“Being
a novelist, I consider myself superior to the saint, the scientist, the
philosopher and the poet. The novel is the one bright book of life” said D. H.
Lawrence, the famous English novelist, with an artist’s pardonable licence. If
there is anybody who can repeat it with justifiable pride among the Telugu
writers of this century, it is Sri Viswanatha Satyanarayana, who authored about
three score and ten novels of different categories and types–the masterpieces
and milestones, the classics and commercials.
They
have now become every Telugu reader’s heritage–an opportunity to take part in
the magnificent adventure of the spirit. Despite all differences of plot, story
and theme, the novels of Sri Viswanatha have all kept watch over man’s
mortality; they have something everlasting to report to us about ourselves, and
they report it in the syllables of art.
In
most modern novels materialism seems to be the negation of life. These modern
novelists have crowded out reality with the furniture of their novels; they had
laid so much dull stress on environment, social setting–the fabric instead of
the substance–that the essence of being had escaped them. The novels of Sri
Viswanatha do not fall under this category. The meaning of real, the nature of
reality gained new dimensions in the novels of Sri Viswanatha–where life is not
a series of gig-lamps symmetrically arranged. Life is depicted as luminous
halo, a semi-transparent envelope which surrounds man from the beginning of
consciousness to the end.
The
reality in the novels of Viswanatha is
thus of a very different kind from that in many contemporary novels. Meeting it
in prose fiction today (in Viswanatha’s novels) one has to approach it as he
approaches the reality of a poem; with a response to its rhythms, its imagery,
its timeless flow of memories and impressions.
Sri
Viswanatha’s luminous style, a subtle handling of the undercurrents of
consciousness, is an almost lyrical flow. This is too obvious in his novel Ekaveera. In his novels the range of
implicit experience seems limitless.
The
essential concern of Sri Viswanatha in his novels is with the character in
itself; and because his characters are real, his novels survive. The
characters, above all, solace the reader. We, who can hardly understand
ourselves much less one another, meet in Sri Viswanatha’s world of novels a
more comprehensible and thus a more manageable human race. The reader has a
comforting illusion of understanding at least, the secret invisible truth of
people.
The
characters in the novels of Sri Viswanatha, more particularly those in Veyipadagalu, his magnum opus, are not created but found; they preexisted revealing
themselves in his novels. What the reader has to do is to recognise the people
of the novel as they play their roles in the story.
Sri
Viswanatha is not fond of melodrama but he projects the reverberation of the
thousand small shocks that make life palpable.
Reading
Ekaveera or Veyipadagalu, we love, suffer, comprehend vicariously. These novels
satisfy our hunger to share the news about human condition. The characters open
their hearts to us. We are in torment with Setupati, Veerabhupati and Ekaveera;
we learn that struggle is life itself; we come to the fruition of genius with
him.
To
read and understand Sri Viswanatha – empathy, imaginative sympathy,
understanding of human values is necessary on the part of the reader as the
characters grow larger than themselves, possibly larger than life. In Cheliyalikatta the common place youngman
sophisticated and westernised in his thinking tries to disentangle reality from
the nightmare engulfing himis a symbol of modern man, who has ceased to
understand human destiny.
Beyond
plot, story and theme the novels of Viswanatha contain something–the essence of
all–which is his personal idiom, his statement
outside logic or casuality a statement poetic in that it is always its own
excuse for being.
The
theme of Veyipadagalu is the decline
and fall of a Telugu generation–not by any pressure of outward circumstances
but by psychological forces engendered by modern sophistication–chiefly by the
emergence, with increasing force of westernised ideas and values of life–like
loose living, laziness to a passionate yearning to be completely identified
with new westernism.
Veyipadagalu has
over a score of major characters and a large number of minor ones which are
sharply individualized in appearance and temperament. Physical details add to
the scene of reality; the novel is rich in reference to all aspects of life–a
kind of a social enyclopaedia. This novel is an embodiment of social realism–an
exhaustive study of a certain segment of society at a particular time and place
in history, at work, in public life, in society and at home. In short it is a
portrait of a whole society of the time.
Sri
Viswanatha is not anti-progress. His respect for our ancient culture is not a
blind admiration. He has not a closed mind – not jealous of the so-called
modernists. Dharma Rao, the hero of Veyipadagalu,
may look like arguing irrationally for some sophisticated modernists. His
argument against the unauthorised tresspass and erosion of our culture by the
enemies and is totally intended to safeguard our own cultural interests and not
at all intended to persuade others to embrace or accept it.
One
thing is very clear. In the name of social progress injustice, exploitation,
blind emulation have become the order of the day. So many atrocities are
committed. Sri Viswanatha exposed these into public gaze. His logic is of
course sharp and words pungent. But the truth he has revealed, is
unquestionable. His opinions need not, and are not binding on everybody. But he
has succeeded completely in portraying the social realism of the times.
Some
ultra modernists describe Sri Viswanatha as a reactionary and as an old
traditionalist. Some interested people did their utmost to bring him and his
writings into disrepute–out of ill-will, jealousy and lack of proper
understanding.
One
need not agree with Sri Viswanatha with whatever he writes. But before
launching an attack on him, one has to make a deeper study. The communion of
the story, the plot and the theme, the characterisation, the development of the
story, the portrayal of the present day social circumstances and environs–or
anything else is not against progress. Everything depends upon the spirit of
love of national culture and patriotism. The author believes that large-scale
industrialisation of the country does not solve our problems. He projects the
Gandhian view that village reconstruction is essential without losing the
ancient village arts and crafts and the inherent rural charm.
Dharma
Rao, the hero, has once tried to massage the feet of his wife Arundhati. She
objected. But he told her that man and woman are equals and that there is no
place for a complex between them. Is this anti-progress? Mangamma was a fallen
woman. She was not condemned or rejected as an earthly bitch. She was moulded
into a penitant devotee–a woman of sacrifice. A closed-minded traditionalist
will never do like this.
Ratnagiri
belonged to dancing community. Girika was her daughter. They became ideal women
worshipped by everybody. Nobody else can do it. The building up of the
character of Ratnagiri as a woman of piety and her daughter Girika as a model
of devotion and saintliness could never be done by a closed-minded
traditionalist who is against progress.
Through
and through the novel Veyipadagalu there
was no objection to inter-caste marriages. Rameswara Sastry and Kumaraswamy married
women of other castes. They led ideal lives. They lived happily and enjoyed
life. This is not the viewpoint of a closed-minded traditionalist. There are
several other instances. He is not against progress. He knows the secret of
progress. He has boldly exposed the inner deception of those that always talk
of progress while exploiting everything for personal gains. They are the
enemies of progress.
Sri
Viswanatha loves his characters so well that he lives in them. He does not
despise any character. If the reader is perceptive enough, he can pluck out the
heart of each man’s mystery.
There
is no villain in the novel Veyipadagalu. But
the position is occupied by a “viewpoint”–“Paradharma”–the alien culture. It is
the conflict of our culture and the alien that comprises the theme of this
novel.
The
literary objectivity of the novels of Sri Viswanatha is mixed with the
expression of this personal problem which always fascinated him–the rival
claims of Indian culture and the alien culture to dominate the modern Indian
type. To this theme he was to return repeatedly in later works.
This
conflict is presented almost entirely from the Indian point of view–or so it
seems first. There are some characters strong and articulate enough to project
the other point of view.
Sri
Viswanatha does not criticise his characters. He simply allows us to see how
many lives can be warped or ruined in the attempt to live as they do.
On
every page Sri Viswanatha has left his signature for us to read. The oldest quotation–of
Buffon’s–“the style is the man is most accurate with Sri Viswanatha.