English Influence on Telugu Fiction

In the Republic of Letters, regional boundaries cannot always prove quite effective against the dissemination of ideas from one country to another. Lucky it is for us that it should be so. For, otherwise, no modern literature in India, in whatever language, would be what it is today. What is true of other literatures, is equally, or even more, true of Telugu literature. The Telugus, as a class, had hardly ever believed in the cult of cultural self-sufficiency. Tendencies towards purism, often politically motivated, seem, therefore, to have had no great attraction for them. A sort of spiritual cosmopolitanism has, for long, been a marked characteristic of their social attitude. Sanskrit poetry, Marathi drama, Bengali novel, not to speak of English criticism and Russian thinking, in more recent times, have been there in the making of the Andhra intellectual. He has taken them all, and more, in his stride, and has never fought shy of acknowledging his debt to them. This has resulted in the fact that Telugu literature can claim a high degree of variety and flexibility. But the sudden enthusiasm of the Andhra for something or the other, off and on, has also had the effect of leading him sometimes to an equally sudden disillusionment, which may be inevitable, and even a general attitude of scepticism and cynicism in the end.

In discussing the history of prose fiction, it is well to remember that the novel, as an art form, is of a comparatively recent origin in Telugu, as in almost all the Indian languages, for that matter. Despite the patriotic propensity, of the tradition-bound scholars to hark to the hoary past of Panchatantra and Kathaa sarit Saagara, the Telugu novel, as a distinct and recognisable literary form, is less than a century old. The great pioneers in this field were not ashamed to acknowledge their debt to the English masters, to whom they were introduced in the latter half of the nineteenth century.

By and large, the influence of English fiction in particular and of English literature in general (and of Western literature, as a whole, through the English medium) could be studied in three stages, for the sake of convenience, rather than of anything else. The first was that of form and structure (which we could see in the works of Kandukuri Veeresalingam, Chilakamarti Lakshmi Narasimham and the other pioneers). The second was that of approach and ideas, as also of technique to some extent, (as could be seen in the works of Unnava, Chalam and others including Kutumba Rao, for instance). The third is an all-pervasive influence covering all aspects, including incidents and characterisation, language, idiom usage and the rest. This, in turn, could easily be recognised in the works of a whole generation of contemporary writers, from a man of such undoubted talent as Butchi Babu, to many, who are lucky enough in having managed to become the current coin in Telugu fiction.)

In the first category falls Veeresalingam’s Rajasekhara Charitram (published in 1872) which is popularly accepted as the first Telugu novel-certainly in the sense in which we understand the term, now-a-days. This position might well be challenged by some of the redoubtable research scholars. But, then, there is pretty little on this earth, which is left unchallenged by them. Questions of chronological precedence apart, there could be little doubt about the fact that Rajasekhara Charitram is a work of great literary distinction and had stood the test of time. It continues to be readable enough to this day (for those who can follow a fairly simple graanthika style). Anyway, it is still remembered (not merely for purposes of literary history), as it deserves to be, while many others are forgotten.

On the author’s own admission, it was inspired by the model of Goldsmith’s celebrated novel, The Vicar of Wakefield. But, it was far from being a mere translation or even a narrow adaptation of the English classic. Except for a general similarity in the basic traits of a few characters and in the occurrence of one or two incidents, there was not much in common between the two novels. Both of them could, of course, be described as “sentimental
romances,” of the realistic school, though. In both of them runs an undercurrent of idealism and the authors are anxious to reassure themselves and their readers of the ultimate triumph of good over evil and of the straight path of honesty and good conduct over the crooked ways of intrigue and treachery. Dr Primrose and Rajasekhara, simple, open-hearted and well-meaning souls both, are rewarded by success and fortune in the end, after a series of reverses caused by their own gullibility and the cheating by the evil-doers.

That Rajasekhara Charitram was, otherwise, an original work, in its own right, was amply demonstrated (if demonstration was at all needed) when it was brought out in an English translation by the Rev. Mr. T. R. Hutchinson, under the title Fortune’s Wheel. The Times (London) observed that “….the pictures of Hindu domestic life, religious ideas, mode of worship and superstitions and the condition of women, with denial of all rights of choice in marriage, are so well-drawn and illustrated that the book will have a charm for all readers.”

