FOR DIE-HARD DVG-devotees like me, DVG through Letters is a much-awaited collectible to add to D.V. Gundappa’s prolific literary corpus. Much-awaited, and long overdue.
This volume is the closest we have to a quasi-autobiography of DVG. Like all his other writings, DVG through Letters is an education by itself, lending to both casual reading and contemplative pursuit. Some portions in the volume are almost sacerdotal.
Compiled by Sri S.R. Ramaswamy and B.N. Shashi Kiran, DVG through Letters has been published by the Gokhale Institute of Public Affairs (GIPA), Bangalore, a distinguished institution that DVG himself founded and nurtured till his last breath. The volume is the maiden publication of letters that DVG wrote with his own hand, both in English and Kannada. Among other things, it will hopefully and permanently quell the mass of rumours about many facets of DVG’s personal life, circulating for decades.
DVG through Letters is richly footnoted and accompanied by detailed contextual explanations, both features marked by extensive scholarship. A welcome bonus are the appendices comprising facsimiles of DVG’s letters in his own distinctive handwriting (the style with which he writes “You” is particularly elegant) and copies of cheques that the Mysore Government had given him over the decades but which he didn’t encash. Only a few of these cheques have survived but the total can be easily estimated — by today’s standards, it runs into at least a crore rupees if not more. Also included is a copy of the invitation to DVG’s wedding dated 25 April 1904, 11 A.M. The volume no doubt, is a collector’s prize.
The patient and painstaking work done by Dr. S.R. Ramaswamy, Shashi Kiran, GIPA and other friends and well-wishers deserves our special gratitude. As someone who has had the privilege of observing the ardour that this team has invested in the work, I will say that no amount of thanks will suffice. And so, it’s best to quote these beautiful lines conveying DVG’s deep affection for Dr. S.R. Ramaswamy:
"Ramaswami is dear to me, and it is my sincere wish to help him to grow, in every sense. I look upon him as a possible successor to me at the Institute…his future is secure as a worker for the Institute, so long as he cares for it and I am here."
History is the best proof of how amazingly Dr. Ramaswamy cared for the GIPA after DVG uncoiled his mortal bonds.
THE LETTERS PUBLISHED in this volume, regrettably, are just a fraction of a mountainous heap. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere in The Dharma Dispatch, DVG was literally a man of letters; a humorous anecdote informs us of how his copious letter-writing enriched the Indian Postal Department. It appears that DVG was almost addicted to letter-writing; he wrote letters to people who lived just two roads away — letters that often contained just one or two sentences! Some were commands couched in less than 10 words: WHERE ARE YOU? COME NOW!
Even a superficial scan of this volume not only evokes nostalgia but rage towards the extinction of the fine art of letter-writing combined with ennui induced by the merciless stream of digital junk flooding our electronic devices. Letter-writing was an inevitable component of our language syllabi until even the 1980s; now it’s replaced by bizarre acronyms, the language of “an idiot full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
DVG and the luminaries that he corresponded with were nonchalant masters of letter-writing without intending to be masters of anything. In fact, in a letter to his son, B.G.L. Swamy, this is what DVG writes: “…let a letter be a letter and not an office memo or a telegraphic text. It should communicate something of yourself, your work, your mood, etc.”
DVG through Letters opens the portals to the history of the twentieth-century Karnataka and India. These letters are also the primary sources to understand and interpret the history of the freedom struggle and are astute commentaries on the political, cultural and social clime of that era.
Here we see the range of DVG’s contacts with every sphere of our society; many of the politicians and statesmen who later became members of the Constituent Assembly and cabinet ministers were on DVG’s speed dial — C. Rajagopalachari, V.S.Srinivasa Sastri, Gopalaswami Ayyangar, H.N. Kunzru, N. Madhava Rau, K.C. Reddy et al.
