A
NOTE ON VENKATARAMANI’S
“PAPER BOATS”
Dr. G. S. BALARAMA
GUPTA, M. A., Ph. D.
It
is perhaps only a commonplace statement that generally writers live in the
memory of the common reader only through a couple of their more important
works, and K. S. Venkataramani seems to be no exception. It is on Murugan the Tiller and Kandan
the Patriot that his reputation stands secure today. However, Venkataramani
has to his credit several other works which deserve to be better known, and his
very first work, Paper Boats (1921) is definitely one among them.
As
the title itself amply suggests, Paper Boats is a fleet of ten delightful
sketches mainly of rural life and characters. The most arresting feature of
these sketches is their simple but immensely impressive style: it is all along
scintillatingly light-hearted and effortlessly epigrammatic, and there is all
through a deep poetic note which successfully lends a kind of unity to the
pictures painted here. Each essay is a little well-wrought vignette, beautiful
by virtue of its very simplicity.
“Any
peg would do to hang the hat on” is a maxim which quite adequately holds water
so far as an essayist’s choice of topic is concerned. And the first paper boat
that Venkataramani sets assail has ‘the Indian Beggar’ as its occupant. The
subject is such that one would expect either an economist’s
grave concern for, and his expert solutions to, the alarming problem of
beggary, or a pathetically elaborate enunciation of the manifold miseries of
our mendicants. But Venkataramani’s approach is
entirely different: his outlook towards the problem is essentially humanitarian
and poetic. He calls beggary a fine art, and, aided by his minute observation
of various beggars, he divides them into seven classes, and the whole essay
makes a refreshingly pleasant reading indeed. First we have ‘the beggar with
the bowl,’ ‘an orphan and a bachelor,’ and whose profession is ‘the most
ancient and least expensive form of begging.’ Then we have ‘the beggar with the
monkey and the dog’ who is ‘truly the demagogue of the polity of beggars’ and
is known for his nomadic instincts. Then comes ‘the beggar with the snake,’
grim and obdurate. And ‘the gypsy beggar’ combines in himself the dual
professions of begging and palm-reading. Other interesting variations of the
tribe are ‘the beggar with the bull,’ ‘the musical mendicant,’ and ‘the
nocturnal beggar.’ The essay gives the impression of being an apology for
beggars, and though, no doubt, economists might frown at it, it must be said to
the credit of the essayist that the strong currant of poetry that runs through
the essay successfully elevates the drab subject to a heightened dignity which
somehow reminds us of Charles Lamb.
A
considerable segment of Tamilian commonalty lives on angling, and it is with
understanding and sympathy that Venkataramani sketches their bold and toilsome
life in his second essay, ‘On Fishermen.’ Ever restless and always hopeful, the
fisherman is known for his dexterity at the rod. Extremely industrious, he is
endowed with a soul full of infinite patience. “He goes to his work very early
in the morning and toils in the sea till sunset with unequal fortune everyday,
and returns at dusk to partake of the meagre comforts of his home. In the worst
of troubles he is never given to whining. He grasps the cold hand of penury, if
he has to, with a courage and resignation that would do credit even to a more
cultured being. He ends as he begins, without a sigh.” Venkataramani tells us
also of the fishermen’s virtuous wives and their timocratic
government, their exciting marriage ceremonies and their religious festivals.
But what is most touching is their unceasing devotion
to the rod, their stout heroism which never fears the storms of the sea, and
their resigned attitude to life.
In
the ‘Village Cricket’ Venkataramani describes how cricket in an Indian village
is a cousin of that English game. It is, no doubt, true that it is a crude
version, but it is definitely ‘the sunniest of pastimes’ of the village boys,
and since there are no fastidious rules governing the game, it easily provides a
buoyant outlet for the brimming vigour and enthusiasm
of the rustic youth. And there is a delightful touch of romance that colours the description of the game: “It has the wayward
buoyancy and mirth of the evening breeze. Under the shade of coconut palms, by
the side of the village tank, and the rippling laughter of girls carrying home
pails of water at the hip, leaning and glancing gently to the side, the game is
a glorious feast for the youth.”
Never
allowing his usual simple style to degenerate into pompous verbiage,
Venkataramani distils into his next short sketch the charm and significance of
the several aspects of the ‘Hindu temple.’ Without resorting to any elaborate
architectural jargon, he vividly points out how the Hindu temple is an emblem
of the rich religious instinct of man in co-ordination with his love for beauty–or,
in short, it is “an architectural attraction as well as a spiritual solace.”
Again, without ever becoming pedantic, he reveals his keen power of
observation. For instance, the gloomy interior of a small Hindu temple is
exactly and admirably caught in a few words thus: “The minor gods are arranged in rows along the colonnades.
They come in only for the casual obeisance of the over-pious. A number of
glow-worm lamps, fed with oil and fixed artistically, illuminate with a pale effulgence the sombre idols
wrapped up in gracious slumber with a charming disregard for posture.” And there
are occasions when the author breaks forth into lyrical rapture even in the
small compass of a short sketch like this. For instance, it is difficult to
imagine a more poetic or eloquent adulation of the glory that is the temple car
than the following: “...the charming glory of the Hindu temple is the
celebrated car. It is a dream in timber which bridges Heaven and Earth. It is
the stateliest projection of the Hindu mind. It is the pillar of our pictorial
life. It is the rallying-point of all castes and creeds. It is the supreme
exponent of the oneness of man in the service of God, be he a Brahmana or a Pariah. It is the symbol of united worship.”
