By ‘A FRIEND’

My first acquaintance with the Andhra Ratna goes back to a rainy afternoon for which Edinburgh has a recognised ill-repute. My friend and I who were new to the place were sitting disconsolate, as the greater part of the week we had allotted to Edinburgh was up, and, thanks to the weather, we had seen little enough of the sites or the people. It was then that Duggirala blew in with two companions, ignored the strangers, monopolised our host, and suggested, nay insisted on a game of cards for points. His breezy indifference and assurance did little to prejudice us in his favour; his laughter seemed to be aimless; and he kept on humming snatches with little regard to the desires or the taste of the company. Altogether, the first impression he created was none too favourable and my friend's criticism was both explicit and pointed. But fortunately for us, we had the privilege of improving our acquaintance later in the same year; and his career in India was public property. And we, who knew him in both countries, came to respect and to love him for the very qualities which to us seemed in the first instance repellent. His indifference, we found, was assumed. In reality, he loved his fellow-creatures and desired their love in return, but he had a horror of kowtowing to people or of appearing to do so. He would please others, but not in the hope of gain, and the possibility of his motives being suspected made him unduly gruff. His love of stakes, we found, was prompted not by the gambling instinct but the desire for a serious element even in play. And this trait continued with him in his political life. He played the game according to rules, but it was not a game played for love. It was played for stakes, and high enough stakes at that. Did he lose or gain? Who shall say? In either case, it does not matter, for had he not laid to his heart the teaching of his Master and namesake, "Karmanyaivadhikarascha maphaleshu kadachana"?

His laughter and his music were distinctive and he had a philosophy of both. The former would appear vacant; it took one some time to understand that it revealed the absence, not of understanding, but of ill-will. It was sympathetic. It was the most powerful antidote to suspicions and misunderstandings. As he told the Magistrate who tried him, "Laughter lubricates the soul". Duggirala was one of the few who not merely understood that truth, but realised it and lived up to it.

He had acquired his philosophy from Dr. Ananda Coomaraswamy, and the fragments of it which he favoured me with were at first rather irritating. But I soon found that the contempt of the professional for the amateur could be both unjust and overdone. He was an Advaitin with an intense realisation both of the needs of the practical life and the phenomenality thereof. His vision of life was, therefore, synthetic. He had no room for an exclusive salvation. There were times when, in spite of his philosophy, he would rant at this or that institution, belief or sect, pleading for its wholesale distinction. These, however, were momentary lapses, which fortunately did not extend to his political career. He was a staunch Hindu and a Brahmin, but the politics he preached, whether in the press or on the platform, had little trace of sectarianism.

Perhaps the greatest practical aid to his philosophy came from his music, for there is no greater solvent of differences than Art. It was, in his case, not an accomplishment, but an expression of his whole personality. His energy was unflagging and the compass of his voice unsurpassed. Those who realised this gift of his had no reason to wonder at his extraordinary success as a public speaker. Those of us who were in Edinburgh that summer, some ten years ago, had a special opportunity of witnessing his talent. Our host, himself an Andhra, conceived the idea of a gathering of the clans. All the Andhras then in Edinburgh, a few from Glasgow, and one from Dublin met and feasted. There was music of sorts after the midday dinner, and a Satavadhanam by one of the guests. But the piece de resistance was the Harikatha in the evening, the principal performer being, of course, Duggirala with a tale and music improvised by himself. He was ably accompanied by a violinist, now a successful Engineer, and a medical man who gave an oral imitation of the Mridanga. Poor Kolipaka, long since gathered to his fathers! Have the drummer and the songster met in the kingdom of the Moon, and are they having any more Harikathas? Some day, perhaps, we shall know.