Sri K. Ramakotiswara Rau Garu
As
I knew him
C.
SUBBA RAO
[SRI
K. RAMAKOTISWARA RAU, Founder-Editor of Triveni, was born on 2nd
October, 1894 and passed away on 19th May, 1970. Here is a pen portrait by one
of his ardent admirers and great devotees.
–EDITOR]
Even
if it is a linguistic aberration, I can’t but choose to refer to him as Sri
Ramakotiswara Rau Garu for the great respect I have
for him and his memory. I am actually referring to the horrific suffix “garu” the Telugu word here. But I don’t think that this is
a linguistic aberration, either. When you can say quite validly in English
“Gandhiji”, why can’t you say “Ramakotiswara Rau Garu”?
If a Hindi honorific suffix to a proper name in English is valid, can a Telugu
one be wrong?
I
was just twenty-one when I first met Sri Ramakotiswara Rau Garu
in 1961. Then I was working in S. S. and N. College, Narasaraopet, where he spent the last years of his life.
Inspired by Christopher Fry’s “The Lady is not for Burning”
and especially by the verbal eloquence in it, I wrote a one-act play in English
entitled “A Shocking Suicide.” With the immaturity, passion and love of
high-sounding language common to the youth, I just invented a pretext of a
theme only to write some very hard-hitting language. I was trying to be assured
by some competent gentleman that I had written good English. A friend of mine,
Mr. Salam, said that there was only one man at Narasaraopet who could give an opinion on the little piece,
and that he was Sri Kolavennu Ramakotiswara Rau Garu, Editor, Triveni. And
the next day I took the typed script and introduced myself to him, and
requested him for his opinion on it. It was the evening time and he was
relaxing in a cane chair in the verandah of his house, “Triveni Nilayam” on the
On
my way back home I thought of him. He was by no means handsome, but very
impressive and elegant in appearance with this fine features, very well-shaven
for he would shave everyday as I came to know later, with well-scissored thick mustache not spreading to the sides of the
mouth, but terminating down the sides of the nose. He was rather short than
tall, and his big kindly eyes showed the largeness of his heart. He was
immaculately dressed in white dhoti and laalchi.
One would rightly get the impression that he was an honest gentleman. I was
irresistibly drawn to him, and I surely felt honoured
with my acquaintance with this savant.
The
next evening, I went to “Triveni Nilayam” with a
little trepidation, for, that day he would judge my one-act play. The evening
was mellow, and encouragingly sympathetic was his face. His expression infused
fresh confidence into me. I wished him good evening respectfully and took the
chair offered. He went in and returned with my script and sat close to me in
his cane chair. I found the script exhaustively marked and underlined, with
every missing punctuation mark restored. He held the script so close to his
eyes that it almost rested on the tip of his nose, and offered his comments,
pointing to everything underlined. I was able to realize what an enormous
strain it was for him to read anything, and felt guilty for having given him
such a trouble. The thoroughness and the sincerity with which he had scrutinised the script filled my heart with respect,
gratitude, pain and pleasure, all at the same time–pain because I caused him
such a strain, pleasure because he cared my writing. He knew how to comment; he
said that it was clear that I could write English well and he duly complimented
me. But as a play, he said, it was not quite satisfactory, for there was no
growth of characters. There should be a gradual evolution of a character
through incident and situation. There were undoubtedly fewer incidents and
situations in which my characters revealed themselves.
I was immensely happy with his compliment, and sincerely agreed to his
criticism. I gratefully thanked him, and apologized to him for the strain
caused to him, all the more so when he had such a poor
eyesight. He admitted that his eyesight was really bad, but assured me that it
would be all pleasure for him to do his bit for the youngsters like me. I was
deeply touched with the overflowing generosity he had for people.
That
was how my contact with this truly great man commenced. He said that he had
been feeling quite dull for quite sometime because of the eye trouble. He
regretted that he could ill-afford to read or write. He asked me very politely
and with his characteristic winsome smile whether I could go to him in the
evenings and read out to him something or the other–philosophy, history,
literature or religion. He said that I would thus alleviate the dullness that
had crept over him. I felt it an honour and told him
so.
Thus
I started going to him in the evenings very regularly. He had a very fine
collection of books. He would give me some book or the other, but it was
invariably one in English. I knew that he was very well-versed in Telugu as
well, but perhaps he always chose the English books for my benefit.
One evening I was reading out to him Indian History.
