Book Reviews

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LIGHTER SIDE UP AND OTHER STORIES & MISCELLANY; Vemaraju Narasimha Rao; Navya Sahiti Samithi; 1-8-522/2 Chikkadapally, Hyderabad-20; pp155. Paper, Price Rs.60/-

This publication on the occasion of the Golden Jubilee Year of Navya Sahiti Samiti of Hyderabad does the writer proud.  Mr. Narasimha Rao, a retired officer of the State Govt. has been both a playwright - producer and a literatteur of rare distinction.  Turned a septuagenarian two years ago, it is his sense of humour coupled with an indefatigable spirit to forge ahead that makes him an endearing individual.  Old age (even if this could be deemed so) has yet his own honour and his toil; some work of noble note may yet be done.  In fact as one ages, one just doesn’t grow old alone.  And Bacon tells us that youth and age have their own advantages besides privileges and joys.  Joy it is to look and collect one’s own writings to offer it as a bunch of blossoms to his fortunate seniors as well as the up and coming.  It is a sentimental gesture of goodwill.

Section I is a presentation of eleven humorous pieces produced over four decades.  Not even the grimmest and the tightest-jawed could resist breaking into a joyful, contented smile after reading each piece.  If one doesn’t, you can take the person to be a hater of music who good old Brutus warned us of with his impeccable logic.

Section II is a collection of four Telugu short stories of others and one Marathi story translated by Narasimha Rao besides another penned by himself in Telugu.

Section III contains five Essays on Literature, Culture and Current Topics.  Here again there is variety: the veritable hallmark of a playwright/actor.  The writer airs his views on women characters in our literature.  In another essay he reveals poignant insights into the ways in which individuals handle the Question Box in popular Telugu periodicals.  In the present writer’s hand the Question Box is raised to the level of a literary genre: true, when you come to think of it. And then each has a unique style; a unique way of looking at things and a unique way of attacking, facing, answering  posers, for, not all questioners are all that innocent or all that intelligent. It was Carlyle who said that a person’s style is not a coat but the very skin. The pride of place, surely, goes to the writer’s exegesis of Sudraka’s magnum opus, that classic Sanskrit drama MRUCHCHAKATIKAM. TRIVENI carried it in its second number of 2000. Not many of us has seen the play staged though everyone among the literati knowns it as the famous Claycart. The essay on Kuchipudi as the most famous of Andhra contributions to the field of Indian dance was written in 1970. We are happy  that there is our Kuchipudi doyen Vendantam Satyanarayana Sarma on the Trust Board of Indira Gandhi Centre for the Arts. The final piece A Challenge is on the travails of getting  up functions and festivals. This is particularly relevant in the context of the 35^th  All India Competitions in Music and Dance being held in February this year.

- Dr. V.V.B.Rama Rao, New Delhi

MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF INDIA   Selected and Retold and Introduced by William Radice, The Folio Society, London, 2001. Xxviii+784 pages.  Price not mentioned.

Helen and Katherine must be very lucky girls.  Not merely because this splendorous, boxed volume has been dedicated to them by their father, but because they must have spent long hours with him in person as he opened the charmed magic casements of India’s cultural past, the audible voice with its sing-song rhythm keeping the blossoming consciousness in thrall.  Immersed as he is in the myths and legends of India, William Radice has also a historical and critical angle to his approach to a subject that defies Time and generalization.  And the illustrations! For those of us who cannot even dream of walking in the corridors of the V and A Picture Library or the British Library in London, the volume brings fifteen prints, most of them in opaque watercolours (gouache).  The fancies of these unknown artists takes one’s breath away.  The chariot with Ravana and Sita is caught within the beaks of a lemon-yellow Jatayu as in a vice; the Kulu artist’s idea of Yogeshwara Shiva wearing a courtier’s garments is intriguing; there is also the macabre family portrait of Shiva by a Kangra artist where the divine parents play with Kartikeya and Ganesa using skulls as balls, while a benign Nandin gazes at the familial group.  Then, who can take away one’s eyes from the Blue Boy sporting with gopis in Brindavan imaged by a Rajasthani Painter?

If there is an area in man’s experience where the written word is able to score over even visuals, it is that of India’s myths and legends.  These paintings call out for our undisturbed attention, but Radice has also spread a verbalised Emir’s table from India’s past, so we rush to beginnings, ‘Before Creation’.  Not so fast! The Introduction calls out with its arresting quote from Salman Rushdie.

