Sastri, As I Saw Him

BY K. CHANDRASEKHARAN

Sastri, the world-famous orator, Sastri, the savant, who never mispronounced the English language, Sastri, the eminent Liberal statesman and Sastri, the unrelenting critic of Congress politics, are too well-known to require recapitulation. But his proud nature and sensitive mind, his decorous behaviour and charming manners, his passion for Sanskrit learning and his ambition to become a writer in his own mother-tongue are not, perhaps, such common knowledge with the rest of the world as with the intimate circle of his friends.

Even with his trusted companions Sastri always maintained a reserve that could not be easily pierced through. To essay, therefore, upon an analysis of his fundamental nature may be beset with difficulties and doubts. But, to take off-hand snaps of the man will certainly provide the intelligent observer of men and things, engaging material to dwell upon or reflect with profit.

To begin with, Sastri really discovered a vital interest in the English language; he took to it as fish to water. Though it never did for once totally displace in his heart the hold which the language of his country’s classics had, still his innate being seemed to feel a strange security while revolving round the English speech, which like a strong axis never gave way under any stress. And from early years there grew upon him a fascination for it, which supplied him with a keen grasp of the English idiom and grammar.

An interesting episode comes up in my memory, which shows Sastri’s master-bias leaning to things English. Once, in 1911, he stayed for a couple of days at Ootacamund with his English friends, the Whiteheads. Apart from finding himself at ease both at the dinner table as well as the drawing room of his hosts, he enjoyed thoroughly the appropriateness of the English idiom ‘to get into bed’. For, the blanket or rug to cover him was actually tucked up on either side of the bed, leaving only room for him to slip himself in between. He was agreeably struck with his discovery of the precision of the English tongue.

Sastri described himself as one of the “satellites that circled round and took warmth from that radiant luminary” the late V. Krishnaswami Aiyar of Madras. But what a satellite! No doubt Krishnaswami Aiyar bore down like ‘a man-of-war upon smaller craft’. Still Sastri showed himself never of the smaller variety. There are even people to vouch for the shriller pitch to which Sastri’s voice could rise sometimes in a heated argument with his friend.

He was, in addition, an unsparing critic of Krishnaswami Aiyar to his very face, whenever the latter betrayed intemperance of language or haste of judgment. When Krishnaswami Aiyar, in June of the year 1907, brought upon his own head a storm of protest for the open letter he had written to the president of the Vizagapatam Provincial Conference, in which he had exposed the policy of the extremist section of the Congress under the leadership of Bepin Chandra Pal, Sastri did not see eye to eye with his leader. On the other hand he was genuinely angry that his friend should have exposed himself as so very uncharitable in dealing with those who differed from him. He wrote to him thus: “I don’t at all share your faith in the sympathy of Englishmen (rather your estimate of its political value). Nor could I hesitate to incur their open hostility, if that was the only way of asserting our rights or maintaining our self-respect” (Letter: 16-6-’07). One wonders reading it, whether it was the Rt. Hon. V. S. Srinivasa Sastri then penned it. Indeed, Sastri in those days glowed with youthful fire and patriotism, despite his close association with the leading moderates of the day. Anyhow his unbending spirit and individuality were traits that never repelled his discriminating friend, Krishnaswami Aiyar, but even retained him, on that score, for ever in his good books.

Sastri’s refinement was the outcome of an extremely sensitive temperament. Born in adversity but rich in the heritage of his intellect, he should be judged with no ill-will for nursing a nature that withdrew within itself at the slightest touch of criticism from any quarter. He chose to be poor, no doubt, to the last of his days, but never allowed himself to depend for anything on others. He would not ask for a lift even in anyone’s car, unless he was sure of being obliged without the faintest trace of inconvenience. If his friend Venkatarama Sastri was not in town, you could easily guess it by seeing Srinivasa Sastri either slowly trudging along the Mylapore roads or getting into the tramcar by himself. For Venkatarama Sastri was the only gentleman with whom he felt he could take any liberties.

