MASTI: SERENE PHILOSOPHER

 

C. H. PRAHLADA RAO

 

            On the day the Kannada country was to celebrate his 96th birthday, Masti plunged it in gloom. So remarkable was his health, his friends and admirers saw five years ahead to his centenary; it would have been a unique event.

 

            He was to take part in the World Kannada Conference in Mysore, but his health came in the way. Many missed him, and his famous smile. Be was present at Ravindra Kalakshetra, a little later, for the Purandara festival. He looked fit as a fiddle erect like the mark of exclamation.

 

            Age never seemed a burden to him; the years sat light on his shoulders; he never stooped. It is also true in another sense, he remained upright in life. A man of virtue, he was proud of himself. He was above temptation. Neither office, nor the prizes of life could wean him from the straight and narrow path. On the contrary, he was capable of sacrifice: at the height of his career as a civil servant, on a question of principle, he resigned. And he never regretted.

 

            Three score and ten is the biblical span. A little before his death, Tagore spoke of the burden of age. He was then 80, in full possession of his faculties Four score and ten, he said, would be insufferable. Masti ventured into his 90s: in full possession of his faculties. His laughter did not desert him to the end. He lived: at peace with himself, with the world, serenely like a philosopher, creatively like an artiste. It is given to few: all other prizes of life seem secondary. The secret of Masti’s longevity lies in the man’s integrity. He was a man of letters, but above everything else, he was a gentleman.

 

            In a vivid photograph you could count the wrinkles in Masti’s face, but the honours that came to him defy cataloguing. Of Masti and the honours that came to him, this must be said: they were tardy: when they came, they meant little to the man. Masti was human. Every man needs recognition. It satisfies when it comes in time–like the prizes he won in college.

 

            I have a memory of a meeting with him. His book “Chenna Basava Nayaka” was due for the Sahitya Akademi award. But he was cheated of the honour. The Sahitya Akademi made amends by its award for his short stories, and later by its fellowship. There was a furore over “Chenna Basava Nayaka”, wholly extra-literary. He wanted someone to say a good word for him. I was talking to him on the road, and he asked me “Why don’t you write to Radhakrishnan? Not that Radhakrishnan would have taken notice of me.” The childlike innocence of the man comes through. The denial rankled: it soured. So that when the Sahitya Akademi’s honours came later, he didn’t need them. Even Jnanpith award came late: and the noises made about “Chikkaveera Rajendra” were reminiscent of the bitterness vis-a-vis “Chenna Basava Nayaka.”

 

            In the case of a writer like Masti, honours are formal. You do not wait for a book to qualify in the race. Lesser writers do. Masti represents a life dedicated to the service of letters. The honour is symbolic. A book is no more than a peg. Yet, “Chenna Basava Nayaka”, considered good for an award, was dropped like a hot potato in the face of stormy opposition unrelat­ed to literary merits. Sahitya Akademi waited for a book not likely to trigger controversy: a book not short stories. Otherwise appropriate: the short story is Masti’s forte.

 

            You must go back in time. Consider his life. It lies before you like a continent. It encompasses two world wars; the freedom movement with all its vicissitudes, culminating in the partition of the country, the emergence of India, as a free republic, with a Constitution, parliament, etc.; nearer home, the reunion of the Kannada-speaking areas, marking the realisation of what was once a distant aspiration, evocative of a golden age: his life witnessed the blossoming of the Kannada movement.

 

            Before the first World War, he was a young man in his early ’Twenties, surveying the scene. He was filled with dismay. Kannada was hardly a language: there was no writing worth the name. Kannada people were divided. He had just written his first short story. The restoration of Kannada to its rightful place, the flowering of Kannada literature, the reunion of Kannada­-speaking people in a polity, these were not visible on the horizon. As a young civil servant, Masti served the people, got to know the land, its history and legend, savoured the joys and sorrows of the people, and employed his talent to recreate them. The short story, the novel, the essay, the play, every form interested him. He excelled himself whatever the form.