It is wonderful how Radice has worked wards from Rushdie’s capitalization of the ocean idea to indicative creative exuberance. The image begins with Somadeva’s 11^th century compendium, the Katha-sarit-sagara “which is like Ovid, Boccacio, Chaucer and La Fontaine rolled into one”.  With additions from epics and folk-tales, it becomes obvious that “the metaphor of an ocean seems to be the only one huge and spacious enough to represent something so fluid, so deep, so changeable in moon, so beautiful yet often so frightening.”  Reading the volume, all the experiences of seamen become ours as well.  Sometimes we are in a jolly mood, telling tales to wide-eyed children as the boat glides towards a picnic spot.  Often we trundle on, lost in the grey folds of thought as when we learn of the indecently shaped sweetmeat in ‘Vararuchi’s Talent’; is it merely inserted for an erotic burp or does it mean that if one wants to improve his memory power, he must avoid sexual indulgence and erotic fancies?  Could the bed that the grain merchant’s son made be really a symbol of the need to be conscious at all times, yes, even in sleep?

There are also the very familiar tales like that of King Sivi and the dove which has made the Indian nation a global symbol for compassion.  The Buddha’s offering himself to the hungry tigress, the Buddha as the kindly ape, the minister Sumukha the golden goose who symbolizes true loyalty and the Buddha himself, his ideal wife Yasodhara and son Rahula are all icons we have cherished from our childhood. These are not tales but experiences that shape the child into a citizen of the world.

Plenty of tales from the branch stories in the great epics that form myth-cycles are here.  These are tales that never pall.  Nala, Hanuman, Sunda, Vishwamithra.  Familiar tales all.  Do you think Agni can hide himself if he wants to?  No says the marvellous myth on how he came to reside permanently in the twigs of the sami tree:

“But he remains, if given the chance, quick to take offence; his anger at failing to hide from gods or men can burst into furious, destructive conflagrations; and has fury that his deepest, most secret hiding-place of all--under the earth and sea--was revealed to the gods by the frog pours out sometimes from volcanoes”.

Such were the early attempts to get a scientific explanation for the mysterious workings of nature that are unpredictable and predictable at the same time.  The central core of Myths and Legends is an array of narratives from the Mahabharata. Undoubtedly, the choice throws poor light on the male of the species and surely I am not complaining!  The golden diction and wiry style of Prof.P.Lal are just the thing to put Dushyanta in his proper ignoble place from which Kalidasa has successfully retrieved him for long:

“He heard her.
He remembered all. He said,
I remember nothing
Wicked woman, who are you?

I cannot recall ever
Having anything to do with you
Regarding dharma, artha or kama
Go! Or stay; as you please”

There are also other dubious males brought to us by the choice of Radice: Insatiable Yayati. Dhritarashtra and his sons.  What a nest of vipers to have streamed out and stung heroic Abhimanyu, defying all canons of war! ‘The Death of Abhimanyu’ explores the birth of Lady Death, her anguish at the task she has been assigned and the clauses which help her overcome her aversion.  Where greed, anger, hatred, malice, dissension, folly, shamelessness and bitter speech tear human bodies apart, how can anyone blame death? So said Vyasa to Yudhistra:

All creatures must die
When their time is ripe,
They are taken away
To be born is to die
Creatures destroy themselves
Though Death wields a rod,
Death does not destroy.”

Thus the ship of stories built by William Radice sails with its readers on the immense waters of Indian heritage, almost always managing the sovereign movement, the waves foaming around conveying the voices of gods and god-like men, of rakshasas and men driven by the kinetic ego.  Even as we look into the far-away horizon as if watching the characters in action, the ethical imperatives garnered by the ancients is percolated into us.  Repetitions like the birth of Death could have been avoided to make place for yet another little known legend from the Katha-sarit-sagara.  For one may find satiation in anything in life but not in listening to stories from the compendium of the Kashmiri Brahmin Somadeva, especially if they are chosen by William Radice and retold by Prof. Lal!
- Prema Nandakumar  

THE WAYSIDE PIPER Srinivasa Rangaswami. Publishers: The Writers Workshop, Kolkata.Pp.82. Price: Hard:Rs.120/-. Flexi:Rs.80/-.

