HOMAGE TO PROFESSOR
K. R. SRINIVASA IYENGAR
K. SRINIVASA SASTRY
It was in June, 1957. I was a student in the
first year of literature Honours in Andhra University at Waltair. We were
sitting in a room on the upstairs of the University Arts College. My mind was
heavy with expectations. Even the air, I felt, was still and hushed in hope. At
last, he came! Prof. K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar! I wondered if the sea that was
rolling by were serene in her salutation to him. We were awed into silence. He
broke its spell with words of parental care and affection.
Prof. Srinivasa Iyengar is a personality in
the real sense of the term. He is a living embodiment of culture. One who
mistakes thundering voice for courage of conviction, show for dignity,
instinctive aversion to life’s trivialities for mental inactivity will not
admire him. Prof. Iyengar is no doubt, silent. But his silence is more eloquent
than eloquence itself. His apparent unconcern for dress is an indication of the
philosopher in him. Now he can be pontifically solemn; the next moment, he
gives a free play to his buoyant yet delicate humour. He is the practical
illustration of the gentleman of Emerson’s definition. A lord of his own self,
he can be perfectly at home in the company of both princes and paupers, saints
and sinners. He reconciles the exuberance of an artist with the austerity of a
scholar. In his presence everyone humbles himself into a disciple, nay, into a
devotee, and bitterness, if it is there, turns into willing veneration. His
face is lit up with the beauty of his soul.
E. M. Forster says in his introduction to
Prof. Iyengar’s Literature and Authorship in India (1943):
When Indians are very rich or very
obstreperous, we pay attention to them; when they are merely sensitive they get
ignored. Prof. Iyengar does for India what Mr. Hsiao Chien, in his ‘Etching
of a Tormented Age’, has lately done for China; he puts his country on the
receptive Englishman’s map.
Prof. Iyengar is well qualified for his task,
for he understands our mentality ... He understands our limitations also ...
“India can neither do with English nor
without it.” ... He is a wise guide, too. For instance, he is against purism,
and, as a convinced impurist myself, I should like to thank him for this. And I
should like to thank him generally for lightening our darkness, and for showing
us something of the complexity and richness of the coming day.
Prof. Iyengar has a glowing vision which
illuminates undiscovered regions and aspects, be it literature. Fine Arts,
philosophy, or religion. His thoughts
have the force of articulate language: and his utterances have the stir of a higher life and activity. He enters
the classroom with the utter nonchalance of recluse, stares now at the roof,
now at the students, and starts the lesson. He invests the spoken idiom with
literary flavour and dignity, and a passing estimate with the balance and
weight of first-rate criticism.
In such a busy world as ours, mechanical in its routine we seldom come across personalities of Prof. Iyengar’s type, with such intellectual integrity and resilience. To be under his tutelage is spiritual influence of the highest kind. His mere presence is a magnetism. A single syllable from his mouth treasures thousand efficacies and properties. He is a master spirit, he is one among us: yet, he is far above. He is culture itself at its highest and most refined.