It was a chapter on the Vijayanagar Empire under Krishnaraya. It was replete with passages, in which the
historian grew lyrical about the general peace and prosperity of the people, a
very highly advanced civilization, a very orderly and ably administered state
under an enlightened monarchy, the flourishing of letters, art, architecture
and sculpture, the great prestige the Empire commanded, and above all, the
ethical conduct of the people in general. He suddenly interrupted me, and I saw
a rare twinkle in his tired eyes–a twinkle which clearly showed his love of the
country and pride in its glory. He spoke in soft and sweet cadences–for that
was his manner and gift–about the prosperous and civilized life of the people
of Vijayanagar, and drew my attention at once to the
petty squabbles going on at that time in
Our
intimacy had grown day by day. I used to visit him as often as I could. On
holidays I called on him in the mornings also. If it was in the mornings, he
used to receive me in the inner room adjoining the verandah. He often lay in
bed listening to me read out some good book, almost all the time with his eyes
closed. I was very much struck with his power of concentration. I never found
him absent-minded or inattentive. Whenever I faltered for some reason or the other,
he even used to correct me. Whenever I got a doubt in the passage, he used to
enlighten me with an ease which always amazed me. Soon it dawned on me that he
was by far a much greater scholar than I imagined. I often ventured to imagine
what an intellectual life he must have led in his active years
of life.
As
days passed by, I had almost developed an adoration
for him, for he was such a man as could be adored by any one. He was extremely
gentle, tender at heart, very soft-spoken with infinite love for people. He had
no enemies, personal or ideological. But even if there were any, he couldn’t
stand a harsh word against them. He seemed to me a model gentleman with all the fine graces valued most in life: a brilliant
intellect, a compassionate nature, a cheerful disposition, a fastidiousness in
taste but without a trace of vanity, a loyal friendliness without a trace of
superiority, a love of the beautiful, the noble and the righteous.
Was
he without faults, I asked myself; but I could find none except one. Somebody
translated Tagore’s “Gitanjali”
into Telugu Sri Ramakotiswara Rau Garu was requested
to write a foreword to it. He wrote the foreword rather playing up its merits.
To be honest the translation seemed to me to be very poor stuff, utterly prosaic
with not a single line that thrills the reader with that divine love, that
devotional ecstasy, that eternal mystic quest of the poet for the One who had
always haunted his being, that possessed restlessness and the sweet pain, and
that richness of metaphor and melody. I asked Sri Ramakotiswara Rau Garu in a sort of very polite circumlocution how he could
gloss over such serious defects in the translation, for I believed that a
critic could and ought to attempt a critical appreciation of a piece of literature
pointing out its merits and faults, in spite of his regard for the author. I
had got an eloquent and genial smile from him before I got his reply. He asked
me in turn whether there could be any writing without faults of some kind or
the other, and whether it was possible to imagine anything wholly perfect in
literature. Of course I understood that a critic needed sympathy, but even then
I was not very much satisfied with his reply, and I thought that Sri
Ramakotiswara Rau Garu was only too generous, that
was, generous to a fault. In no circumstances could he hurt a person.
I
don’t say that he liked poverty, but I can say that he didn’t care money except
to run “Triveni.” This was what I could understand from his account of the
struggles he had to pass through to run the journal. If he talked of his past,
it was invariably connected with “Triveni.” “Triveni” was more than a journal
to him. It was the finest expression of all those values which had pulsated his
whole being. He once told me of his vision of “Triveni”, as a maiden of 17 or
18 with all the girlish charm and virtue. “Triveni” filled a void in his
childless life. He was sorry that he was physically incapacitated to be
actively associated with the journal, but he told me that he was glad and lucky
that it was being run ably by Sri Bhavaraju
Narasimha Rao. Once, while we were talking of “Triveni”, I
asked why we shouldn’t bring out his editorials and articles in a book form
under the title “A Profile in Editorials.” He smiled, and said that the title
was very impressive.
His
conduct was simply laudable and he scrupulously followed formalities.
Then it was no wonder that he attended my marriage at Narasaraopet
though it was most inconveniently timed for visitors: half way
between midnight and dawn. He blessed us with his unfailing bengin
smile, and with a feeling the depth and the austerity of which simply
overwhelmed me.
I had had a chequered career, and I had been perambulating from one college to another for some time. So I could see him only in holidays now. He had become very lean and weak of body, and now he was almost confined to bed. If he moved about, he did so, tottering along painfully. There was no particular illness from which he suffered, but it was all the ill-effects of old age. He was only 74, and I often felt that he had grown older much faster than one normally would. His one complaint was that he had been feeling dull as he couldn’t read or write. He used to say, much to my painful discomfiture, that he had outlived his usefulness either to himself or to others. He was not at all afraid of death, but the crippling dullness was intolerable to him.