Equally extensive was his contacts with litterateurs, scholars, and public intellectuals (a term I vehemently despise). Some names include Prof M. Hiriyanna, Masti Venkatesha Iyengar, M. Govinda Pai, Rallapalli Anantakrishna Sarma, Kuvempu, T.N. Sreekantaiya, V.K. Gokak, and G.P. Rajaratnam.
These letters also show his prolonged and intimate association with institutions such as the University of Mysore, the Mythic Society, the Kanchi Kamakoti Sankara Peetham, and leading newspapers and periodicals.
Reading just the names of some of the giants with whom DVG corresponded, rekindles the shame and agony that we experience at the cultural barrenness, social vacuity, public disorder and the overall erasure of the deep, sustained interpersonal relationships that characterises our zeitgeist.
The letters in this volume also reveal a remarkable trait anchored in DVG’s character: the cultivation of lifelong friendship with a majority of the recipients of these letters. Not one friendship was transactional. We are similarly treated to some glimpses into the personality and character of their recipients — many were men who literally shaped their era.
DVG’s characteristic self-deprecatory manner of writing is more pronounced in his letters because it has his inimitable personal touch. In his own hand and words, they reveal his personality, worldview and convictions like nothing else in his vast literary repertoire does.
DVG through Letters is divided into neat, well-organised sections:
Statesmen and Public Intellectuals
Scholars and Littérateurs
Responses to Significant Events
Family Members and Relatives
Friends, Students and Associates
Notes and Stray Jottings
Facsimiles and Photographs
Appendices
Some highlights of each sections are worth recounting in order to give a representative flavour of the volume.
DVG’S LETTERS WRITTEN in 1913 to the Secretary, Government of Mysore, General and Revenue Departments, requesting permission to start his Karnataka biweekly show how the Government kept a hawk-eyed watch over the Press and what caution a prospective publisher had to exercise in the verbiage used in Governmental correspondence.
Unfortunately, only one letter to Bharata Ratna Sir M. Visvesvarayya is included in the volume. During DVG’s lifelong association and friendship with him, the two men had exchanged hundreds if not thousands of letters.
It is in his letters to V.S. Srinivasa Sastri that we see DVG pouring his heart out, seeking elder brotherly advice from this great statesman who played a central role in DVG’s life and career. Intense emotion springs within us when we read some of his outpourings. DVG has extensively written about V. S. Srinivasa Sastri, which can be compiled into a standalone corpus that easily runs into 500-plus pages. In fact, the very first letter to VSSS in this volume shows how DVG refused an offer for a high bureaucratic post that had come to him. Only this letter has been published here.
Next, his letter to the Mysore Diwan A.R. Banerji outlining the hardships involved in starting and sustaining a publication is not only eye-opening but a valuable historical artifact. Here’s an excerpt:
The [Kannada] language is still undeveloped so far as its availability for modern subjects and modern ideas is concerned. Those who can write well are few, and those who would care to write are fewer.
DVG was 36 years old when he wrote this. In another reply to Banerji’s haughty reprimand of DVG’s journal, we notice the pettiness of the Diwan whom DVG had critiqued on a few occasions. This eventually led to DVG shutting down the paper (Karṇāṭaka Jana-jīvana mattu Artha-sādhaka Patrikè). Much later in life, DVG remarked that none of the Diwans who came after Sir M. Visvesvarayya had the magnanimity of character to accept honest criticism and that it was a “real pleasure and joy to run a publication under Visvesvarayya’s Diwanship.”
It is also remarkable that in another letter dated 1950, DVG mentions a highly moving verse composed by a forgotten Sanskrit poet, Bhukkunda, who has been survived only by one verse. It is clear that the verse came to DVG spontaneously. This is yet another testimony to the range of DVG’s erudition and his capacity to summon the most appropriate quote or verse that the occasion demanded.