 

            Masti not only wrote: he promoted writing. He launched young writers. Some of them later became famous–K. V. Puttappa, D. R. Bendre, Gorur Ramaswamy Iyengar. It was Masti who published Puttappa’s maiden book “Kolavu,” Bendre’s “Gari” and Gorur’s “Namma Halli Chitragalu.” He turned a publisher. He promoted literary circles. Young writers would read their poems or stories to him. He edited “Jeevana.” devoted to Kannada letters. He encouraged young writers. Rajaratnam’s story is well-known. With a band of zealous writers, he founded and nursed the literary organisation now known as the Sahitya Parishat.

 

            In his reminiscences, Masti recounts his early days, the abject poverty, the struggle to school himself. Poetic justice was not far behind. There were prizes for the boy. He speaks of his academic distinction with obvious relish. And then followed a career in Government service. The MCS was every young man’s dream. Masti’s friend Navaratna Rama Rao excelled in English. Masti was not behind. He returns to the theme again and again; he quotes passages in English of his turbulent days in Government. His anger at injustice rises to incandescence. He courted martyrdom.

 

            Money in some ways troubled his consciousness. His reminiscences bring up money again and again. Masti obviously remembered his boyhood too well. Lacking the money needed for his examination fee, he raised an advance, as a boy he taught to earn a pittance. He had seen people with money lacking generous impulses. If he offered to repay, well, let him. Masti carried memories with him. He was austere, but good causes moved him to generosity. Not very surprising. His style of living hardly changed through the years. He lived in the same old-­fashioned house in Gavipuram. Not for him a car or the forms of luxury. The money that awards brought him went into public causes. But he was a meticulous accountant. He kept track of every copy of every book he published.

 

            One afternoon, I dropped in at his place. My object was to buy a book, not to trouble Masti. I was seated in the verandah, and it took some minutes before I could get the book. Masti’s son-in-law, who found me the book, wanted to know whether he should tell Masti that I was there. “No” I said. I could see Masti playing with his grandchildren. It gladdened my heart. Later, I wrote to him, and he chided me. I said I did not wish to interrupt his diversion.

 

            For all this eminence, Masti could descend to the mundane level. It was not necessary that you should be a well-known writer for him to speak to you. He took interest in me and treated me with courtesy as if I was somebody tremendously important. When I expressed in print, a view that did not please him, he would argue with me; others would ignore. And when I behaved like an impertinent boy, he would bring me round as a patient father does, instead of dismissing me as a nuisance. A mere greeting, in print, would bring from him a warm postcard. ‘Why don’t you come?’ And he would invite you to lunch. For sheer humanity, there is no other world closer than Masti. And his generosity would exceed bounds of reason. I remember his introducing me to B. V. Keskar, who was then Chairman, National Book Trust, in town, meeting writers. “He is one of our good critics!” You could write to him and be sure of a postcard in reply. The smallest detail would not escape his attention. “Subbanna,” the famous little novel, he would point out, is based, contrary to legend, on the life of an unknown schoolmaster. He wouldn’t complain: he would gently correct. And he had a remarkable capacity to let bygones be bygones.

 

            Masti’s that is how he was known. Not by his name Venkatesa Iyenger, or by his nom-de-plume Sriuivasa. Masti is the legendary ancestral home, and in his own lifetime Masti became a legend. Now that he is gone, the legend will pass from generation to generation.

 

            Masti’s equanimity is celebrated. Nothing ever provoked him. He was never at a loss. He would always smile, and come up with something homely. His simplicity was the product of clarity. In speech or writing, he drove home direct. He may have lacked sophistication, but that is because the man was unsophisticated. He argued for harmony and reconciliation in the midst of strife: he advocated causes no matter how unpopular; he demonstrated courage of conviction.

 

            Masti, in his 90s, was lonely. Most of his contemporaries had left the scene – B. M. Srikantia, A. R. Krishna Sastry. D. V. Gundappa. T. N. Srikantia, D. L. Narasimhachar, V. Sitaramiah, to mention a few. He carried on bravely, driving a lonely furrow. He never brooded. He lived worthily, and the end brings an era to a close. An era rich beyond the dreams of a miser. A trickle swelling into a tide–the cause of Kannada to which he dedicated himself. That Tamil was his mother-tongue made no difference.

–Courtesy: The Hindu

 

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