The
next essay acquaints us with Venkataramani’s
unstinted admiration for ‘my little Arunalam,’ a
Pariah whose growth from cradle to the field is rapidly and respectfully
described. Arunalam’s first profession is that of a
cowherd, and there is perfect sympathy between him, the ruler, and the cattle, the
governed. As he grows up into a man, he is drafted as a farm-worker on whom depends the agricultural prosperity of his master. Hard
labour and pastoral life have made him a strong man: “In
stature stalwart, in bearing dignified, all brawn and muscle, the gift of daily
toil, he is easily Nature’s well-built child.” The key to Arunalam’s
success seems to be his toilsome routine and contentment with his lot. “His (Arunalam’s) is always a message of Labour and Love to our
ancient land...Like the toiling wave between the land and the sea he is
restless and ever active... The raptures of his life are the verities of a
fixed orbit of labour, even as the diurnal rounds of
the earth.”
Then
we have a portrait of ‘the Hindu pilgrim,’ variously described as ‘a spiritual
monument of our race,’ ‘a step and an experiment in the realisation of an
ideal,’ and a restless wanderer, ‘as restless, as the Lingam which he worships
is immobile.’ He may be gullible and superstitious, but his faith is
unshakable. Though Venkataramani’s outlook towards
these pilgrims in general is reverential, he is mildly sarcastic when he
describes the periodic pilgrim whose motive behind the pilgrimage is not
altogether God-realisation. “He undertakes a pilgrimage only for purposes of
expiation or for the acquisition of
extra religious merit. As a successful worldly man, he is
always conscious of his sins of omission and commission...A pilgrimage to Benares and Rameshwar will not
only promote the virtues of his seed, but is sure to give him a fresh and pure
start for his balance of years in the game of life. It quiets his conscience.
He returns to work from the holy shrines, and sacred waters, chastened with
more of faith and energy to face the subtle ways of the world. And his neighbour attaches greater sanctity to his name. “This
periodic pilgrim takes with him not only his wife and children but also his
poor relations, not because he is generous, but because, “it is the injunction
of the Smrithis not to neglect poor relations”, and
(now another dig!) “they may be helpful on the way.”
‘My
Grandmother deals only partially with the grandma who is occasionally irascible
and always agile, who is, in short, ‘a benevolent despot.’ The essay is mainly an eulogy of the beneficence of the Hindu joint family of which, of course, the grandmother is
‘the mainspring...and its most efficient regulator.” It is difficult to imagine
a better, at any rate a more graphic, description of the advantages and glories
of the joint family than, this: “The Hindu family is the greatest conservative
tradition and reality of our civilisation. It is full of sweetness, even as the
honeycomb, its sweetness, as honey, separated, assimilated and deposited in
individual cells. It is the Rishi-made school for the Hindu from the cradle to the
grave. No generation wastes its sweetness in the Hindu joint family, but leaves
behind its experience and work for a richer harvest of tradition in succeeding
years.” Venkataramani is not unaware of the sociological fact that the joint,
family among Hindus is a fast-vanishing institution, and so he closes his essay
with a plaintive note: “It (the Hindu joint
family) is the
most fragrant champak flower of Aryan culture. In the autumn dust and
wind of modern life, the petals
are falling off. Ere long the
flower will be no more. May at least its
immortal fragrance live for ever in the memory of man!”
In
the next essay, ‘My Neighbour’, Venkataramani
sketches the character of an intelligent, hard-working man, but a hen-pecked
husband. Mr. Pichu Sastri, a Brahmin boy, not only secures a university diploma at the
age of seventeen, but rises from a clerk to Deputy Tahsil
in the British Sircar by dint of honest
labour. But he is quite a docile creature at home
under the crushing spell of his wife, a splendid shrew who sours all the sweetness
of his life, and ultimately compels him to renounce his home and become a sanyasi.
The
penultimate essay, ‘The Jagat Guru’, is devoted to a faithful
veneration of Sankara, the Adi
Guru, and an ardent account of the Kamakoti Peetam, an ancient seat of ‘conservative
yet enlightened Hinduism’, situated on the banks of Cauvery.
The rest of the essay is taken up by a passionate sketch of the Guru whose life is one of supreme selfless service to
mankind, barring all distinctions of caste, creed, and social status.
The
last essay, ‘Saraswati’s Marriage,’ is not to be
taken as a description of only Saraswati’s wedding.
Instead, we have here a detailed picture of Hindu marriages in
general. Marriage is an
elaborate ritual with us and it spans
over four busy days. It is a social gathering
and at the same time a religious function emphasising
the sacred significance of the Hindu marriage which is sacrosanct and irrevocable.
In
matters of faith and religion, Venkataramani reveals himself as a conservative
traditionalist, no doubt with notable
sensitivity to beauty–as revealed in
his ‘Hindu Temple,’ ‘Hindu Pilgrim,’ and ‘The Jagat
Guru.’ The same mental attitude is at
work when he deals with social
issues also as evidenced by his remaining essays.
Venkataramani’s powers of close observation, mild humour, and simple yet charming prose which almost always
has poetic grace, have made these little elegant essays both lovable and
memorable. Paper Boats is important
as a collection of pleasant pictures of South Indian social and religious life, but it is no less important as a sure sign of Venkataramani’s
capacities for writing essays in the engaging manner of A. G. Gardiner, E. V. Lucas
and Charles Lamb.