Another historically important letter is the one DVG wrote to Rajaji on August 10, 1942 related to three burning issues:
1. India’s promised independence after World War II.
2. The raucous aftermath of the so-called Cripps Mission.
3. The Pakistan demand which was already put in motion via frequent street rioting unleashed by the Muslim League.
And then, in his letter to N. Gopalaswami Ayyangar, we learn that Ambedkar “read an extract from my 1931 book on the States’ problems and tried to raise a discussion” at the Second Round Table Conference in London. We also learn that Diwan Mirza Ismail — DVG’s long time associate — failed to stand by him during critical junctures.
In one letter to the selfsame Mirza Ismail, DVG expresses his fears about India adopting democracy hastily and the dreadful consequences that would follow:
“How to create a democracy?… How to keep the people well informed and sober? How to impart self-discipline and judgement to democracy? … Our fear should rather be now about any rude or awkward movements by which he may damage good things or frighten good men and so mar his own good name.”
The date of the letter? October 1922.
In yet another letter to Mirza Ismail, we’re told that Lord Morley had furiously protested against the British Government annexing the Mysore Princely State. In the letter, DVG writes how he considered Morley as one of his Gurus.
In fact, DVG’s letters to Mirza Ismail published in this volume are rather copious. They reveal the uncanny statesman hidden inside this profound giant from Mulbagal.
Next, we have an extraordinary letter to S.G. Vaze dated November 23, 1937. It not only shows how DVG could be severe in his truth-telling but also his powers of clairvoyance:
In other words, he foresaw the far-reaching lethality that the emergent unholy alliance between the Muslim League and the Communists could inflict upon India. More importantly, he predicted the long-term danger of Communists who were a bigger threat to India than the Muslim League.
DVG’s reply to H.N. Kunzru dated July 1946, is instructive of his intrinsic temperament as a recluse. Kunzru had invited DVG to be a part of the Constituent Assembly.
…I cannot fancy myself as in the Constitutional Assembly at all… Our new Dewan is a stranger to me. And somehow I have never felt like going to people in power and cultivating them…Today I content to remain an observer in the outer court. I have the right to comment and advise from where I am, and that is enough for me. I am convinced that entering into any kind of competition for power or place of influence is an evil I should avoid...
The key element in this letter is DVG’s mention that “our new Dewan is a stranger to me.” This is not a mere statement of fact but an indictment of the onset of political degeneration that DVG personally witnessed. This statement came from a man who had not only been close to four Diwans of Mysore but had performed an advisory role for them.
DVG’s letter to P. Kodanda Rao is also a primary source for the history of the Servants of India Society (founded by Gopala Krishna Gokhale), which was on the verge of implosion. Here we notice a sad commentary on institutional decline — a marked trait perhaps only of Indians, who seem unable to sustain even the noblest of institutions for a healthy duration.
DVG also corresponded with K.C. Reddy, Karnataka’s first Chief Minister after Independence.
THE LETTERS APPEARING in this section constitute the la creme da la creme of this volume. It is here that DVG’s inner self blossoms with the myriad hues of a million flowers of the spring — Vasanta Kusuma, to borrow his own verbiage. He has authored miniature theses on aesthetics, poetry, literature and philosophy. To quote a pithy line from a letter, “Poetry is the agony of the weak and the languid.”
His exchanges with Masti Venkatesha Iyengar — the emperor of Kannada short story — are feasts for the soul. Here for example, is a 1928 letter: “Politics is making me sick and weary…Shall I tear myself away? If I don’t, I have no future as a writer.” We see this refrain in another letter to Mirza Ismail dated 1938 and in yet another, to V. Sitaramaiah: “I should now lay aside my public responsibilities (1937).”
That a man of DVG’s stature should confess his fear that he might have no future as a writer is strongly humbling.
In another letter to Masti, this is what he says: “Pray give my namaskaras to your good mother and brotherly good wishes to Mrs. V.” It’s an unremarkable, routine letter but its value lies in reminding us of an important social etiquette that we’ve long discarded: for centuries, it was considered indecent to mention another man’s wife by name — hence, “Mrs. V.”
