INDIAN WRITERS 1

All imaginative writing in India has had its origin in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, ten-thousand-year old epics of India.  An author picked up an incident or a character out of one of or the other and created a new wok with it, similar to Shakespeare’s transmutation of Holinshed’s Chronicle or Plutarch’s Lives. Kalidasa (1)’s Shakuntala (fifth century AD), one of the world’s masterpieces, was developed out of an incident in the Mahabharata.

Apart from this type of work, many ancient writers dedicated their lives to the rewriting of the Ramayana or the Mahabharata according to their own genius. Tulasidas wrote the Mahabharata in Hindi, Kamban in Tamil, and Kumaravyasa wrote the Ramayanaya in Kannada. Each of these authors devoted his lifetime to the fulfillment of one supreme task, the stylus with which he wrote etching the stanzas on dry palm leaves hour after hour and day after day for thirty, forty or fifty years, before a book came into being. The completion of a literary was marked by ceremony and social rejoicing. Economic or economical considerations had no place in a writer’s life, the little he needed coming to him through royal patronage or voluntary gifts. The work was read out to the public assembled in a temple hall or under the shade of a tree. Men, woman and children listened to the reading with respectful attention for few hours every evening. A literary work lived not so much through the number of copies scattered over the world as in the mind and memory of readers and their listeners, and passed on by word of mouth from generation to generation.

These traditions were modified by historical changes. Let us skip a great deal of intervening history and come down to British times. The English language brought with it not only a new type of literature but all the world’s literature in translation. New forms such as the novel and short story came to be noticed, revealing not only new artistic possibilities for a writer but also stimulating a new social awareness. Our early stories dealt with impossible romance, melodrama and adventure on one side and on the other exposed the evils of certain social customs such as early marriage, the dowry system, suttee, and caste prejudices. Many of the realistic novels of this period are in effect attacks on the orthodoxies of the day. They suffered from didacticism, but there remained in them a residue of artistic quality, and many books of early Victorian years survive as novels and stories although their social criticisms are out of date.

Between then and now we might note a middle period when all that a writer could write about became inescapably political. There came a time when all the nation’s energies were directed to the freeing of the country from foreign rule. Under this stress and preoccupation the mood of comedy, the sensitivity to atmosphere, the probing by psychological factors, the crisis in the individual souls and its resolution, and above all the detached observation, which constitute the stuff of growing fiction went into the background. It seemed to be more a time for polemics and tract-writing than for story-telling.
Since the attainment of independence in 1947 this preoccupation has gone, and the writer can now pick his material out of the great events that are shaping before his eyes. Every writer now hopes to express, through his novels and stories, the way of life of the group of people with whose psychology and background he is most familiar, and he hopes it will not only appeal to his own circle but also to a larger audience outside.

Above is a gleaning from the book titled Story Teller’s World by R. K Narayan. ISBN  0-14-012844-1

Footnotes by bunpeiris
Kalidasa (1)
It is believed Kalidasa (of India) Raghuwamsa inspired King Kumaradasa of Sri Lanka (515- 524 AD) to compose his masterpiece Janakiharanaya.  Having received a copy of the classic literary work from King Kumaradasa of Sri Lanka (then called Lanka), King Bhojo of India was so delighted, he had it exhibited around the capital, in procession, upon a caparisoned elephant.
It was not only to the King Bhojo of India that a copy was sent. A copy was sent to the greatest Sanskrit poet and scholar of the era, Kalidasa too. King Kumaradasa, the son of king Mugalan, who defeated King Sigiri Kassapa, the builder of Sri Lanka Holidays  Lion Rock Citadel City  Sigiriya , during his eighteen years in India, had developed a hand-in-glove friendship with Kalidasda, who had authored Shakunthalaya, Rithu Sangharaya, Raghuwamsaya and Kumarasambhawaya. Having read Janakiharanaya and elated Kalidasa visited King Kumaradasa at Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka. The king had the royal credentials issued so that his friend Kalidasa could enjoy his Sri Lanka Holidays with or without royal escort. During his sojourn the poet Kalidasa ended up at a courtesan in Matara, Ruhuna and found two lines of an incomplete poem inscribed on a wall of her bedroom.
The bee settled to draw the nectar
From the lotus with tender care
Kalidasa at once, having recognized the handwriting of King Kumaradasa, to take the King by surprise, that he hadn’t been intimated of the courtesan by his friend, completed the verse poking pun at him.
Bursting the ensnaring petals it escaped
Like ensnared here the whole night awake
The courtesan, having remembered that the king had promised a chest of treasure to the one who completed the verse, intimated the Indian stranger that he could claim it from the king. Kalidasa would have none and asked the courtesan to claim it herself.  The courtesan was overwhelmed with greed; Kalidasa was poisoned and killed. It was not long that King Kumaradasa too turned up at the courtesan’s.  Having seen the verse completed, the king had the truth revealed by the courtesan: an Indian stranger had completed it. At the royal funeral ceremony accorded to his friend, King Kumaradasa, unable to bear the grief, the king threw himself upon roaring flames of the sandalwood pyre. Having seen their beloved is no more with them, five consorts too threw themselves upon the pyre.