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M.A. (ENGLISH) PART-II COURSE-XIV SEMESTER-IV INDIAN WRITING IN ENGLISH RAJA RAO LESSON NO. 1.1 AUTHOR : DR. PRABH DAYAL RAJA RAO : KANTHAPURA – INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION Raja Rao is acknowledged as one of the great Indian novelists who has written fiction in English. He was born on November 5, 1908, at Hassan in Mysore. In one of his interviews published in The Illustrated Weekly of India (Sept. 25, 1956, p. 15), Raja Rao gave an interesting account of his birth in a Dharamsala : My house was near a temple adjoining a Dharamsala .... it was a Shiva temple. I was born in the Shiva temple. We had the privilege of receiving the Maharaja of Mysore. He used to come to our village (town) once in 10 to 15 years. My mother was expecting me and I was late in coming. Then suddenly the pain started and there was no place in the house. There were 60 people living in the house. So they took mother to Dharmsala and I was actually born when the Maharaja was standing at the door, and father offered him a lemon. As the Maharaja was about to accept it, I was born. That is why I am called Raja. It is because of this Maharaja. Raja Rao belonged to a noble Brahmin family of Mysore. His forefathers were Vedantists. One of the ancestors Vidyaranya Swami was the greatest teacher of Advaita Vedanta after Shankara. Raja Rao spent the impressionable years of his childhood in the compay of his grand father at Hassan and also at Harihalli where his family owned ancestral land. He, therefore, had a first-hand knowledge of rural life. His understanding of rustic mind is reflected in his novel Kanthapura. Raja Rao received his school education at Hyderabad and Aligarh. At Aligarh, Raja Rao came into contact with Eric Dickinson who made him love France. After his graduation he won the Asiatic Scholarship and proceeded to France with the idea of conducting research on "Mysticism of the West." Raja Rao is a spiritually inclined writer. His spirituality is reflected in the statement that he made on the eve of his departure to France: “I wanted to become a monk in France. I came under the influence of a character Alceste, in Moliere's play Le Misanthrope. I thought France was the place where people only spoke the truth. So, I went there. But it took me about a week to find out that it was not so. I became Indian immediately afterwards. I was ... an orthodox Brahmin. I was also interested in spiritual matters. I wanted to become sanyasi, so I went to France.” It was during his visit to France that Raja Rao met Camille Mouly at Montpeille University. He married Camille who, he admits, played a very important part in his 1 M.A. (ENGLISH) PART-II (SEMESTER-IV) 2 COURSE-XIV literary career. Then my writings were in Macaulayan English and I thought it was good. But my wife said it was rubbish. She advised me to give up writing if I had to write that way. Then I started writing in Kannada. I wrote a novel in Kannada and then started writing in English again. Then my Macaulayan English was left behind. I started translating my Kannada texts and began to find the richness of the English Language. Raja Rao now started writing in English. To begin with he wrote short stories which were later collected in The Cow of the Barricades and Other Stories (1947). He wrote his first novel Kanthapura in 1938.Then there was a long and ususual silence of almost two decades. This period may be said to be the consequence of author's artistic reticence. In 1960, Raja Rao produced his magnum opus, The Serpent and the Rope, which created a great stir in the world of Indian Novel in English, for it was the only novel that confronted the East and the West so vigorously. In 1965, Raja Rao brought out another interesting novel, entitled The Cat and Shakespeare. His next novel, Comrade Kirillov which was actually written in nineteen fifties was published in 1976. Two years later, Raja Rao brought out another collection of short stories, The Policeman and the Rose which contains a few interesting metaphysical parables. Another novel he wrote is The Chessmaster and His Moves. Raja Rao was an expatriate who had spent nearly two decades in France and other twenty years in America. However, he never lost his contact with Indian culture. At a 'Get-together of Literary persons' organised by Kannada Sahitya Parished at Bangalore in 1964, Raja Rao confided to Sitaramiah : "Living there (in France) he soon discovered that his love for India was increasing.France, in some social way seems to do that for all. Lapped in the sophistication of its own culture, witness to its seething experiments in acts and thought, the visitor