Perhaps one of the most evocative lines in DVG’s exchanges with Masti occurs in his letter dated May 27, 1950:
History is testimony to the fact that he practiced this ideal.
After Masti, we are presented with a rather abundant bounty of letters to his close friend, Sri V. Sitaramaiah, a scholar and essayist. His celebrated travelogue titled Pampa Yatre stands the test of time as a model for travel writing cum personal memoir. This is how DVG praises it in a letter dated November 12, 1927:
I have just finished reading your Pampa Yatre… Your descriptions are most admirable. I had no idea at first that you had put such superb prose into what you described to me as playful stuff meant for light reading. No. It is really exquisite writing fit only for careful reading – if all its beauty should be felt, of course… I have distributed copies among friends here. I want you to send a copy to N. N. Iyengar Esq., B.A., etc. Electrical Engineer (from Mysore), Panjab D.P.W. Hydro Ele. Branch, 32, Jail Road, Lahore (Panjab).
At a time when upcoming writers hungered for just a tiny syllable of endorsement from DVG, this is what V. Sitaramaiah received, unasked. The last line also shows the vast circle of DVG’s acquaintances, their reading tastes and how DVG unfailingly kept track of them.
And then we also have such delightful tidbits: “Who is playing on the violin just now at the Akasha Vani station?” This letter dated February 28, 1947, is also timestamped as 2:15 P.M., indicating DVG’s immediacy because timestamping a letter was almost nonexistent in those days. V. Seetharamaiah lived about three roads away from DVG’s home!
While the two men shared a close personal bond, DVG spared no quarter where principles and ethics were concerned. A good example of this is his textual reprimand of V. Seetharamaiah who had unfairly criticised Sir M. Visvesvarayya on a minor issue. DVG’s letter dated February 26, 1955, in Kannada reads as follows (translated and paraphrased):
…you could have avoided criticising such a great man. It didn’t seem proper to me that you have criticised Sir M. Visvesvarayya in your eagerness to praise Kantaraja Urs [who succeeded Visvesvarayya as the Diwan of Mysore]. Personally speaking, I regard that article as an act of temerity. I do not anticipate any response from you in this regard.
It is in his letters to T.N. Srikantaiah that we discern DVG’s solid grip over the nuances of Kannada grammar, usage, and etymology. TNS was himself one of the acknowledged masters of the Kannada language; as professor, he mentored two generations of doctoral students of Kannada, among other related subjects. It was thus a rather foolish and risky endeavour to offer corrections and suggestions to him. In some of these letters, we notice DVG’s ribald side given that TNS was younger to DVG by almost twenty years!
And then, DVG’s foreword to K.S. Narasimha Swamy’s fabled poetry collection, Mysore Mallige, is a masterpiece of condensed elucidation of Rasa-Tattva.
These apart, we learn how another popular Kannada poet, G.P. Rajaratnam, made an endowment in the name of his revered teacher, T.S. Venkannayya to the GIPA. Venkannayya and DVG were close personal friends and Rajarathnam was younger to DVG by twenty-two years.
Which brings us to that other defining trait of DVG: profuse and heartfelt praise of and encouragement to youngsters who showed promise in any field — public life, literature, music, etc. His letters to Kuvempu — one of the greatest Kannada poets to emerge in the twentieth century — are the most representative samples of this DVGian trait. Here are a few excerpts:
I have just a word to say. And that is a word of the heartiest and warmest congratulation – on the poetic quality of Yamana Solu. It is a work of careful and skillful art – dominated by a noble sentiment… Just a line to express the great joy your paper on… ātmaśrī has given me. It is beautiful writing filled with beautiful illumination. The Vedic passages are among my favourites…Your verse on Maṃku-timmana Kagga I will treasure as a rare gem.