“The novel, if it be anything,” observes George Moore, “is contemporary history, an exact and complete reproduction of the social surroundings of the age we live in.” By this standard, Rajasekhara Charitram is given a high place for the vivid light it throws on contemporary Andhra–with particular reference to the upperclass Brahmin families in the Godavari delta area. From the traditional preoccupation with mythology, legend and high romance, among the earlier writers, we come down here to social life in all its realism. The prince of noble birth, so familiar to the Prabandha readers, has given place here to the average house-holder. Man’s relations with other men are depicted here as such, needing no incredible miracles to intercede for salvaging him from desperate situations. The good man suffers, no doubt, not from the wrath of some capricious god or holy, ill-tempered sage, but for his own inherent weaknesses–mainly in the shape of vulnerability to flattery and propensity to live beyond his means for love of ostentation. All this change in characterisation is mainly a result of the influence of the realism of English fiction. The good man comes through the ordeal in fairly good shape, because it was the author’s unshakable belief, based on a mixture of Western humanism and Indian theism, that virtue was bound to win in the end, if Providence was just, as it was known to be.
Chilakamarti Lakshmi Narasimham, who was a close disciple of Veeresalingam in more ways than one, went on record that he had learnt the art of novel-writing from a reading of the latter’s Rajasekhara Charitram.” Maybe, there was some grain of truth in this, when we take into account the basic social theme and the general contemporary ground, that his Ramachandra Vijayam shares with Rajasekhara Charitram. The story of Ramachandra, a poor boy who makes good and marries a rich man’s daughter, follows the pattern rather of the Dickens novels, like David Copperfield, Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby, in which the hero ends up by marrying the master’s daughter. But many of the other Chilakamarti novels could be seen to have had quite a different inspiration, altogether. They were historical romances, based on the novels of Medows Taylor centring on the life and adventures of Tippu Sultan, Tara, Chand Bibi and other historical characters.

The element of historicity involved in the works of Chilakamarti or even those of Medows Taylor, for that matter, might only be marginal in character, mainly in the names of characters, locale and outline of important events. Both the authors might well have drawn on their fertile imagination and exploited their innate flair for picturesque description. Sometimes described as “the Andhra Scott,” mainly for the purple passages of elaborate description, Chilakamarti can hardly be credited with the historical scholarship and direct knowledge of the locale, which were the strong points of Sir Walter Scott. He was mainly a poet and playwright of the traditional type, and it may not be fair, on our part, to compare him to a writer of a different intellectual equipment and expect a different quality of novel from him. Dr K. Virabhadra Rao, who had done some research work on the subject, locates whole paragraphs and chapters in which Chilakamarti closely, and even mechanically, follows in the footsteps of (Medows) Taylor, in his novels, Hemalata and Ahalya Bai. Shades of the villains in Scott and Shakespeare are also found in Karpooramanjari.

Similar could be the experience of scholars who might have the time and the patience to go through the other Telugu novels of the period (especially the late Nineties of the last century). The titles themselves go to show this. The endings, ‘Charitra’, ‘Vijayam’, ‘Vilaasam,’, etc., are possibly borrowed from “The Story of so and so”, “The History of Tom Jones”, “Joseph Andrews”, “The History of Henry Esmond Esquire”, etc., by Fielding, Thackeray and other English novelists of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Paradoxical it may sound when we are told that one of the most significant (and, to my mind, original), of Telugu novels produced in the first quarter of this century is woven on the pattern of a well-known English novel of the 19th century. I am thinking of Maalapalli by Unnava Lakshminarayana, parts of which are said to be closely adapted from Mrs. Henry Wood’s Eastlynne. No Telugu reader would realise this, if he were not already told about it. Nor does he enjoy it a whit less, in the reading of it, even after this knowledge. But partly because of this, this Telugu novel, which is a classic of country life in Andhra, might have missed the chance of being taken up for translation in the UNESCO series being made available to all the major languages of the world.

Though two or three characters, in one particular chapter, might have owed much to the English novel, the better part of Maalapalli could not be considered as anything but an entirely original work. Even if we are to forget the story of the good man (Rama Naidu) and his credulous and wayward wife, who comes to a sorry pass, there is a lot in the book that is worth remembering for a long time. The accurate and sensitive cameos of rustic life in the Guntur District, that fill this book, have not been paralleled since. Nor are the heights of Gandhian idealism, traced to the native Hindu tradition of Ramanuja and the philosophy of the Bhagavadgita, easily touched by many others, with no credibility gap left yawning in the process. And the Telugu idiom, with its genuine local ring, reminiscent of the native woodnotes wild, is hard to come by in the common run of prose-writers during the last four to five decades.

The realism of Maalapalii is a full measure of the influence of nineteenth century English fiction of George Eliot and Thomas Hardy (and his Wesser country) for instance, not to speak of Mrs. Henry Wood.

Chalam (Gudipati Venkatachalam, to give the full name) is too much of an individualist to be classed together with any other Telugu novelist. But as an unrivalled master of social realism, one is persuaded to put him close to Unnava, despite their obvious differences of approach and outlook. Chalam’s realism is Lawrentian in its poignancy and power, while Unnava’s realism is almost Tolstoyian in its tranquillity and grandeur. He might have been deeply influenced by the powerful stories of Guy De Maupassant. He might also have the incurable habit of interspersing his Telugu sentences with English expressions, understood in the typically Andhra way rather than in the English way. Queen’s English is not by any means the Yardstick to be used for measuring Chalam. But one thing is certain. By a process of trial and error, as it were, he has evolved a vigorous prose style of his own, intensely evocative and invariably suggestive. It has a strange power and beauty, even if it cannot be conceded that rare merit of linguistic virtuosity.

