Raja Rao - father of desi English novels

Hassan Raja Rao is no more. He was veteran with philosophical depth in his novels and other writings. Raja Rao is considered as the father of desi English novels. Kantapura, Serpent and the rope, The Chess master and His Moves, Cat and Shakespeare are some of his best novels. In one word, he is the father of Indian novels in English.
Born in a Brahmin family at Hassan (one of the most beautiful districts of Karnataka) on November 8, 1908.His mother tongue was Kannada.
Little information is available about his early days. His ancestors were court pundits and enjoyed the royal honors from the Mysore kings and from other princely states.
Rajarao’s father, Sri H.V.Krishnaswamy was a great Sanskrit scholar and led a respectful life. Raja’s mother was Gowramma and since there was scarcity for space at home she gave birth to Raja in a dharmashala. Why he is named as Raja is an interesting question. On the day of his birth king (raja) of then Mysore kingdom, Krishna raja Wodeyar IV visited Hassan town. Therefore this child was named as Raja.Later in his life he really became raja of novels.
For Krishnaswamy has to move to Hyderabad on job Raja too moved there, and he became the student of Madrasa-e-alia. It is interesting to note that a boy from a Brahmin family studied in a school meant only for rich class Muslims!
After his primary education, he moved out of Karnataka and successfully completed degree from University of Madras. Then he moved to France and studied philosophy and Christian theology.
Though he wrote many novels, except Kantapura, no other work has been translated in to his mother tongue. However his four articles written in Kannada were published in Jaya Karnataka (1931-32). It was a famous news paper edited by Alooru Venkatarao.His life –time dream was to write an independent book in Kannada. Though not completely, his will was completed since the unnamed novel, of him, first written in Kannada, has been translated in to English. When I was reading his website I came to know that it is published in English with the title Song of Women.
Raja believed in the completeness of Indian culture. But his novels never praise India just like that. Raja takes his characters to the depths and heights of human conditions. The inference the readers get is that, all human beings are one under certain conditions and therefore the narration goes beyond the artificial boundaries of race, sex and religion.
Though Raja is a voracious writer only few of his novels and essays are published and lot more are yet to come out of the cold print. His works on French poetry, play, yatra to India, notes which he made while teaching at Texas University in 1968-80, interviews, video tapes would come to light through the Himalayan efforts of his wife and his students.
Now, let me take a take a dip in the ocean of his novels.Kantapura narrates the life and struggle in the malenadu region (male-nadu= a hilly area).Since I was born and travel in the same area narrated in this novel, I guess Kantapura is solid piece of hilly regions of Hassan district especially Sakaleshapura and Alooru. Gandhi movement, village life, idealism of the India’s freedom struggle makes the background of this novel. The song that is sung in front of Devi Kenchmma at Hosahalli is translated in his own style of English by the author.
Just think about the days when Raja started building the novels. Then novel writing was the monopoly of Europeans and Americans. Names like Dickens, Thackeray were in the air. In India Bankim, Tagore were the only major novelists.Raja wrote novels English, with Indian fragrance in it. India - its soil, idioms and most importantly its soul got proper place in his world of creativity.
Personally as a student of Kannada and Sanskrit I consider place Raja Rao in the band of Kannada novel masers like Shivarama Karanth, Kuvempu and S.L.Bhayrappa.No matter for he may have written in English, but his sensibility is neither British nor American.Infact the sanctum sanctorum of the altar of his novel has adhyatma (quest for self).His head may be there in the west but his atman is firmly rooted in the land between three seas and the devatatma (soul of the gods) Himalaya.
Whenever I have read him I felt there is a triangle in it! Baffled? Let me describe. Raja has three worlds in his novels and they are:
a. Kannada universe- it means the land, the culture of Kannada speaking people.
b. Indian culture- means the history, the people, gods, sages, literature, fine arts, kings and kingdoms of Bharath that is India.
c. Rest of the world –means the cultural diversity, past and cultural roots of the other world.
I am not ready to compare him with Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens and E.M. Foster. If I have to do so then, I will compare his novels with that of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and James Joyce.
When first time I picked up his book I asked my self- what is his source? This question was there in my mind for many years. And when I read his major novels then I found the answer. Dharma (which is different from the European way of structured religion and similar to the Chinese Tao), art, mathematics and linguistics form the four elements of his source and he himself is the fifth source. If one has experienced India and look beyond the official academic divisions like ancient-medieval and modern India, then they will understand what Raja Rao meant in his novels. His India is an undivided India from the point of both time and space.
If you look at his life, at the first instance it seems to be an odd mixture of experiences difficult to comprehend. Traditional family, education in a non-Hindu environment, association with The European and American culture, teaching philosophy in the universities-these forms one face of him. There is another component which is much deeper than the former. As I understand from his writings he always wanted to transform words in to mantra. He took the challenge of purifying English by dipping it in the Ganga and Kaveri rivers! There is a word in spiritual practice called initiation (deeksha).In my opinion, he bestowed initiation to the very language itself. This is the deeper side and most exceptional thing about him. Added To English, I have read on Raja Rao from the writings of Kannada writers like H.M.Nayak,G.S.Amur, L.S.Sheshagiri Rao , Nanjunda Shastry(he translated Kantapura in to Kannada).But though his sensibility is no t far away from Karnataka, there is not a single book on him in Kannada.
When I was doing B.A. in Hassan , I was introduced to Kantapura by my friend N.Ramaswamy(One gloomy thing about my friend is that he read and digested so much, but never writes anything).Afterward when I was working on my research on Jainism for Ph.D., in Mysore, spent much time reading on topics not related to the research topic. Of that Raja’s writings took lion share.
Now it is the time to summarize my thinking on Raja Rao, but before that I want to debate on the lines by Khushwant Singh on my favorite writer. First let me quote from K.Singhs autobiography: “But, to be honest, what inspired me to write were not great authors but second-rates, mainly Indians, who had the been published in England and the United States. I read Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao and R.K.Narayan. I felt I could write as well as they, and if they could be published abroad, so would I.I was not far wrong in my self-estimate.”(Truth, Love and a little malice) So much malice isn’t it? In my opinion Delhi and Train to Pakistan are the best of Khushwant. If you are not reading rest of the gist including this autobiography, you are not going to loose anything.Writers like K.Singh are born in every century in plenty in most of the literary languages, but it is very rare to find one more Raja Rao. In the ocean of novels tides will come and go but Raja’s writing has permanent mark on third world English and therefore it is going to stand like the huge statue of Gommata of Sravanabelagola.