From Bankim to Narayan

Slowly making my way through books I picked up in India.  Which resulted in a few thoughts on Indian writing in English.

Rajmohan's Wife is possibly the first Indian-English work of fiction, as a novella this is the single most interesting feature about it.  As the excellent introduction by Meenakshi Mukherjee points out, it has elements of Bankim's subsequent work like BishaBriksha, Durgesh Nandini and the like. And an uneven tone with parts of it perhaps being aimed at a "Western audience", an all too common accusation even today.  Parts read as if they are translated from the Bengali and it is only in a few passages that Bankim finds his rhythm.  All in all it is a bit of an undergraduate exercise and midway through the novella it is clear that Bankim has lost interest in the fate of his characters.  Whatever the fate of the book at the time (it was possibly serialised but there is no record of this or the reaction of Bankim's readers), Bankim then switched to writing in Bangla and the rest as they say is history.  In any event Bankim was not the only one to switch to his native language, the general consensus at the time appears to have been that it was better to be a first rate Bengali writer than a second rate English one. And it is true that Bankim found fame when he switched to Bengali. And though we live in a century where it is our English writers who are covered in glory, the question of writing in an inherited language which at times is unable to convey the full flavour of Indian life remains.  As an example, Mukherjee points out that a Bengali novel can incorporate dialects that reflect region and class, a near impossibility in English.  Closing Rajmohan's Wife it seems impossible to believe that anything authentic can be written in Indian-English, that the problems Bankim grappled with may have mitigated but haven't ceased to be.

The Bachelor of Arts is the second book in RK Narayan's trilogy and reading it now you realise the books have a semi-autobiographical strain.  Narayan of course wrote in English and once "discovered" by Greene, his fame as a writer was assured.  Narayan's deceptively simple novella captures Chandran's coming of age and is still reasonably accurate in capturing the growing pains of a Tamil Brahmin lad. Narayan was writing a full half century and more later than Bankim and what you first notice is how unobtrusive the language is.  Narayan captures a particular kind of Tamil life so well that the language the book is written in becomes immaterial.  And that, especially in the context of Rajmohan's Wife, is quite remarkable. You have to keep in mind, however, that many of Narayan's novels are set in his own milieu and do not require Bankim's dramatic shifts in the narrative.

It is possible that part of the reason the language in The Bachelor of Arts is immaterial to a reader like me is because I am intimately acquainted with Narayan's milieu.  And yet beyond that I did fall to wondering if the term Indian English is a wee bit overarching.  A person whose mother tongue is Tamil will employ the language differently - in Narayan's books there are none of the flourishes or poetics that are common in Bengali novels though there is the dry, sarcastic wit familiar to Tamilians.  In effect Tamil-English functions quite differently from Bengali-English and this is possibly true even for those of us who are taught English in our infancy. And it is possible that the conflicts that arise from writing in English are not the same across all Indian languages.

Now we are used to Indian writing in English and it is no longer aimed at readers elsewhere, writers like Chetan Bhagat sell to the country's middle class, the kind of people who might have read regional writing in an earlier time.  Yet the remarkable thing about Narayan's books is how timeless they feel and how effortless his writing is. There are no follies of the kind Indian writers seem attracted to - no Indian exotica, no misused words, no ornate expressions, no poetics, no elaborate descriptions of meals and weddings. 70 odd years on the book remains an example of how to write in Indian English.

PostScript: Whatever the problems of writing in English, regional stories appeared to be readily translatable. I remember reading that in the early years of the Tamil film industry Bengali story writers were much in demand and would literally shop around their stories to the best bidder in Bombay and Madras :-)

On Devdas

Before I forget the details, I thought I would blog a less facile piece on Devdas given the amount of reading and viewing my review of Dev D entailed.


The bare facts of the novel (more a novella) are well known and simple.  Devdas and Paro are childhood playmates.   Though devoted to each other, it is clear from the early chapters of the novel that Devdas is a spoilt boy and Paro, for all her fondness for Devdas, is not above seeking sweet revenge for his cruelty.  The two are parted when Devdas leaves for his studies in Calcutta and then reunited as adults.  Childhood intimacy blossoms into a kind of romance culminating in Paro’s daring proposal.  Devdas reacts in all the wrong ways.  Intimidated by parental disapproval he returns to Calcutta and sends Paro a letter rejecting her proposal.  At the very next instant he realises his folly but it is already too late.  Paro and her piqued family have agreed to another proposal from a much older man and Paro is not willing to change her mind for the fickle Devdas.  This decision has disastrous consequences for both.  Devdas returns to the city and sinks into depression in a way perhaps not clearly understandable even to himself.  Paro resigns herself to her marriage. And where earlier Devdas had eschewed the more unsavoury elements of city life, now he begins to accompany Chunni Babu, his city friend, to the brothels.  Significantly, Devdas takes to drink and not whoring even though he has a ready and devoted admirer in the prostitute/courtesan Chandramukhi.  From here on the novel traces Devdas’ decline, a decline that cannot be stalled by the love of not just one but two good women.   Where Paro’s sadness is sublimated by the requirements of domesticity, Devdas’ is full blown, it is as if a single act precipitates a decline he cannot fathom or control.  The novel ends with Devdas’ return to fulfil a promise to Paro to meet her before his death but even this is denied and he dies a lonely death.

