SRIPADA SUBRAHMANYA SASTRI
POTHUKUCHI SURYANARAYANA MURTY
Among
the short-story writers in Telugu Sri Sripada Subrahamanya Sastri stands in a class by himself. The
short-story as it is generally understood and in vogue as a form of literary
art, has been borrowed by us from the West and wonderfully adapted by our
writers to suit their literary themes in their variegated facets. Naturally,
therefore, all the writers who have come to distinguish themselves as
story-tellers in Telugu have had to read a good lot of stories in foreign
languages like English, French, German and Russian, in order to imbibe the
spirit and technique of story-writing and to present their literary material in
alluring, artistic accoutrements. Sri Subrahmanya
Sastri is an outstanding exception to this general proposition. He knew no
English and was, on a point of policy, (for which he advanced arguments, some
of them very convincing) opposed to the introduction and propagation of Hindi
among the people of the Telugu country. His main contention was that Telugu
itself was a beautiful language with a hoary tradition and rich literature
which could adequately express all the nuances, however subtle and intricate,
of human emotions and ideas and, was therefore, perfectly fit as a medium of expression;
and so there was absolutely no need to impose Hindi, a
comparatively less developed and less rounded language, on the Telugu people
whose language has been hailed as the Italian of the East for its sweetness,
mellifluousness and euphonious vowel-endings of words (Ajanta
Bhasha).
Sri
Sastri’s stories breathe the spirit of thorough
originality, authenticity and convincing realism. He studied situations in
life, and characters of men and women, at first hand and his depiction of the
same in his stories invariably carried conviction to, and compels appreciation
from, even the most squeamish of critics. No doubt he worked on a small and
limited canvas (many of his stories deal with middle class Brahmin families of
the East Godavari district, and that, too, of the past generation) but his
portrayals are masterly and superb of their kind. His ‘Vadla
Ginjalu’ (grain of paddy), a long short-story
built around the absorbing game of chess is a tour de force in the art
of narration, suspense and the description of minutiae of characters and
situations. This story can be ranked without doubt among the best in Telugu, if
not among the world’s best. (Vadla Ginjalu’ is in a sense superior to Stefan Zweig’s ‘The Royal Game’ which is also a very fine story
with chess as its thematic pivot.) In the art of conversational narrative there
is no one equal to Sri Sastri, let alone surpassing him. His story ‘Arikallakinda Mantalu’ (Flames
under the Feet) is all conversation without a single word of description in all
its length of 36 pages and therein we find the writer’s wonderful mastery of
his medium, his craftsmanship and dexterity in narration conducted in a
language that is at once crisp, forceful and highly expressive, and with an
effect that is deep and telling. The story deals with the unrelieved daily
drudgery, from early morn till late midnight, of a hopeless young widow in a
middle class household, who is constantly harassed by everyone in the family
including her own parents, with their never-ending and insistent orders to her
to do this thing and that for them, while all of them luxuriate in laziness and
revel in pleasure without ever thinking of her. Poor she, she is driven to the
extreme point of exhaustion, physical and psychological, by the inhuman treatment
meted out to her by her own kith and kin, and, in an uncontrollable fit of
exasperation and despair, leaves the home in stealth at midnight for Sri Viresalingam’s garden where there is a home, a veritable
haven of peace and happiness for the widow, to receive her with mercy and love.
This story presents to us the sorrows of the young widow and her harrowing tale
of woe and misery in all its lurid details and serves as a more effective and
more powerful plea for widow marriage than any amount of public speaking and
pamphleteering in that behalf. Sri Sastri has written more than a hundred
stories of which are saturated with a spirit of social realism and convey a
message, couched in beautiful language and form, for the removal of the
undesirable elements in society in whatever shape they exist and for the
promotion of all that is beneficient, auspicious and
beautiful. Through his profound and sympathetic understanding of the
contemporary social situation and with the deft handling of the same in the
delineation of characters in his works with penetrating insight and
acumen, Sri Sastri has fulfilled himself as a writer of high purposiveness and great merit.
Sri
Subrahmanya Sastri wrote some novels also (Rakshabandbanam, Smasanavatika, Atmabali etc.) but they are not so significant in literary
or artistic value. The short-story is his forte and he rightly deserves the
title given to him viz., ‘Kathanika chakravarti’. Sastri’s play, “Rajaraju” is a full-length drama with tense situations and
powerful language but absolutely unstageable. He did
not permit it to be altered in any way to suit the requirements of the stage,
even though repeatedly requested by admiring actors and interested playwrights.
At long last he relented but, before the stage-version could take shape and be
put on boards, he passed away. Sri Sastri’s stories
are collected and published in twelve volumes. Besides stories and novels he
wrote a good number of playlets, Radio-plays, essays
and other literary miscellany on a variety of topics.
His
‘Anubhavalu -Jnapakalu’
(Experiences and Memories) written in a reminiscent vein, is a unique
autobiography in the Telugu language and this contribution of Sri Sastri to
Telugu letters is a splendid achievement deserving praise of the highest order.
We have had autobiographies of great leaders and writers like Viresalingam, Chilakamarthi and others detailing out their life’s
activities and achievements in the main and revealing the social history of
their times incidentally. In Sripada’s book the
autobiographical details are subdued in tone and content but the events and
personalities that shaped him and his times and had largely influenced him and
people of his generation take the predominant position, focussing
the attention of the reader on the hoary and valuable traditions, instinct with
life, that have stood the test of time and become a part of our living. There
is also an undercurrent of regret mixed with agonising
anxiety for the gradual decline and decay of those precious values of life
which have sustained our race through centuries of vicissitudes, storms and
stresses, in social and political spheres, and alien attempts at their
annihilation to the root. The language employed by Sri Subrahmanya
Sastri in his writings is Sista Vyavaharika
(the colloquial language of the cultured); and he has an amazing mastery over
the authentic Telugu idiom. Distilled through his scholarship of Telugu and
Sanskrit and perfected during half a century of dedicated practice, Sri Sastri’s prose style is vigorous, lively, racy and
arrestingly attractive. Its suppleness and grace, power and puissance, balance
and rhythm are hard to beat and Sri Sastri’s
greatness as a writer rests mainly on his enviable style.
Sri
Sastri ran a monthly journal entitled “Prabuddha
Andhra” for a period of nine years, almost single-handed and in it were
published for the first time many of his stories and novels as also those of
other leading writers of the time. Khadi, Gandhi and
Hindi were his bete noires
and he could never bring himself to approach with respect, or appreciate,
any of them in his lifetime. He was the founder of “Kalabhivardhini
Parishat”, an organisation devoted to the cause of
the arts and the letters. He used to conduct annual meetings at
Born
in a strictly orthodox middle-class family of Brahmins living on Vedic studies
and in the Sanatanic tradition and bred up in a
social milieu in which the wearing of a shirt by a Brahmin was frowned upon,
Sri Subrahmanya Sastri sedulously imbibed all that
was best and worthy in the classical traditions and equally defiantly
spurned off the superstitious, the undesirable, the antiquated and the
oppressive in social customs and manners. He gave up the arid Granthic style in Telugu writing for the more pliable,
pleasant and living Vyavaharika under the influence
of Sri Gidugu Venkata Ramamurti, the pioneer leader
of that movement. His first story was published in 1915 and, for nearly half of
a century thereafter, he continued to write to entertain and educate the Telugu
public. His Shashtipurti was celebrated with great eclat at