Srinivasa Rangaswami is no stranger to the readers of Triveni.  He is known to be a poet of remarkable powers whether he presents his relations with God or a human being, whether he brings before us a scene of Nature or slice of human life.  Few poets have lived such a rich life as Rangaswami, rich in every kind of experience.  He has occupied high positions officially, occupies a very  important place socially and a name to conjure within the life of cultural activities.  Domestically he has experienced felicity if he has also known what he calls the “storm and snow” of life.  He has seen the banality of politics and the simple goodness of human nature.  He has the true creative imagination to recreate every experience and bring us the true vision in his different poems. 

In a short review we can no more than give the taste of his command of word and rhythm, treatment of theme and technique. 

The early poems in the slim volume reveal his intense devotion and aspiration to realise the experience of God.  He tells us how on the battlefield to Kurukshetra the Lord gave Arjuna the eye to see his Supreme Form.  We may say that the Lord has given the poet the imaginative eye, if not the inner spiritual eye, to see the face of the Lord.  In the world, he says, he has all he has desired.  He says,

I cannot ask for more my Lord
You have blessed me…

And recounts the different advantages in life he has been bestowed with.  He is not the type of devotee to whom the Lord says,

A life of splendid isolation you craved,
Of capsuled comfort, a life stewed
In your own happiness, unburdened
By thought for anyone around,…

There are tender poems of about his wife when she was an adolescent bride, when she walked with his path of life and after she passed away and when she slipped into a date and a tithi.
Tithi is the death anniversary, a date in the lunar Hindu Calendar.

He is a master in nature description:

Beautiful is the bird’s eye view
And, like a bird’s the spirit raised,
From restless rest to the burning blue,
Flutters, flits, and wingless flies away.

His Haiku show his power of economy of word and phrase:

The red light is on,
Boss, busy inside the room-
His legs on the table!
He used to rock her
On his knees--you know she
Was his private secretary

Srinivasa Rangaswami is one of our immortals.
-K.B. Sitaramayya

BRIDGE-IN-MAKING 2001. EDITOR  PRANAB KUMAR MAZUMDER, LASER TECHNICO GRAPHICS, KOLKATA, 700 001, Rs.150-00 $10; pp82

The book is an anthology with a representative collection of poems of poets of India and abroad –east and west of India.  The book has the poems of eighty two poets of whom seventeen are foreigners.  Most of the poets are editors and publishers themselves, professors and teachers of English and a few from other walks of life.

The anthology begins with Rabindranath Tagore’s poem AMI translated into English by Pranab Kumar Mazumder, the editor of the international poetry journal, Bridge-in-Making.  The anthology is a rich collection of poems covering a wide range of thought subjects neo modern in technique and verse form except a few conventional ones.

We may wonder why poets write poems.   ‘As a lamp finds fulfilment in burning’ a poet finds fulfilment in writing poetry may be the answer.  The poets live in a world of their own where life is a song, a dream, and a melody.  Disasters, tragedies and sufferings are also felt by them but they advocate a ‘live and let live’ principle wisely. For us non poets, the creation has men and women.  But to the poets ‘the woman is the sweetest poetry and men the best prose’.  The quotes are from the poets.  What more can one comment on the mellifluousness of the thinking of the poets?

It is gratifying to note that most of the poets, Indian and foreign, including the editor of the volume under review are the regular contributors of roses, lilies and tulips, the pearls, rubies and diamonds of their poetry, enlivening and gladdening the hearts of the readers of TRIVENI.

The poet-editor has done great service to the cause of poetry and poetry lovers by publishing the anthology.
- D. Ranga Rao

THE GORGEOUS GANGES AND OTHER STORIES; Govindaraju Srinivasa Murthy; Triveni Foundation, Hyderabad; Rs.95.00, US$ 9.95; pp123

The writer of the present book is a retired bank official. As a boy he lived with his foster father, a noted stage and film artist of yester years in Madras who was visited by writers, poets, critics, dialogue and song writers regularly.  This ground inspired the story teller in him and he wrote many stories in Telugu which were published in Journals and Weeklies. After retiring from service he has been utilising his time profitably by writing more stories, some in English, and translating his Telugu stories into English.  During service after bank hours he must have spent time weaving his everyday observations into stories.  His gifted mind and the fluent pen did the rest.

In the stories real life situations are dramatised effectively.  Fact and fiction are fused with consummate skill and artistry to make plausible stories.  The myriad experiences, feelings and emotions that churn the human mind are narrated in a natural setting in the stories.  The influence of his wide travel abroad, particularly in the US has its impact on the author and is seen in a couple of stories wherein he introduces the supernatural for a change.

