Truth with Substance
literature
DR. ASHOK K. CHOUDHURY
While discussing the contribution made by the folklorists in Rajasthani literature, a name that immediately comes to our mind is Vijayadan Detha, popularly known as “the Shakespeare of Rajasthan”, who infused his orature with the modern literary technique and traditional story telling convention to create written version of stories heard from fellow villagers. Affectionately called “Bijji” by the writers and friends, his demise, at the age of 88, on 10th November 2013 was great setback to the Rajasthani folklore and its storytelling tradition, to weave an enchanting tapestry, colourful and compelling. He shifted the shape of the folktales of the colourful desert land dazzling with their wry wit, lyrical beauty and wisdom. Detha made their world come vibrantly alive, mixing irreverence for oppressive systems with a heartfelt compassion for the oppressed. In his own words: “the stories of the desert are like its sands, fine and transparent”. Describing his writings, Amitava Kumar, a writer-journalist very aptly, describes, “Any first-aid kit for those malnourished ones deprived of literature’s genuine gifts will always include the stories of Vijaydan Detha”.
Two years later he was nominated for Nobel Prize for Literature, though was not widely read in India. One among the finalists, Detha, after the announcement of the Nobel on 6th October 2011, said, “I have won it the day my name was nominated. It’s satisfying that one who writes in a language that has no Constitutional recognition in his own country, is among the favourites for the Nobel Prize in Literature”. After Nobel 2011, he had appealed to the government and people of Rajasthan to work together to give the true recognition to the Rajasthsani language. As an ambassador to avoid orthodox rituals, he had advised his family not to undertake rituals like ‘death feast’, and other things. Detha would be remembered for his simplicity, and for an enriching and entertaining reading experience. Chrisit A Merrill, an American translator, who works on Detha, in her introduction to Choubali and other stories, observes, “Detha’s writing involves conservation and creation, notation and invention”.
Folktales of Rajasthan have attracted many modern writers, including Detha and Govind Agarwal. These writers have presented such tales, giving touches of their own diction, keeping in view brevity, effectiveness and aim, but generally maintaining the narration similar to the present folk style. Bijji systematically brought such tales in a number of his folk publications in colloquial languages,” says Hiralal Maheshwari, a noted Rajasthani and Hindi scholar. Detha devoted to rewriting folktales and collecting popular idioms and maxims. Based on the oral tradition of folktale telling, he created a rare and, perhaps, unparalleled epoch in the history of narrative art. In October 2004, during the Golden Jubilee Celebration of the Sahitya Akademi, Detha was conferred a Fellowship, the highest honour awarded by a ‘National Organization’, for his original and unmatched signature of Indian fiction, in many aspects. “The Akademi is honoured by conferring on him the award, the peerless Indian fiction writer in Rajasthani”, says Fellowship citation.
Bijji was the winner of Bihari Award, given by K.K. Birla Foundation since 1991 for outstanding work in Hindi literature by a Rajasthani writer, in 2002, for his collection of stories Sapnapriya, an evocative narration of life in rural Rajasthan, conferred on 13 November 2003. In 2005 Detha enjoyed more popular national celebrity with the release of ‘Paheli’, a blockbuster Bollywood film by Amol Palekar, starring Shah Rukh Khan, adopted from his story ‘Duvidha’. Appreciated all over the world, the story, a human predicament, is so convincingly portrayed that we slow down our reading, wanting to savour the complexity of the situation. A pair of newlyweds is seen returning to the man’s village, and stop to rest beneath a tree, where a ghost resides. The ghost is impressed by the girl’s beauty that he falls in love. Strangely though, the husband, who should be experiencing something similar for his wife, is so caught up in the mercantile mindset of his bania community that he can think only of trade and profit. Shortly after, he sets out on a journey of five years because it is an auspicious time for business. It’s a story of those people who value time and human relationships over material values. The film was India’s entry in Oscar
The same year, Katha, a Delhi based organization, devoted to enriching the pleasure of reading, awarded the ‘Katha Chudamani: A Lifetime Achievement Award’ for his generous vision and inimitable style, who makes a brilliant use of Rajasthan folklore to highlight contemporary issues. Detha is the first Rajasthani writer to receive the prestigious Akademi Award in 1974 for Battan Ri Phulwari (Garden of Tales, Vol. 10, 1972), published by Rupayan Sansthan, Borunda. This award gave an impetus to the language as he got as the first Rajasthani writer, thereby he was recognized a national recognition. Written in fourteen volumes, legendary recreation of folktales, heard from professionals, and lay storytellers of his village that dealt with complex themes like communal violence and spouse abuse, retold by in his own diction with a Marxist touch. The language of the author is dialectal and at times unintelligible to the average Rajasthani reader.
