership to Sugriva in Rishyamuka, acquaintance with Rama and Lakshmana, steering the friendship bet­ween Rama and            Sugriva, the search of Seeta, the war with Ravana,        the meeting of Rama and Seetha, Sri Rama’s coronation- all these events have been narrated in easy readable style. By reading this book, one is sure to get the credit of having read the Sundarakanda. The dialogues are short and crisp and appropriate.

“Vakyajno vakya kusalah” say bards about Hanuma. One fails to understand why Janaki Jani ingnores the origin of Hanunan.

Sri Rama is convinced about the way Hanuma speaks as the minister of Sugriva. The praise of Rama of Hanuma ring/true.

“Lakshman, this minister of Sugriva knows what he is talking. One who has not read the vedas cannot speak this way. Please talk to him courteously. There is not one misplaced word in what he spoke. He is concise, unambigous, and unhesitating. His words come from the heart. The tone is pleasing to the ear and the words are highly cultured, and appeal to the heart. What can a King without such a minister achieve? One who has such a minister achieves every thing.”

“Tamabhva bhashe .. doota vakva prachoditam”
Kami-setty Srinivasulu

TELUGU DRAMA AND SOCIAL AWARENESS by Prof. S. Gangappa. Sasi Prachranalu, C-73, Srinivaa Nagar Colony, Guntur, A. P. Price Rs.100-00, pages 135.

The book is a major research project taken up by the learned professor with financial assistance from the U. G. C. after his retirement from the Nagarjuna University, Guntur. The author deals with the theme of his choice exhaustively from the beginnings of Telugu drama (from 1860) to the present day (2000). He deals with different phases and trends this genre passed through in its growth and development in a systematic manner, with particular reference to ‘social awareness’ presented in the plays. Literature reflects life. Life and literature are the two sides of the coin that influence each other. That being so, the author’s choice of the theme, social awareness, as dealt with in this book, is of relevance and interest to the lay reader and the research scholar alike.

The author divides the book into periods, devoting a chapter to each period and the types of drama that held sway in each phase - patriotic, rationalistic, historical, mythological etc. depicting problems like untouchability, casteism, evils of dowry system, feminism etc. to name a few, with stress on social awareness created by the playwrights to educate the society towards redressal of the problems.

The reviewer, a teacher of the author four decades ago, commends and appreciates the effort of Prof. Gangappa in producing a reference book on a highly relevant aspect of Telugu drama.

The bibliography furnished at the end is exhaustive and useful to the research student.

Proper care in the use of the language would have been of help to this research work of great import.
D. Ranga Rao
9) JEEVANA SRAVANTHI: Modali Arunacnalam, 402 Srirama Apts, Narayanaguda, Hyderabad - 500 027; pp 239; Rs 65/­-

This fascinating social novel written by Shri Modali Arunachalam, a renowned novelist, depicts with crystal clarity the lost ‘collective’ social culture and ‘noble’ traditions of the typical middle class Telugu speaking family of yesteryears. These traditions and culture, in fact, reflected true values of life such as a simple life style, love and affection for all kith and kin, compassion and sympathy with an ever-helpful attitude towards the less fortunate, an intense spirit of sacrifice, a great sense of responsibility and commitment at all spheres of activity, and most importantly contentment and true happiness derived from simple pleasures of life. This indeed was an ideal situation wherein everybody wished for and contributed to the wellbeing of all without any reservations whatever. Entirely devoid of jealousy and hatred, a big heart together with a liberal mind underlined the conduct of the family. This was the pre independence scenario of the typical middle class Telugu speaking family.

And then the country won its independence. That led to a gradual but big change in social, political, and economic awareness and aspiration levels of the average man. Together with a rapid materialistic growth thrust on society during the past half-century, self-interest blended with greed and hypocrisy found its way slowly into the life style of this once simple and straightforward family segment, with a corresponding downfall in its perspective on life, traditions, and values.

The author presents before the reader, with picturesque detail, these gradual real life changes and developments in society, that have taken shape with changing times over the past few decades. The elderly reader is assured of plentiful pleasant reminiscences of his childhood days and events while reading this novel.

Undoubtedly Jeevana Sravanthi, a well-written family novel, is thoroughly enjoyable by readers of all categories both young and old.
Kambhampati Krishna Prasad