Story telling is a difficult art as the canvas is small and limited.  The writer has to put into a capsule the episode he wishes to write and make it a palatable and easily digestible narration sustaining the interest of the reader.  Mr. Murthy succeeds in this exercise.

The writer has a story bank tucked away in the strong room at the of his mind and promises to issue them forth, crisp and colorful, in the future.  We wish him a happy writing time.
- D. Ranga Rao

METVERSE MUSE vol. iv no:2, July-December, 2001 issue, edited and published by     Dr. H. Tulsi.

Metverse Muse, a poetry half-yearly under the enlightened editorship of  Ms. Dr. Tulsi Naidu for the last few years has flowered into fullness in giving effective, valuable service in the field of renaissance of classical poetry in English at a time when formless free verse has transgressed all limits and is going from bad to worse.  Though this reviewer is no crusader for metered lines in poetry, she is of the firm view that rhyme and assonance add to the beauty and elegance to poems whenever it is possible to incorporate them without doing damage to the meaning or communication with the reader.  Bad poetry can come in metered verse as well as free verse, but by and far more meaningless verse appears in the latter, probably because of a feeling fostered by the absence of any rule.  Unbridled freedom often tends to become license.  And a swing to poetry of form and substance and effective communication with the reader, in whose memory the lines will forever dance for a recall at will, is a healthy, and much needed development.  It is fine that practitioners of free verse are all welcoming it.  As a leader of this movement who has practised this dictum in her poetic works, and promoted it in others by editing and publishing Metverse Muse, a half-yearly, she deserves unstinted praise and whole-hearted support.

Having said this, I must also point out that from the very beginning each issue has been better than a book, brought out unaided with meticulous care so as to give the readers a fine fare.  And the July-December issue is an impressive one in that glorious tradition.  The health and wealth of Indian English writing at which some historians and critics have a puckered face and a sneering comment, can well be seen from these magazine issues.  Actually there has been a welcome flowering of IEW published in India apart from those being published abroad since Independence., particularly so in the last three decades.  This is not to say that there are no bad poetic compositions.  There will always be weeds in a garden.  That is a global pattern, not peculiar to one field, country or language.  But an epoch and a survey of that epoch should concentrate on the good aspects, without the condemnatory generalisations.  And here Tulsi is providing a single-handed aid as do many poetry magazines in India to anyone who has the patience, capacity, inclination and goodness to perceive and be positive.  The present issue of Metverse under review has poems cutting across age, clime and country, with a wealth of poems from Indians writing in English.  A special feature that I notice are children’s poems. Encouraging these poets at a tender age is helpful to the cause of poetry in a larger sense.  Tulsi does not advocate any metrical fetters, she wants you only to follow a form whatever be your choice, keeping the distinction between poetry and prose, as between man and woman, and vive la the difference!
- Dr. R. Rabindranath Menon 

TELUGUtc "TELUGU"

VAIKUNTHAPALI by K.R.K.Mohan.  Published by Jayanthi Publications, 19-90, P &T Colony, Dilsukhnagar, Hyderabad-60. Pages 145. Price Rs.80-00.

Life, like the evening sky, is an interplay of light and shade.  The white radiance of life is stained by man’s deeds.  Man, inspite of himself, is a helpless creature who suffers the trials and tribulations while enjoying the joys and pleasures of life.  The novelist succeeds in projecting this truth through the life of Pandu the hero of the novel under review.

Vaikunthapali, the game of snakes and ladders, is played by young and old alike in every household to while away time.  But it is more than a game and has its significance. Life itself is a game full of ups and downs and the players try to reach heaven by climbing ladders, big and small while serpents, small and big lurk at every turn waiting to pull them down to abysmal depths.  The game stands for the irony of life as no one stops playing it though there are serpents around.

Pandu, the hero of the novel, is a dare devil and a man of strong convictions.  He knows that success rewards those that dare and do.  Fortune, the wayward and fickle-minded dame, smiles on Pandu only to shun him later.  The hero, a self made man, rises from rags to riches and becomes a noble minded smuggler, generous and sensitive to the poor and the needy.  Envious Fate plays foul with him and he is caught by law which is an ass and tried by justice which is blind.  The enriched beneficiaries, the gentlemen of society, smite him like vipers to save their skin while the poor cry their hearts out. Thus in the novel the protagonist turns into the antagonist.