In a way it was his sensitiveness that sometimes made him unpopular with any section or group in politics. He would evince no spirit of concession or compromise with principle, when a situation demanded of him a practical solution for an imminent problem. He would the instinctively go into his shell with a feeling of deep mortification at the way his opinions had been disregarded. Even with the Mahatma he had his differences in matters of strict adherence to certain axiomatic principles. Sometimes the Mahatma himself or any of his baffling statements would come in for his merciless dissection, and there was no knowing among his friends how he could restrain himself, if contradicted. All his preparations to control excitement and observe decorum would be thrown to the winds, if ever he should get himself opposed or enmeshed in a controversy of that type.

Save on those rare, very rare occasions, Sastri was a pleasant man, whom you could always get at without fear of being unnoticed. Once introduced to him, he would care to preserve terms of cordiality with you, irrespective of your age or attainments. You could never afterwards miss the engaging smile on those lips that ever drew large audiences. If ever a good turn was done him, he was very particular to remember it, and sometimes his remembrance assumed the shape of a lovely token of affection or regard to be presented on a suitable occasion. A letter written to him never failed to elicit a prompt acknowledgement. And what a reply he would send! It would not only please the recipient but an ever-widening circle of literary-minded people.

Letter writing as an art engrossed him literally. But it was his inborn culture, which did not permit of any fussing about it. There was nothing to dissuade him from answering a note or epistle from anybody. He went about it promptly, diligently, smoothly. His pen, you could watch, always moved with such sureness and comforting ease that no word required to be scored off nor any phrase erased. Everything about him looked so tidy and well-set. His legible hand-writing bespoke an early training not to indulge in unnecessary flourishes. His chaste sentences made you forget the discipline of years behind them. He looked, on the whole, an embodiment of all that you could deem graceful in a person.

His probity was such that no mistake of judgement or misunderstanding on his part could go unavowed, if realised by him in time. He was bold in taking his stand for anything he had judged according to his lights, and if ever an explanation was sought of him, he readily gave it. In the early years after the birth of the Servants of India Society, Krishnaswami Aiyar of Madras used to be sought by its founder for pecuniary help. Once or twice Krishnaswami Aiyar made handsome donations. On one such occasion, Sastri, who received the cheque on behalf of Gokhale, wrote to his chief that Krishnaswami Aiyar had expressed strongly his disinclination to be approached for further sums in connection with the Society. Gokhale was sorry to find his good friend feeling it all so irksome, and in his letter of acknowledgement of the amount received, he referred to the words of caution from Sastri regarding future demands upon Krishnaswami Aiyar’s purse. Krishnaswami Aiyar, in his turn, became alarmed at this letter of Gokhale, and forthwith dashed off a few lines to Sastri calling upon him to explain. Here is the explanation that Sastri chose to give. It bears no trace of any disturbance of mind or diffidence in communication. “It is a trifle”, he wrote, “but I should like to explain it. I didn’t misunderstand you, nor misrepresent you to Mr. Gokhale. In writing from Bangalore, I reported your words ‘Rs. 5,000. No more’, underlining the last expression, as I thought you stressed it somewhat in speaking to me. This he described to you as ‘condition’–somewhat playfully, I fancy,” (Letter; 22-6-1909)

We breathe an atmosphere of absolute equality and give-and-take in these words. Neither Krishnaswami Aiyar nor Gokhale ever once in their lives deprecated independence or self respect in others, much less in the younger members of their own party.

Having had no reason to learn the arts of sycophancy or obsequious behaviour towards those who proffered a helping hands to him while young, Sastri sailed on in life not needing them either in later years. An incident, which may lie dormant in the memories of his nearest friends, needs reviving in this context. When the Raja of Chettinad sent a handsome gift to Mrs. Sastri on the occasion of the sixty-first birthday of Sastri, there was obvious hesitation and mental conflict in receiving the amount, even on his wife’s behalf, by Sastri. His closest friends prevailed upon him to accept the token of gratitude and affection from a well-meaning friend. But Sastri, as a Servant of India Society member, was not at all feeling comfortable in mind about the whole affair; for, when Mr. Muthia Chettiar, the son of the Raja, visited him later in the day, Sastri was found unusually faltering in his words of welcome to the guest, and even committed an egregious slip in addressing him as “Muthia Mudaliar”–a weakness of memory unsuspected in him till then. Perhaps, not even on his death-bed, when his powers were definitely waning, was there any occasion for him to be guilty of such a slip of the tongue.