rediscovers his philosophy." He frequently visited India, and his periodic visit to his motherland, as Raja Rao himself pointed out, were the attempts to replenish his inner resources by vitalising contact with his motherland. He meticulously upheld Indian culture under the Western sky. He wore a Jodhpur close- collar coat, ate vegetarian food, abstained from alcohol and sat in meditation everyday. Raja Rao possessed an ardent desire to explore the truth. This quest took him from one ashram (hermitage) to another. He visited Sri Aurobindo's Ashram at Pondichery, Ramana Maharishi's at Triuvannamelai and Mahatma Gandhi's ashram at Sevagram.He stayed at Gandhi's ashram for quite sometime and devoted time to creative writing. In his youth, Raja Rao was highly attracted by Gandhian thought and philosophy. During the Quit India Movement, launched by Mahatma Gandhi in 1942, Raja Rao was associated with under-ground activities of the young socialist leader. M.A. (ENGLISH) PART-II (SEMESTER-IV) 3 COURSE-XIV He was a member of a cultural organization called Chetana which offered training in Bharata Natyam and sold books on Hindu religion and culture.Raja Rao's association with Mahatma Gandhi and belief in Gandhian philosophy are reflected in Kanthapura which primarily projects the Non-violent Movement launched by Mahatma Gandhi. Raja Rao was a spiritually inclined person and as already pointed out he was always filled with the desire to know the Truth. He studied Vedas and the Bhagaved Gita in his childhood. Raja Rao's younger sister, Saroja Murthy has given an interesting account of his activities in childhood : Raja Rao has always been a serious person, a man with a purpose, the purpose being the quest for truth which took him both to an intensive study of ancient Indian Philosophy and literature and to several ashrams of modern Indian saints. At the same time he has loved “all beauteous things” and has been quite an 'aesthetic'. He prefers the company of beautiful women to that of men, because he says he cannot stand the crudity of men. Nor can he face the ugliness of quarrel, and that is why he is so gentle, kind and understanding. Raja Rao believed that Literature is Sadhana (spiritual discipline) and a writer is a Sadhika (devotee). A writer should lead a metaphysical life, for by devoting to the Metaphysical alone can he/she be fully creative: For me literature is Sadhana-not a profession but a vocation.That's why I have published so few works. Also this explains why, since 15 years ago- except for The Cow of the Barricades, my writing is mainly the consequence of a metaphysical life, what I mean by Sadhana - I had this conflict in me-should a man be a writer first and then a man, secondarily, or a man first and a writer afterwards? And by man I mean the metaphysical entity. So idea of the literature as anything but a spiritual experience... is outside my perspective. I really think that only through dedication to the absolute or metaphysical principle can one be fully creative.... Literature as Sadhana is the best life for a writer. Then Indian tradition which links the words with the Absolute Saddabrahaman has clearly shown the various ways by which one can approach literature, without the confusion that arises in the mind of the Western writer viewing life as an intellectual adventure. Basically, the Indian outlook follows deeply satisfying, richly rewarding and profoundly metaphysical path. All this may sound terrible, but it is not so, really. Valery, Rilke, and Kafka for instance, are as close to this view as Tagore in looking upon literature as Sadhana. Raja Rao's spiritual inclinations and his belief in a metaphysical life have M.A. (ENGLISH) PART-II (SEMESTER-IV) 4 COURSE-XIV made his writings complex and philosophical. His first novel Kanthapura deals with Gandhian thought. Comrade Kirillov is a parody of communism professed by an Indian. The Serpent and the Rope projects the intensity of metaphysical thought alternating between Vedanta and Tantra. The Cat and Shakespeare is a Tantric prayer. Since Raja Rao had a philosophical mind, he may be distinguised from other contemporary Indian novelists Mulk Raj Anand and R.K. Narayan, who have projected man primarily in relation to social order, tradition and environment. Promoted by his humanistic commitments, Anand proclaimed his love for the poor. He has described the miserable voice of protest against the exploitation of the underdogs. His Untouchable (1935), Coolie (1936) and Two Leaves and a Bud (1973) portray the suffering of man in society. R.K. Narayan has projected the oddities of characters and incompatibilities of situations through the ironic mode of narration.