The thought of writing a novel of this nature is a bold and risky venture.  No wonder the publishers hesitated to print it in book form.  Truth, like life, is beautiful but is also bitter.

The novel has all the ingredients to keep the reader glued to his seat, the twists and turns, the situations, the emotions, the ‘rasas’, the required jargon, detective devices and above all the characterisation that go to make it a little classic in its own right.

“VAIKUNTHAPALI”, written in a racy style, is surely another feather in the cap of K.R.K. and it establishes him as an enduring novelist. The title is half the battle.
- D. Ranga Rao 

MANA JEEVITHALU: JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI VYAKHAYANALU - Telugu translation of Commentaries on living, (first series) by Smt. Abburi Chaya Devi; Visalandhra Publishing House, Abids, Hyderabad.  Price Rs.125/-

The book “Commentaries on Living”, first series, is one of the earlier writings of Krishnamurti after he disbanded the organisation “Order of the Star”, left the Theosophical society and started propounding his own philosophy of life.  He said then that there was no path to truth and that no organsition, or organised belief or religion can lead man to truth.  He said that in all so called spiritual matters there is no authority, no leader or guru and that all following perverts the follower. Everyone has to be his own teacher and his own disciple.

The book Commentaries on Living consists of a series of 88 articles in which Krishnamurti recorded his comments on the meetings and interviews with a large number of persons who came to see him with their problems.  The articles cover wide range of subjects.  Broadly speaking, the aspect emphasised in these articles is that the way we approach life’s problems and understand them is much more important than trying to find immediate answers to the problems.  There can be no understanding of the problem when we are anxious to get rid of it by finding an immediate answer to it.  A solution may be found but the problem still remains because in the anxiety to find an answer, the problem has not been understood in its entirety.  Krishnamurti presents his vision from many different angles in the various articles, that it is sometimes difficult to see the underlying theme as a whole, in a connected way. 

Smt. Abburi Chaya Devi, who has translated Krishnamurti’s book into Telugu at the authorisation of Krishnamurti Foundation India, is a well-known writer in Telugu.  She has made a commendable and praiseworthy effort to make the Telugu rendering as simple and intelligible as possible to Telugu readers.  She has used common words of popular usage and her diction is brief and expressive.  But then, Krishnamurti is not easy to understand even in English, and further he has a way of expression all his own, which when translated word-to-word, as has been done in this case, makes understanding even harder.  The difficulty arises not because of any lack of skill or ability on the part of the translator but because of the abstruseness of the original and the word-to-word translation authorised. This reviewer honestly feels that in order to convey Krishnamurti’s message with greater clarity to the reader, free translation is needed of some portions of the original, especially passages where Krishnamurti has given his own comments regarding life’s problems in the various articles.

Krishnamurti Foundation has the necessary empowerment to effect the free translation, or editing if it may be so called, so that no distortion or corruption is caused to the teaching itself.  The sole object of the free translation which is suggested, is to make the meaning of Krishnamurti’s comments on living more accessible and understandable to the ordinary Telugu reader, who may not be previously acquainted with Krishnamurti’s philosophy.  Unless this is done in future editions, this reviewer feels, the as-it-is translated versions of Krishnamurti’s books may not achieve the purpose intended by the author, namely, that his teachings should be lived in their daily lives by those who study them.
- N. Sri Ramamurty

PILLALA KATHALU; (Children’s Stories); Dr.K.R.K. Mohan; Srimukha Publications, Hyderabad; pp;Rs.100/-

These stories for children from the pen of  Dr.K.R.K. Mohan were previously published in journals like Bala, Balajyoti etc., Dr. Mohan is noted for his generous output of short stories, science fiction and novels etc., These 69 stories meant for the children are published since 1948 and cover a wide variety of topics - from the folklore, to the political, historical, social and mythological subjects.  The style is simple and narrative and these stories easily impart education and entertainment to the reader.  They not only make you laugh but also make you think - young and old alike.  The utility of  the book has been doubled with an illustration to each one, making it more attractive.  It is but proper that it is dedicated to the late Nyapati Kameswara Rao, the poineer in children’s literature.  This book stands as one of the memorable books in children’s literature deserving to be preserved.

- Dr. Padmini Chittaranjantc "BOOK REVIEWS"