Also noteworthy is the verbiage that DVG employs in his letters addressed to each person. It reflects a high degree of Auchitya or aptness on his part. The best example is his letter written to Kowlagi Sheshacharya, a traditional Sanskrit scholar belonging to the sect of Madhvaacharya. All such letters also reveal the sort of all-encompassing erudition of DVG; there was almost no subject on which he could not throw new insight or fresh light even if that light was just a beam couched in a single sentence.
These apart, DVG’s letters to these men of letters and scholarship show his genuine happiness at the elevation or eminence attained by others. He expressed this happiness out of his own voilition because Rna Prajna (awareness of gratitude) was always alert in him. It was an exalted strength of character that he had imbibed in his childhood. In one of his reminiscences in the Jnapaka Chitrashale volumes, he mentions an elderly gentleman who expresses his gratitude to DVG’s grandfather, who had gifted him a dhoti twenty years ago!
Indeed, DVG was the very embodiment of the memorable term, Atmasri that Kuvempu had coined.
DVG’S LETTERS, JOTTINGS, AND NOTES on various episodes and problems of his era are akin to short commentaries of a highly active mind and the informed reflections of an observer and participant. A few brief instances will suffice to show this.
His pithy and tempered appeal for votes for getting elected to the Senate of the fledgling Mysore University (May 1, 1927) shows his earnestness for doing virtuous work. He was indeed elected and served the University for nearly two decades. And much later in life, when the same university awarded him an honorary D.Litt, this is what he prophesised in his acceptance speech dated November 25, 1961:
The University has…adopted a vagrant into the family today … My main occupation for over fifty years has been journalism…Hence my diffidence in receiving what belongs to literature…I take it that the University intends to encourage a desirable aspiration in a struggler. I pray my instance may not come to be taken as a precedent for any case of insufficiency of correspondence between the label on the bottle and the contents within.
Needless, DVG’s prophecy has come nightmarishly true — barely two decades after this speech, the immoral precedent of buying university doctorates had set in.
In another instance, DVG erupted with fury at being misquoted in a newspaper over his stand on the Hindi language. His detailed rebuttal in Kannada (March 29, 1937) is an insightful and lasting study material for students of journalism.
DVG through Letters also reveals to us for the first time, DVG’s steadfast devotion to the Mahaperiyava of the Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham. The great Swami also had abiding respect for DVG and had requested him to write about the Advaita philosophy in English. The outcome was DVG’s final work: Advaita: Faith and Practice. His letter to the Kanchi Peetham dated October 10, 1946, is nothing short of eye-opening. Mahaperiyava had issued a call for Paravartana, also known as Shuddhi or Ghar Wapsi. DVG’s letter was in response to the call:
The rescript is…in the great tradition of Sri Vidyaranya Swamigal of six hundred years ago. It represents the authentic voice of the Sanatana Dharma of the Rishis and it is the revival of that spirit that can once again build up the disintegrating Hindu society.
Next, DVG’s letter (November 9, 1965) to the brilliant journalist N. Raghunathan (he was the “edit” writer at The Hindu), shows us the power of his conviction:
For good work for the public, money will no doubt be useful. But if it has God’s approval, God will provide the means at the proper time…The idea of competitive prizes for literature is basically absurd. My whole nature rises in revolt against it. Valmiki and Vyasa and Potana and Tyagaraja are our ideals. Did they compete for anybody’s favours?
It is in this letter that DVG caricatures the Kendra Sahitya Akaemi as Sahitya Akka Dummy. In Kannada, Akka Dummy means “Fat Elder Sister.” Taken as a standalone term, this government literary body, in English, is simply a “dummy.” Here is what DVG further says:
I resigned from it out of disgust. When in it, I protested against the proposal of annual rewards to writers. That would demoralize writers, create bad blood and bring falsehood into the book-world...Competitive prizes bear the odour of politics.
Nirad C. Chaudhury was more viscreal in his condemnation of the Sahitya Akademi, dubbing it a colonial hangover that had no business to exist and that the very word “akademi” itself was an intentional misspelling, had no etymology, no meaning; it was simply an imposition of the fanciful invention of Nehru.