I
had had a long cherished desire to have my boy initiated into learning by Sri
Ramakotiswara Rau Garu. Well in advance, I moved the
matter with him and requested him to do us this honour.
He was visibly touched by my request, but felt diffident whether he could
really do that. Unfortunately he was able to move about only with somebody’s
assistance as by now he had almost lost his sight. Mr. Yagnyavalkya
Sarma, my friend and intimately known to Sri Ramakotiswara Rau Garu, and I assured him that we would do everything
preliminary to the Aksharabhyasam, and
he kindly greed. An auspicious time had been fixed, and we came specially for this purpose from Jammikunta
where I was working. The kid sat with his first slate and chalk on his lap, but
Sri Ramakotiswara Rau Garu couldn’t see anything. It
was pathetic that he, who wrote so beautifully and powerfully, couldn’t even
move the chalk. Then I held his hand as he was holding my son’s and slowly
drove chalk to write the first auspicious salutation to Lord Siva. It was at
last over. The next day we were to start for Jammikunta.
We went to him to take his leave. On my parting salutation he embraced me quite
silently, without saying anything, but with a silence which was more eloquent
and affectionate than any words could be, and held me for a few seconds. I felt
as if he had been transmitting something noble to me in a sort of mystic way.
It was like blessing, a gesture kindly and loving. It was perhaps
acknowledging, with a fineness of soul, what little I might have done to
alleviate his dullness, and my adoration for him. Or he might have also felt it
our last meeting, a sort of premonition of death.
In
January 1969, in the wake of the Telangana agitation,
I had to leave Jammikunta. (In all fairness I should
say my Telangana students were exceptionally good to
me.) We came back to Narsaraopet. I was horrified to
find him lie huddled up in bed, just a small bundle of bones with the skin
hanging loose, emaciated by a prolonged physical incapacity and not by any
illness. He spoke very little, and that he did with great difficulty, and, in
an extremely dry and tired voice. But his mind had retained all its alertness,
and proved too strong for the ravages of age. He was very unhappy at the
regional dishormonies, and wondered painfully when men would realize that their
highest fulfilment lay in mutual love and trust.
I
was absolutely free as I had no work to do. I used to go to him in the mornings
and in the evenings as well. Now he just used to listen to me, and he spoke
very rarely. If I read out anything, he would listen without any
comment, but he liked listening. One day I was reading out to him a chapter in
“The Life Divine” by Sri Aurobindo. Having finished the chapter,
I rose to go. He called me to his side and took the book from me and gave it
back to me as his present. It was a symbol of his kind wishes for me, and I
treasure it with grateful feelings.
It
was summer. Probably May. One morning, quite early as usual, I was on my way to
“Triveni Nilayam.” Somebody asked me whether I had
known of it. “It, what?” I asked. I was stunned; the
inevitable had happened. Sri Ramakotiswara Rau Garu
died in the early hours of the morning. I rushed to his house.
He
was no more. His body was covered up to the neck with a white sheet, and there
were floral tributes at his feet. It was a heart-rending sight to see his old
wife mourning bitterly over his dead body. I felt as if
a light had vanished all of us engulfed in darkness. His admirers kept pouring
in to pay their respect.
What
next, some practical people asked. His adoptive son was doing engineering,
perhaps at
The
coffin was made, and bearers found among whom one was Mr. Yagnyavalkya
Sarma. I led the funeral procession carrying water in an earthen vessel in one
hand, and funeral fire encased in a small pot in the other. It was half-past
one in the afternoon. To the chanting of the sacred name of Sri Rama, the
Divine Archer, his body was placed on the pyre. I ceremoniously walked round
the pyre three times and let fall the earthen vessel containing water, and lit
the pyre. I couldn’t see his body being consumed by flames. And now his
adoptive son arrived and continued the obsequies.
The
great humanist and aesthete and litterateur who had striven all through his
life for the emergence of a cultured society in which all men and women,
without exception, would feel and think and behave with all the sophistication
and fineness and nobility natural to an enlightened
humanist-aristocrat-intellectual, was no more. Leaving behind him a bundle of
memories sweet and poignant, he departed, perhaps, to fathom the unknown after
death. And we bent our steps homeward with a gloom settled in our
eyes.