FOREWORD
K. Gopalakrishna Rao (1906-1967)
was a very popular writer of short stories in Kannada, in the pre-independence
period. He was a contemporary of Masti
Venkatesha Iyengar (Rao was called the ‘patta
shishya’ - ‘pet disciple’ of Masti), A. Seetaram (pen name: ‘Ananda’), R. Shivaram
(pen name: ‘Rashi’), and others. As an
administrator, Gopalakrishna Rao served as the private secretary of the then
chief minister of Karnataka, Kengal Hanumanthaiah, and as the secretary of the
great association, Kannada Sahitya Parishat (1956-1961). Although Rao wrote many stories, during his
life time, he could publish only three short-story collections and one
collection of his selected stories.
After his death, his daughter, Janaki Shrinivas, collected, with admirable perseverance, all of his published and unpublished stories and brought out a collection of forty
stories in 2011. Now, twelve stories from
that collection have been selected and translated into English. This is a matter of great satisfaction for
all lovers of Kannada short stories; and I am very happy to write a Foreword to
the collection, in order to introduce Rao’s
stories to non-Kannada readers.
The period in which
Gopalakrishna Rao’s literary sensibility
was shaped and his stories were written was a turbulent period of contradictory
pulls and pressures. Since the Freedom
Struggle was being waged throughout the country, there prevailed a strong sense
of nationalism and search for cultural identity. At the same time, owing to the introduction
of English education and exposure to Western literature and ideas, Reformist
movements like Brahmo Samaj and Arya Samaj were seriously engaged in
questioning and exposing Hindu orthodoxy
and traditional religious/ social customs.
Consequently, a sort of
‘love-hate’ relationship existed among Indians of that period toward
Indian/Hindu culture as well as English literature and ideas. It was in such an ethos that many new forms
of literature like the Lyric, the Sonnet, the Novel, and such entered Kannada
literary field; and among such new forms, one was the Short Story. All the forms of literature including the
Short Story, written during that period, reflect such contradictory pulls and
tensions and Gopalakrishna Rao’s stories
are no exception. They reflect Idealism and a Romantic view of life
as well as the harsh and unavoidable
realities of contemporary life. Most of
the successful stories of Rao are those which authentically capture such contradictory pulls and pressures
prevalent in the Indian society in the first half of the 20th
century.
Gopalakrishna Rao’s stories depict the experiences of urban and educated middleclass people, of the early decades of
the last century, in a leisurely style that is controlled and emotive. Many major stories, following the structure
of Masti’s stories, have multiple narrators: the first narrator
tells the readers what he had heard from his friends and others. Also, most of the stories of Rao are
‘incident-centred’, full of coincidences
in the lives of the protagonists. Long
estranged or separated lovers, parents
and their offspring, brothers and sisters, and friends meet each other unexpectedly,
in strange places; and accidents take place for no fault of the victims. In fact, in one of his stories, Rao himself
admits this fact through his narrator: “to tease others pretending to give them
something and then to snatch it away is a game played by children; and God also loves to play such games” (“The Birthday
Gift”).
However,
the most significant features of Rao’s stories are two: dissatisfaction with
the then-existing Hindu beliefs and customs, and an unflinching faith in the
innate life-giving values of Indian culture.
To start with, influenced by the reform-movements of that age, many
stories of Rao mount a critique of traditional values and practices, particularly
the discriminatory caste-system and the
treatment of women in a Hindu society.
The writer sadly records how lovers, owing to caste differences, have no
choice but to run away from home and suffer, cut off from their parents for
life (“ True Love Is Raised on Self-sacrifice”), and how, on some occasions,
the caste-differences could lead even to murder of either the man or the woman involved
(“Actress”). Contemptuous treatment of
women makes the writer sadder. In those days, in Brahmin families, once the
husband died, his widow was expected to lead a very secluded and ascetic life,
getting her head completely shaved and not allowed to wear kunkum and
flowers. She was not expected to
participate in any public programmes or functions. Rao registers the inhuman cruelty underlying
such treatment of women in many of his stories: “She whom I Beheld – Just Four Times”
(in this story, early marriage makes a young woman widow, and even the famous
pontiff of a Math refuses to give her
‘teertha’); “Dr. Susheela Sanketh” (in this story also, a young widow is taken
forcibly to a holy place to get her head shaved; with her friend’s help she escapes
from that horror, goes to Pune in Maharashtra, and becomes a famous doctor);
and such.
More importantly, Rao has a firm
belief in the moral/ethical values of
traditional Indian culture imbibed by one; these are the values which save one
at the decisive moments of one’s life.
The best example of this point is the story, “Dr. Susheela Sanketh.” On her way to a holy place with her in-laws
(to get her head shaved), Susheela, a young widow, accidentally meets another young man in a choultry
at Hassan. At night, both get attracted
to each other and the young man brings her to his room with carnal intent. However, just before anything untoward
happens, moonlight floods the room and the young man sees the idol of his god,
Sreenivasa. Suddenly, his conscience
pricks him and he falls at her feet and Susheela lifts him up and tends to him like a
mother. Later, renouncing everything the
young man becomes a monk and the young woman, now a doctor, remains unmarried, serving her poor
patients. Even when illegitimate
relationships do develop, the woman remains
loyal to her man though he is long dead (“Truth Is Stranger Than
Fiction”).
In fact, it is in this context of asserting
the life-giving values of Indian culture
that Rao endorses in his stories the
Orientalist construct of the ‘Indian Woman’ (‘Bharatiya Nari’), who is a personification of Loyalty to her family
and husband, Forgiveness and Renunciation.
In the story “The Rarer Action lies in Forgiveness,” the husband
abandons his wife and goes after another woman, condemning his wife to extreme
suffering both mental and physical.
Still, when he returns to his wife repentant, she lovingly accepts him,
and the narrator comments: “Vengeance?
How can you find it in a Hindu wife?”
Similarly, Murthy’s step ‘mother’ in “Truth Is Stranger . . .”; Susheela
in “Dr. Susheela Sanketh,” the
protagonist in “Communion” -- all
display the qualities of loyalty and renunciation, characteristics of an idealized
Indian Woman.
*************
Prof. N.
Nanjunda Sastry, the translator of these stories, says in ‘A Note by the English Translator’: “As I
have said earlier in this note, mine is not a verbatim translation. The method I have followed is to absorb the
soul and spirit of the origin and then give it an English garb without its
plot-structure, characterization and their details.” Given this framework, he has done a very
competent job as a translator and deserves appreciation for his sincere efforts. I am sure, these stories in translation give
the non-Kannada readers the same deep experience that the Kannada readers got
through the originals.
*********** C. N. Ramachandran
July 10,
2014
1 comment:
Proud to be grandson of such renowned personality
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