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Sheer glory
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The grand old man of Indian Writing in English, Mulk Raj Anand is turning 99 this week. SURESH KOHLI pays his tribute.
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FEW PEOPLE must have celebrated a century of creativity. One prays he does. For he indeed has been a legend in his lifetime. Not only an eyewitness to the turbulent 20th Century but a product and part of it as well. Excelling in more ways of expression than one. And at 99 shows no signs of tiring. The body is frail, starting to bend, but it isn't fatigued. The hearing might be impaired but he is alert to the sounds around. The sight is blurred but the vision intact. And relentlessly striving towards greater accomplishments. The journey that thus began with the publication of "Untouchable", in England in 1935 with a tender preface by E.M. Forster, which was reissued five decades later (the only Indian author to be so honoured) among Penguin's select 20th Century Classics, continues regardless of storms that hit humankind every so often. For Mulk Raj Anand is now working at a feverish pace to complete the sixth in the promised seven-part autobiographical "Seven Ages of Man". The first, "Seven Summers" appeared in 1951. But then, in between, there have been several unrelated fiction and non-fiction works that have found their own place in history, literary or otherwise.
One first met Mulk Raj Anand after he participated in the infamous controversy resulting from a daring book review one had done for The Hindustan Times in 1969. And as is the practice in this unholy land of ours, individuals jumped into the fray without checking their facts. One response led to the other. Everyone forgetting to refer to the original, including Uncle Mulk, as one has got to affectionately call him since that first condescending and somewhat sermonising meeting in the early 1970s. The early lesson of not getting into an argument with him has stood me in better stead. Despite frequent provocations. Despite strong differences of opinion. Despite being challenged. All these have not only helped me understand him better but also produce the only comprehensive documentary film on him.
For Uncle Mulk is generally a much misunderstood man, and under-rated writer for probably those very reasons. He invariably talks himself into dislike. He has not yet understood that people in this age have no time for wise men and wisdom being distributed effortlessly. Time is of essence in this age of urgency. The urgency to book a seat on the flight to success with the least effort. Desire is no longer a streetcar but a flight to stardom in every human endeavour. And that's perhaps why he stands totally sidelined in the list of passengers short-listed for the achievers' journey to immortality, a journey for the test flight of which he was the lone traveller in 1935, and it was subsequently to be renamed Indian English writing.
What makes his creative writing unique is the unlimited range of realism. In novel after novel he celebrates the theme song of love. In his own words: "The substance of my work is the whole of my varied experience, the theme of my work became the whole man, and the whole gamut of human relationships, rather than a single part of it." Freedom, in any form, is the protagonist of almost all his fictional works, two dozen novels and 10 collections of short stories. One of these stories, "The Lost Child" which he also made into an award winning short film, now features in more than a hundred anthologies. And "Untouchable" is now available in 40 languages. But it is not available in the language of the Punjab to which he himself belongs. I must admit I got to correct my impressions of him, which were otherwise not contrary to the general incorrect opinion, when I started to make a biographical documentary on him in 1992-93. The revelations were amazing. Mulk has a photographic memory, and it hasn't altogether deserted him I discovered to my disbelief when I met him on his last birthday. Letters reminding of promises not kept continue to pour in till this day. His knowledge is a vast reservoir, his energy astounding. A rigid disciplinarian, he continues to regiment his waking hours in a manner that allows enough time for writing. The unpolluted Khandala air, the security of his country house there, far away from the deafening sounds of Mamba, is what he likes to breathe, and it is energising.
Since Rabindranath Tagore, no other Indian writer has demonstrated such a wide range of interests and versatility as Mulk. So it won't be an exaggeration to say he conforms to Tagore's description of a universal man. Before turning to art, he learnt how to draw lines; practiced mudras himself before commenting on classical dance; travelled across India, visited the neighbouring countries before rediscovering the ancient and modern cultural heritage which is now documented in the first 136 volumes of MARG, which he had founded in 1948, before he was made to bow out only to see it degenerate into a coffee table book. Honours and distinctions have come almost effortlessly, but this is not the place to reiterate them. Suffice it to say, he is the only one in the country on whom both the Sahitya Akademi and the Lalit Kala Akademi (he has also been the past Chairman) have bestowed their Fellowships. He won the Sahitya Akademi award for Morning Face in 1971, having been conferred Padma Bhushan in 1968. It has been a long and eventful journey for the man born in Peshawar (now in Pakistan) on December 12, 1905, and educated at the Universities of Punjab, Cambridge, and London.
Long live Uncle Mulk, and continue to be "a naïve poet who refuses to become sophisticated, to whom the tears and laughter of children are as valid as the self-will of Kant", whose purpose of writing is "not to write epics, but to live them." He was once described by an English girl as "a pure flame, so sincere and human." Let the purity of the flame continue for many years despite the lengthening shadows of doom overshadowing the skies of freedom and hope.
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