D.
ANJANEYULU
In
the
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 back 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 (
“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
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 background,
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 back 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
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.