Focus on folklore
KAUSALYA SANTHANAM
|
Book for the academic and laymen who love folktales
|
IN QUEST OF INDIAN FOLKTALES: Pandit Ram Gharib Chaube and William Crooke; Edited by Sadhana Naithani, Orient BlackSwan, 3-6-752, Himayatnagar, Hyderabad-500029.
This book tells us of an extraordinary collaboration between two individuals. Belonging to different continents and cultures, they were united by the scholastic spirit of inquiry and passion for documentation. The extremely well-researched and well- presented book also unveils the contribution and identity of “an Indian folklore scholar in colonial India.”
Inquiry
Editor Sadhana Naithani, in her preface, tells us that when she located the handwritten manuscripts of William Crooke’s collection of the folktales of northern India in the archive of the Folklore Society, London, she was surprised by the occurrence of the name and signature of Pandit Ram Gharib Chaube in them.
She considered the manuscripts as “signposts to the (largely unknown) role played by Indian associates of colonial British folklorists in the collection of folklore.” This started her on a journey of inquiry that has resulted in the publication of these hitherto unpublished manuscripts and the reconstruction of Chaube’s identity.
William Crooke, the great folklorist, was a civil servant posted to the North Western Provinces and Oudh. Pandit Chaube was a graduate and linguist who belonged to Gopalpur in Gorakhpur district. Crooke who was Collector of Revenues in Mirzapur district in the 1890s sought the help of Chaube in a systematic collection of folktales of the region mainly through school teachers. An intellectual partnership was born and it lasted four years.
Through Naithani’s approach to her subject matter — gradually unravelling her clues and building up her evidence — “In Quest of Indian Folktales” is invested with mystery, suspense, and human interest. Who was Chaube? Why did Crooke “leave traces that point to Chaube’s identity” but not acknowledge him in his published works? Why did a man as hardworking and gifted as Chaube die in penury, “unhonoured and unsung”? What is this pandit’s place in the context of Indian folklore studies?
Variety of issues
She points out how the duo started off on a new route in colonial, folklore scholarship. They went “in the direction of literary studies, which ascertains the narrative’s value by analysing its ‘type’ and formal qualities.” Crooke’s journal, ‘North Indian Notes and Queries,’ was different from other journals that “presented Indian knowledge” — it allowed a discourse to emerge which was largely within the colonial paradigm but expressed through the direct participation of “the native”.
The writer-editor has come out with a work that sheds light on a variety of issues — the relationship between two individuals belonging to disparate backgrounds and positions; the social, political, and historic processes at work in colonial India; the state of folklore studies during that period; and the equations between the ruler and the ruled.
The book is well structured. The first part deals in depth with the two collaborators, goes on to talk of “the golden manuscripts,” and then of the scholarly duo in relation to the other colonial folklorists between 1868 and 1914, before ending with post-colonial conclusions. “Chaube’s emergence and Crooke’s reevaluation point to the existence of an Indo-British folkloristics”, states Naithani. And concludes, “There may yet be other unknown aspects of Indo-British folklorists; as of now, we do not know of a colonial scholarly association comparable to that of William Crooke and Pandit Ram Gharib Chaube.”
Themes
The second part is dedicated to the tales themselves. Naithani found that, out of 158 manuscripts, 100 are in Chaube’s handwriting. She has grouped them under different categories according to the wide range of themes — the material to the spiritual, the supernatural to the moral — dealing with all sections of society. One section is devoted to tales on women.
Naithani has given us the tales in a clear format, numbering them serially and arranging them in a meticulous manner. The manuscripts are reproduced with every detail intact — the narrative is preceded by the name of the one who told the tale, the one who recorded it, the person who translated it, the occupation of the narrator and the place he came from. The tale is followed by the title given by Crooke or Chaube and comments.
The book is for the academic and for all those who love to read a good story from the vast ocean of Indian folktales.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Book Review