The manner in which he goes, hammer and tongs, for the taboos and inhibitions of a male-dominated society suggests something of the work of D. H. Lawrence. Both have the genius for making visual images prick like needles. Chalam’s uncompromising individualism in the tireless quest for liberty has a family likeness to the social philosophy of the English anarchists, rather than to the impulse of the social reformers the world over, who believe in collective action and institutional remedies.

Among the modern Telugu novelists of major significance, three or four names compel attention as much for the way in which they have been able to absorb Western and world influences as for their intrinsic merit as writers. They are Messrs. Kodavatiganti Kutumba Rao, T. Gopichand, Butchi Babu and Rachakonda Viswanatha Sastri. Apart from being the most prolific of them, Kutumba Rao is also the hardest to put in a pigeonhole. He is a Marxist without being a Communist and a Progressive without being too much of an Idealist. He has made a happy amalgam of what he found acceptable in social realism, as well as socialist realism. There is in him something of the same sureness of observations and accuracy of detail, as also a conscious striving for simplicity, as in Maxim Gorky. His prose style was once described by the present writer, with no offence meant, as being “sterilised.” But, it has also the quality of distilled water – hygienic and satisfying, though apparently colourless, tasteless and odourless. Gopichand had exposed himself to the winds of Western philosophy, as could be seen in the studies in the human mind, provided in his novels. (Asamardhuni Jeeuayaatra and Veelunaamaa, for instance.) In point of narrative technique, he might have benefited from a study of the stories and novels of H. E. Bates. His language is, however, his own. Successful experiments in Wodehousean humour are made by Mr. Palagummi Padmaraju in his novel, Brathikina Kaaleji (or “The Human Zoo”).

The psychological novel in Telugu had found an able practitioner in Butchi Bubu, whose Chivaraku Migiledi (“What remains in the End”) touches the high watermark of fictional art in the depiction of human behaviour, through love and struggle, success and disillusionment. A little of the amusingly cynical attitude to life in general and the almost clinical observation of the foibles of human character are in evidence here, strongly reminiscent of Somerset Maugham, of whom Butchi Babu was an ardent admirer. The stream-of-consciousness technique, perfected in the hands of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, and shades of the Existentialist philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre, are adapted with unerring skill by Rachakonda Viswanatha Sastri who achieves the maximum of effect in the minimum of words. While his angle of vision is surprisingly new for the traditional reader of Telugu action, his idiom combines a refreshing simplicity with a delightful novelty.

The contemporary literary scene is quite rich in fiction, the novel as well as the short-story. If women-writers seem to dominate it, irrespective of the statistics, it is not without reason. In discussing “aspects of the novel,” in his Clark Lectures at Cambridge, E. M. Forster tries to give all possible answers to the question: “What does a novel do?” His own preference (as well as personal identification) is expressed in the cryptic words: “Yes–oh dear, yes–the novel tells a story.” And women-novelists in Telugu, by and large, know how to tell a story. They also take care to weave the story around a theme that they know quite well. As for the influences, Indian or English, the important thing is what they are able to do with them. Some of them, whom the present writer finds more acceptable, are fairly integrated in themselves and unpretentious about their work. They had probably digested what they had consumed and the benefits of the influences, external or internal, had got into their bloodstream. And their work is marked by poise and judgment, and therefore, remains memorable for the reader. One of the names that comes readily to my mind is that of Dwivedula Visalakshi. She never tries to bite off more than she could possibly chew, in choosing her subject matter. And she does a competent job, always trying to see that the story is more important than the story-teller. She has a sense of style and pays attention to workmanship. I dare say there are quite a few others, equally good perhaps, maybe even better, whom I have not been able to read at the same length, and with equal care.

The question of good novels, or bad, is not however, one of women or men writers. Nor is it a question of foreign influence or Indian influence or no influence at all, except their own. We all tend unconsciously to imitate what we insensately admire. There is no dearth of talent among the younger generation of contemporary novelists-women as well as men. But one could do with a little more of intellectual discipline and personal integration. A few are always busy dazzling their readers with their flashes of verbal wit, as long lost shadows of Oscar Wilde. A few others are never tired of being slick and smart, but cannot help showing themselves up as superficial and unsteady. The characters are bodily transported from the latest English, American or continental novel in translation. They talk in Telugu, no doubt, but they talk a language, which cannot be understood by the Telugu reader unfamiliar with the latest in English fiction. A character in a recent nove1 (published in the popular pocketbook series) is described as follows: “For want of the speaking habit, he has got used to speaking Telugu like Hindi, and Hindi like Punjabi. “

Almost the same thing could be said of some of the novelists themselves–the apparently smarter among them, at any rate. But luckily for us, they are the exceptions rather than the rule. The best of them cannot overlook the need for digesting the material at their disposal, and harmonising the influences from afar with the experiences nearer home. The problem of matching form and content is a perpetual one and each generation strives to solve it in its own way. And out of this ceaseless striving we could look forward to a great novel, as well as some good novels, not to speak of a great many popular ones from time to time.