DVG’s address on the 75th anniversary of the Mythic Society, Bangalore, gives us valuable historical information not only about its founding but the overall scholarly climate of the era and the temperaments of those who built this institution of eminence.
It was started in the house, I think, of Father A. M. Tabard and with him was Mr. F. J. Richards…Among Indians, prominent were Prof. S. Krishnaswamy Aiyangar and Prof. B. Venkatanarayanappa of the Central College. The members took the effort seriously and were speaking with great enthusiasm about their objects…such the atmosphere in which the Society was nourished. They were all genuinely good-natured men, serious about the country’s history…
I was present at the ‘Balabrooie’ on the evening when the Daly Hall was sanctioned by the Government of Sir M. Visvesvaraya…Incidentally, the consent of the Government of India for the starting of the Mysore University had been received that day…
PERHAPS THE MOST EMOTIONAL portion of DVG through Letters is the section containing his correspondence with his family members, all of which have been published for the first time.
We learn the depth of his love and intense feeling for his wife, Smt. Bhagirathamma in these letters (all of which are in Kannada). His terms of endearment for her have a separate charm: jīvaratna (Jewel of my Life) and bhāgyasvarūpa (Embodiment of Wealth and Joy) are among the prominent.
She left the world owing to a horrific fire accident when DVG was just thirty-seven. He took a few years to recover from what he regarded was a mortal blow. But for the constant solace and consolation that his close friends provided, that ghastly incident alone would’ve snuffed out DVG’s pronounced zest for life and his effusive spirit.
And yet, when he was suffering the throes of depression, he wrote a letter to his children in which he narrates the angelic disposition of their departed mother. Its emotional content is so intense that it is difficult to read it even once.
It is in his letters to his wife that we learn the story of how DVG gave up riding the bicycle and opted to walk everywhere.
Several of his letters to his son, B.G.L. Swamy evokes mixed feelings in us, to put it mildly. In these, we see an aged and doting father constantly yearning for a word or two of affection from his son, not to mention asking him for funds to run DVG’s large family. That a luminary of his eminence felt compelled to ask for money from his own son also casts light on his household circumstances and the changing values of the Hindu family system.
You know the maintenance of this Chatram, called our family, depends on your cheque. In all seriousness I would ask you to look upon this monthly expenditure of yours as an act of Dharma… You are not doing it as a legal duty. No law exists which makes it compulsory for you to pay for others’ upkeep. You are acting purely from a sense of filial affection and filial duty. And when you are so generous, you will be adding grace to it if you also act with all possible quickness…I have been thinking about a way of managing without being a burden upon you.
Have you at any time sat at rest for a few minutes and thought how much happiness and joy a letter from you brings to me?…
I should like to see more news and more comments on all sorts of topics in your letters. A good letter is a written-down conversation. Tell me about even small and trivial things.
The bulk of the letters that DVG wrote to his family members are addressed to his daughter, Meenakshi a.k.a. Thanga. These show how he was exceedingly fond of her. Here we see fatherly affection overflowing — how he cares about every minute aspect of her life, offering her guidance, solace, and a complete education of life itself.
IN HIS LETTERS to his dearest disciples — prominently, S.R.Ramaswamy, T.N. Padmanabhan, B.S. Subbaraya, D.R. Venkataramanan, Mokshagundam Krishnamurthy, et al., — we also observe the steady evolution of the GIPA as also the sort of iron discipline that he built into it, which lasts till date. Most of them were gainfully employed and contributed to the GIPA in a spirit of selfless service and as an opportunity to sanctify themselves by being in DVG’s close proximity.
Of these, only Sri S.R. Ramaswamy, one of the compilers of this volume, is still amidst us.