That Devdas is an anti-hero is clear from the ending chapters of Devdas where the author begs his reader to have pity for Devdas’ fate even though it is self-inflicted. The book was written when Saratchandra was a young man and in fact the novel it comes closest to is Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther.  Both authors were a little exasperated by the runaway success of their novels but it is clear that the story of a young man undone by his first romance culminating in his death resonated with many young male readers.  Devdas' female protagonists are also very much the product of a young man’s imagination, a cruel, all-consuming first love and a devoted “fallen woman”.  Above all it is a tale of a melancholy that cannot be shaken, a state of mind that is no doubt alluring to the romantically inclined.

Given its success the novella has been much analysed, especially since it has a hero who does….nothing.   This is fertile ground for any number of theories, especially those relating to the emasculating effect of colonialism.  To my mind, this is not the case.  Like well to do young men of the time, Devdas does indeed go the city which is where young Indian men would have likely been first exposed to Western mores.  But there is little hint of this world in the novel or any indication that Devdas is torn between two different worlds.  In fact the city descriptions largely relate to the world of brothels and dancing girls, which seem to have little to do with whatever European pursuits the city offered.  Devdas’ ineffectualness seems more the result of being the younger son; he is neither interested in nor very encouraged to manage his father’s estates.  These remain largely in the hands of his elder brother though Devdas never lacks for money.  Further his impetuousness (contrary to some analyses Devdas is not indecisive, Saratchandra calls him prone to action without thinking), his callowness and his unthinking acceptance of female devotion all stem from the cosseted, pampered childhood of many Indian men.  In fact the novella (at least in translation) does not have the conflicts that resulted from exposure to Western influences as might be seen in a Tagore novel.  Its world is completely Indian and ruled by Indian mores, any other influences are referred to only indirectly.  It is therefore not surprising that Devdas has been translated into a number of Indian languages since its first publication but its first English translation of any note appears to have been the result of the 2002 film.  

In translation, Devdas for all that it is the work of an immature author, is a surprisingly gripping and easy read, Saratchandra knew how to keep a reader‘s attention.   It is also in a way cinema-ready so it is not surprising that Saratchandra’s dissolute, sad hero was on film as early as the silent era.  But the first Hindi language adaptation of any note and certainly one that was a runaway success was Barua’s film.  The entire film is lost (it is typical of India that there is little record of the film but variants of Devdas live on in film and literature) but what little there is of it on youtube suggests many musical interludes, a given since it starred KL Saigal (and Pahadi Sanyal as Chunni Babu).   The film provided the template for Bimal Roy’s version which possibly remains the classic Devdas film (in Hindi).

The 1955 Devdas film is formal, a trifle stolid and entirely faithful to the novel though it lacks the glimmer of humour present in the novel and in the 1935 film.  It is handsomely cast with the stars of the era and their performances are effective but studied.   The formal nature of the film sometimes distances you from the protagonists but for all that it carries you along so that Devdas’ return to the village where he wanders lost and bereft is an affecting moment (the spirit of the 1935 and 1955 films is nicely contrasted in the filming of this moment).  In any event by the time this film came along, the Devdas template for a hero was set and any number of films of the era deal with lost love, dying heroes, heroines bound by duty and the like.

But a revival of Devdas itself had to wait till 2002.  Though ostensibly set in Bengal, the 2002 movie owed everything to the conventions of the decade and to the idea of Bollywood that had formed by then. Hence the gaudy sets, elaborate costumes, duelling mothers and long passages of dialogue.  All this has little to do with Saratchandra’s novella which while providing for a pan Indian hero is also rooted in the simplicity of rural Bengal.   Still, beneath the overpowering moveable feast that is Devdas 2002, the nature of the Paro-Devdas-Chandramukhi triangle remains intact.  It is fundamental to the novel that Paro and Devdas’ relationship is deeply conflicted and possibly unconsummated yet neither can form other adult relationships though Devdas does feel a kind of love for Chandramukhi.  Their somewhat twisted bond runs too deep to be broken.

But this is what a film that came later in the decade attempted to do (though Pyaasa presages it to an extent).  Dev D, no doubt riding on the success of the 2002 film, did away with the Bengal setting and relocated the entire action to the present and the Punjab.  It was also the first attempt at a revisionist approach to the Devdas tale; thus far all films had stayed faithful to the novel.  As it turned out, the hipster approach simply did not work.  One in focussing on Chandramukhi, it added an adolescent dimension to the tale, the desire to bestow a happy ending on the fallen woman.  But Devdas is emphatically not about Chandramukhi and Dev D loses its sense of direction the minute the focus shifts to her.  Two the relocation to the Punjab adds a dimension to Devdas that is simply not there in the original.  For all his faults, Devdas is largely a gentle soul and generous.  Dev D on the other hand is somewhat unpleasant in his Punjabi arrogance which culminates in a hit and run. Once Paro weds there is little to the movie and it cannot be enjoyed as a piss take on the Devdas tradition or a cerebral revisionist take on a classic.  

Devdas is no one’s favourite novel, perhaps not even its author.  The character is easily mockable, young men who have a nodding acquaintance with novella or film would most likely profess a dislike of the character (as might young women but for entirely separate reasons).  Yet the fact that nearly a century after his creation he lives on as an archetypal Indian hero is surely a testimony to the enduring power of an immature work that is also  strange and singular.