‘TRIVENI’ – A FAITH

By BURRA V. SUBRAHMANYAM

After more than sixteen years of playing truant to Triveni, I return to it as its Joint Editor. I keep wishing I had not spent so many years so apart from Triveni. I cannot say that these sixteen years odd were either uneventful or unpleasant to me. They are crammed with fine memories of fine people in many spheres of life. The most remembered incidents of my home life belong to this period. It was my good fortune during these years to have watched at work, and to have worked with, many of the leaders of the legal profession in Madras. The unmatched among them was the late Sri Alladi Krishnaswami Iyer, to whose wisdom and guidance I owe, a great deal even for what he taught me in but the few cases in which he led me at the bar. I had also the pleasant experience during this period to belong to a legislative body to which also belonged the provoking personality of Sri C. Rajagopalachari, the working of whose sizzling brain it always is a perfect delight to watch. During these same years I had close political association for a time with Sri T. Prakasam whom, in spite of initial prejudice, I grew deeply to love and honour, for he combined legendary valour and sacrifice and a rugged beauty of character such as have no parallel in the South of India, and his passion for the progress of the common folk of Andhra was spontaneous and abundant. I cannot honestly rate my own experience or achievement in any walk of life as worth being mentioned. But, I admit, even so, that, during all the years of truancy to Triveni, I had more luck in life than I deserved. There are many regrets too across the past, and, as I said, there are few things which cause me more regret than that so large a portion of my life should have been lived away from Triveni and from what it always meant to me.

I am not generally inclined to be personal in what I write for the public, but I intend to make an exception this once. And deliberately, because I treat this occasion as one when, in my humble individual capacity, I appeal for sympathy and help to all friends who love Triveni and wish it to survive as a vehicle of culture and progress. I do not here appeal for money. Money is needed for the journal: but money should come to it like the gentle rain from heaven, blessing him that gives and him that takes. I am not one of those who can believe that a journal can survive on the strength of some intangible quality without a group of brilliant writers to fill its pages or a mass of eager readers to pore through them. No journal lives without a real purpose to fulfill and without an effective circulation to support it. I, therefore, seek a far deeper sympathy. I seek the fellowship of those who can write with authority and grace on all subjects that should be dear to Triveni. I seek the good will of those who can spread the faith of Triveni among the cultured and the educated, here and abroad.

I remember with pride the day I first met K. Ramakotiswara Rau nearly twenty-nine years ago. I was still a student of the Presidency College in Madras. In those days I wrote many verses in English, but at the same time I suffered from a sense of guilt that I was employing an alien medium for a literary purpose. I found that Sri Ramakotiswara Rau was publishing poems in the Triveni, which were originally written in the English language by Indian writers. In a letter to him, I remember, I questioned the propriety of his publishing them in his journal. I ventured to suggest that such verses could not be treated as a true phase of the Indian renaissance in literature. Sri Ramakotiswara Rau replied to me immediately. As far as I can recollect, he justified himself as Editor by stating that at least some part of the Indian effort in English versification belonged to the desirable literary awakening in the country, and that he was not prepared to rule it out of his journal altogether. He added, in his reply, that he was eager to meet me in order to discuss the subject further. And he came to my house accompanied by a common friend. I was thrilled to meet him. We discussed. We did not quite convince each other. The foundation of our lasting friendship was, however, laid. From that day he was dear to me like a member of the family. I had my first glimpse of what an enlightened and cultured editor should be in his contacts with those who thought and wrote and worked for his journal. I felt moved by his beautiful simplicity.

I have no doubt in my mind that, if money and time permitted him, Sri Ramakotiswara Rau would have liked to establish as immediate and complete a personal contact, as happened with me, in the case of every single individual among the friends all over India who wrote or worked for the Triveni during these thirty years. He is by no means devoid of ego, but it is an ego which draws, nourishes, and helps grow to full stature every young aspirant to fame in the pages of his journal. Acknowledged authors like Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, Sri Masti Venkatesa Iyengar and Sri M. Venkatarangaiya; mature writers like Sri Kalipada Mukherjee, Sri N. S. Phadke and Sri M. Seshachelapati; and gifted men like Sri M. Chalapathi Rau, Sri Baldoon Dhingra and Sri P. R. Ramachandra Rao in their early efforts of self-expression, found equal welcome in his hospitable volumes. The younger ones achieved their fulfillment as writers, in the unreserved and unstinted appreciation of ability and talent with which he greeted their productions. I cannot still forget the occasion on which in 1935 or 1936 he read my article in manuscript on The Logic of Linguistic Provinces, and encouraged me to write more often. There was always a sizeable group of young writers round Sri Ramakotiswara Rau in the Armenian Street days of the Triveni in Madras. He was always eager to recognize and seek out and establish talent. Without him, today, many well-known names in Indian journalism, and among the Indian literatures might, not have been known at all Bengal and Maharashtra and Karnatak are as dear to him as his native soil in Andhra Pradesh. A great story-teller of Guzerat like Sri K. M. Munshi or a great poet of Malabar like Sri Vallathol evokes as much joy and enthusiasm in him as the Tamil and Telugu writers of nearer reach. He is happier in Bangalore among friends like Sri D. V. Gundappa and Sri Nittoor Srinivasa Rau than in Narasaraopet or Masulipatam or even Madras. He is untouched by linguistic and regional prejudices or partialities. The progress of Indian literature, of Indian art and of Indian culture is his only passion in life. That mission is the Triveni. And he has given his all, ungrudgingly, to it.

It is a great privilege to work with such a man for such a journal. But it is also a heavy responsibility. I pleaded with Sri Ramakotiswara Rau that he should wait and choose a more worthy colleague. One like Sri K. Iswara Dutt or Sri M. Chalapathi Rau, more able, more experienced and more fit to fill the role of an editor, should have been persuaded to step in. This, somehow, could not be brought about. The co-operation of men like these and the co-operation of those whom they, from their stations in life, could induce to help the Triveni, would help the journal immensely. And it was the assurance that such co-operation would not be wanting from them which finally encouraged me to accept the difficult function of editing this journal.

At this point I wish to describe exactly what the Triveni always meant to me. It meant the first invitation to self-expression. It meant the first opportunity to think accurately in public and to write with precision for the public. It meant association with kindred spirits all over the land. It meant the realisation that the literary and the artistic mind, anywhere in this vast country of ours, was one entire and beautiful substance: with many colours, many forms, many tunes and many raptures. It meant the knowledge that a man finds his self and achieves his self not in isolation from others but in identification with others. It meant a genuine curiosity to study the thoughts and the literatures of the other linguistic peoples of India. It meant a keen desire to improve one’s language and literature by seeking contact with other languages and literatures. It meant watching every phase of the Indian renaissance, and attempting to harmonize it with what was valid in the past and with what is necessary for the future. It meant appreciating only what is of intrinsic and abiding value in a man or in a nation, and just disregarding mere cleverness, mere glitter and mere success whether in an individual or in a mass. It meant striving for the betterment of the body, mind and soul of every living human being. It meant accepting that the material progress, the cultural progress and the spiritual progress of mankind are not enemies each to each, but go together. It meant giving of your best to the culture and the progress of the nation in all its departments of life, and through the nation to all mankind.

I rejoice that I have come home to Triveni. As I cross the door-step I am perturbed too. A bit of fear confuses my joy. But there are friendly greetings, and I stretch my hand to meet my comrades of the past and of the future.

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