DVG wrote copious letters to them as was his wont and treated them with fatherly affection. Here’s a particularly enlightening advice proffered to M.V. Rama Chaitanya and D.R. Venkataramanan:
…you should both make up your minds to set apart 5 or 10 minutes every day, early in the morning, for what I would call the practice of approach to the Principle of Life… You may, in a low pitch of voice and slowly, read at first—and recite from memory after a time—some selected verses or songs embodying those ideas. I won’t insist on Sanskrit. Take the verses from Shakespeare or from Shelley if you like. All I suggest is that the passages should be such… as will readily call your mind to the deeper side of life. Whether you keep an image or a picture in front of you is a matter entirely for your choice. Image, flower, incense, a definite place, a particular seat and posture, [vibhūti] or [nāma] – these are of value only as initiators or aids to a heightened attitude of mind…You ask for no boons or favours in your prayer. You pray because prayer is a joy in itself. Prayer is contemplation of the source of life and of the forces which shape life. The reward for it is of the same kind as the reward for the contemplation of sunrise or moonrise.
And then there is this poignant line in his letter to S.R. Ramaswamy: “dreaming is all the good granted us and pining is all the price taken from us.” [Emphasis added]
Arguably, his letters to S.R. Ramaswamy are reflections of the nature of the bond they shared; he is angry, impatient, dour, wistful, witty, naughty, whimsical and intensely emotional. It is a separate treat to read these exchanges: a short verse thanking S.R. Ramaswamy for bringing him a caramel chocolate; a brief jotting expressing how he is a “dead wood” without Ramaswamy; it is in one of these letters that we learn that he had nicknamed S.R. Ramaswamy as “Bhootaji” (Honoured Ghost); also the fact that DVG used a fountain pen with a 22 carat nib.
THE SECTION TITLED Notes and Stray Jottings at the end of this volume represents a profoundly befitting finale.
For the first time, we get to read DVG’s personal reflections about his bereavement and it is not easy to read.
Then we get to read about his struggles with leading a planned and ordered life: “Unkempt is my way. Books, money, clothing – all is pell-mell…I have always been a… haphazarder…”
There are also some brief notes regarding the literature of Thomas Hardy; this is his verdict on Jude the Obscure: “On the whole, a story of black moral and physical horrors. A bitter satire on capitalism, church, conventional marriage, etc.” We discern DVG’s admiration for Hardy in his brief review of Somerset Maugham’s The Skeleton in the Cupboard: “I’ve heard it said that this story is really a veiled biography of Hardy. If that is so, then Maugham would deserve to be horse-whipped…Is Maugham capable of such scurrility?”
Next we have his reflections on democracy, individuality and the Hindu social order. These are highly original and worthy of deeper contemplation. Here is an excerpt:
In the…varṇāśrama polity of ancient India, the State did not occupy so prominent a place in the non-kshatriya man’s life as it does now. Family was the hub of the universe…Family life was for every man. State life or civic duty was only for the kshatriya ordinarily. It was Greece that first developed the notion of the State as a moral annexe to…the family.
And then DVG also provides an outline curriculum for schoolchildren getting educated under the colonial system. Reading it shows his foresight in anticipating the perils of pursuing the British method of "education."
This section concludes with some verses written on the spur, celebrating Valmiki, Vyasa and Kalidasa at the end of DVG’s effulgent life. The compilers of this volume aver that these verses can be taken to be his final message.
I concur.
WRITING ABOUT DVG is always a benison — asked or unasked. He inspires one to write and our job is to happily surrender to it.
DVG through Letters is not merely a compilation of the letters of a luminary but is a work of history, literature, biography, culture and memoir rolled into one. The Kannada people especially, must be grateful to Sri S.R. Ramaswamy, B.N. Shashi Kiran and the GIPA for rendering such a signal service.
The volume is priced at ₹ 500, the cost of about five litres of petrol or a single pizza, indicating the tragedy of our times. Do buy it, gift it and above all, read it aloud to your children.
Oh! And do attend the launch ceremony of this prized volume on October 7, 2025 at the Gokhale Institute of Public Affairs, Bangalore.
|| Sri Rama Jayam ||
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