Sastri loved Sanskrit with the love to a first-born of his. Early training and the traditional atmosphere of his home, encouraged in him an aptitude for Sanskrit. Though later on, in the voyage of his life, he seemed to have forgotten these familiar shores of his country’s classics, time drew him ultimately to them. He was not very widely read in Sanskrit nor religiously inclined to study Hindu philosophy and metaphysics. No doubt he could roll on his tongue with ease and delight any gem of a verse from Sakuntala or a pearl of wisdom from Bhartrihari. But nothing could equal his zest for the Ramayana, whose priceless treasures attracted him again and again.

Though his heart was prone to Sanskrit poetry, one could not be sure whether poetry in its pure, undiluted form as such, was ever near his heart. Themes of high human endeavour and episodes of epic grandeur beckoned him unfailingly to their pages. But whether sheer lyricism, with its rich imagery and elusive beauty of form and fancy, could at all captivate his soul, remains yet a doubt. Again, if his imagination had been stirred to heights of exhilaration by reading Valmiki and Kalidasa, could it not have felt at least in a measure inspired by the poetry of Tagore? For Tagore was as much a product of the same culture and religion as had imbued Valmiki and Kalidasa with poetic insight, to represent nature and man in indissoluble bonds of kinship or to propound the philosophy of an all-pervading Absolute Being manifest in man, beast, bird and flower.

Sastri was unaffected by Rabindranath’s mature thought. Somehow the Nobel-Prize winner failed to win the heart of this fastidious Sahridaya either Sastri did not conscientiously make an attempt to study Tagore, or there was the inherent un-poetic quality of his mind which made him incapable of enjoying abstract forms of poetic content in such lyrical outpourings. Anyhow he did not leave us long in doubt about his reactions to Tagore’s genius. He wrote in a letter: “I have a long-standing prejudice against Tagore. Like other prejudices, it is unreasoning. One may discover some plausible reasons, but on analysis they won’t account for its intensity; they may justify its existence” (Letter: 14-2-1941).

All honour to Sastri that he made a confession, so clean, so unsophisticated, so unassailable! Others too there are, in this part of the country, who share the same sense of disenchantment of Tagore’s poetry, though they may not possess the same candour and consistency in revealing it. Sastri was also generally unwilling to be drawn into a controversy. But when once in it, he would much rather speak out his honest impressions than refrain from them out of a false sense of propriety or mood of conventional acquiescence. It is remarkable, therefore, he should have valued his probity more than his judgment. Else the letter, in this instance, could not have emanated from him.

Towards his closing years, Sastri betrayed a partiality for his own mother-tongue. He wanted to make up, as he himself confessed in an article of his, for what he had neglected during the long span of his life. His reminiscences, he wrote in Tamil, though often in utter diffidence. Nevertheless there lurked in him a strong, irrepressible desire to weave out longer and longer writings in Tamil. His intense longing was clearly indicated by the anxious suspense in which he waited for the coming out of his first book in Tamil. He appeared impatient, like a novice in the field of authorship for the early release of this publication.

He loved ease and leisure to such a degree that some even mistook him to be either slow of perception or somewhere unsympathetic in his understanding. He was himself aware of such an impression created by him. For he gave vent to it in a recent talk of his. But the truth is, he was hardly tardy of applying his mind to a subject or making up his mind about anything worth knowing. One would have occasionally wished he had not so hastily summed up his views or come to a conclusion. For instance, he rushed to fast and unshakable opinions on subjects like Indian Art. He was, unfortunately, incapable of keeping his mind open to fresh ideas or interpretations supporting them. Hence, many occasions of outburst had been witnessed by ardent friends, when someone interested deeply in Indian art or architecture tried to persuade him to appreciate its true worth.

When all is said and done, a sense of unforgettable sadness permeates our beings. Where can we see the like of his noble figure, so immaculately pure and so unapproachably dignified? No more shall we witness the slightly stooping body and majestically lifted head of Sastri, loving light gossip and laughing unpretentiously in that group of grey heads on the sands of the Madras beach. Well, he remained in exclusive grandeur in life. He remains none the less grand in his exclusiveness in memory also.

Back