“Battan Ri Phulwari, the award winning book, is considered an outstanding contribution to Rajasthani literature for its deep study and delineation of folklore,” says the Akademi. Containing twenty-one folktales covering 333 pages, the first ten tales of this book are concerned with the motif of snakes, which depicts various convictions of the local people. The other tales are related to various topics consisting of fairy tales, didactic tales, and tales culminating in riddles, tales of ghosts, thieves and tales of peasant life. Bijji had described, the process of writing of these tales, “I never thought before writing, neither did I read later what I wrote. There was no need for any correction”. Bijji got wider acclaim with the translation of Battan Ri Phulwari, in most Indian languages: Gujarati, Marathi, Odia, Bengali, Urdu. Some of the tales from these volumes were translated by the author himself and published by Rupayan under the title Anokha Ped (A Singular Tree).
A selection of stories from the fourteen volumes translated by Kailash Kabeer in 1979 with Rajasthani-Hindi idioms, published by Rajkamal entitled Duvidha (The Dillema). Well responded to these stories, Deepak Kejriwal and Inder Puri adapted ‘Dohri Zindagi’ to the theatre. Ruth Vanita began translating more overtly women focused love stories into English to appear in Manushi, the premier feminist journal of India. Detha converted a folktale into modern fiction in Tido Rava (1965), which is printed in the pocket book size. The book, however, is inspired by malice, as stated by the author himself in the ‘preface’, and leaves a bad taste unworthy of litterateurs. Some other books have been published by the author, i.e., Istukhan, Minatha Jamaro, etc.
He used to publish his folktales in magazines like Prerana (1951-54), Vani (1960-70), and Lok Sanskriti (1970-75), and thereafter published in book form one after another, by Rupayan Sansthan, an institute that documents folklore, art, and music, of which Detha was the co-founder with Komal Kothari. Besides, he was an exceptionally good fiction writer, well versed in the art and craft of the technique, deserving wholehearted appreciation from critics of the genre. To his credit two novels and eight hundred short stories, which are translated into English and other languages. ‘Kalpana ka Ant’ (The End of Imagination), one of his masterpieces among short stories, inspired from the popular characters of Sharatchandra’s classic ‘Devdas’ and ‘Paro’, draws at something personal. The story draws a peek into something deeper about a writer known more for his fabulous retelling of folk tales, and also explores into the consciousness of a writer as an artist.
However, Bijji’s Choubali and other stories: Vol I & II, translated by Christi A Merrill and Kailash Kabeer, published by Katha in 2010 in collaboration with Fordham University Press, New York, as a part of the Katha Classic Library, brought Detha wide recognition, as well as fetched the A K Ramanujan the Book Prize for Translation (2012), the Excellent Award, the Best Book on Asian Socio-Economic Science and the Asian Publishing Award (2011). The stories in this collection are an enduring testament to the timeless magic of storytelling, in both entertaining and enriching. When asked about the translation of the volume, Detha told: “…language is made not by professor of linguistics, as the translator Merrill hold the post of Assistant Professorship of South Asian Literature and Postcolonial Theory at the University of Michigan, but by the illiterate rustic folk. I learnt the art of language from them. I’m still paying guru dakshina. Whether they accept or not is their wish”.
His stories and novels have been adapted into plays and movies, including Habib Tanvir’s ‘Charandas Chor’, which was later converted into a film by Shyam Benegal; Prakas Jha’s wonderful film ‘Pariniti’; and Mani Kaul’s ‘Duvidha’, retaining the same name of the story. The film was shot at his native place. His Alekhun Hitler, consisting of original stories, reveals his literary merit. However, his writing is seemingly effortless. But at the same time his stories abound with multi-layered meanings and significations. The stories never fail to astound the reader. Bijji also produced two volumes of children’s literature and edited a dictionary of proverbs in collaboration with Bhagiratha Kanodiya, which was published under the title Rajasthani Kahawata Kosh. He edited Samakaleen Bharatiya Sahitya, the Akademi’s bi-monthly Hindi magazine, as Guest Editor for volumes 45 & 46, and also the complete works of Ganeshi Lal Vyas, published by the Akademi. Besides, Detha edited eight volumes of Rajasthani Hindi Kahavat Kosh, This apart; he edited Prerana, Roopam, Vani and Loksanskriti, magazines in Hindi and Rajasthani. He also edited a book Roonkh in 1987.
He was equally a critic of repute. With his first book on criticism titled Bapu Ke Teen Hatyare, which is a critique of the work of Harivanshrai Bachchan, Sumitranandan Pant and Narendra Sharma, as the trio brought out books about Gandhi within two months of Gandhi's death. In his book Detha remarked, “Nathuram Godse may have killed Gandhi physically, but these three writers killed his soul”.
After writing 1300 poems and 300 short stories in 1950s, he was inspired by 19th century Russian literature. He loved his mother tongue even more. His other favourite authors were Saratchandra Chatopadhyay, and Rabindranath Tagore. Though he was critical of Tagore in the beginning, after reading Stripatra Detha became lover of him. Bijji began his life as a writer with a poem when he was in class VI. The Principal of the school was impressed with his talent, which inspired him afterwards. His creativity exploded in the form of various pranks amongst his schoolfellows. While he was in college, Usha, his first poetry collection was published. The anthology, which has a memorable depiction of sunrise and sunset, was another form of a creative prank. Detha named the book after a classmate of his: Usha Pathak. Then his literary career began in Jwala, a weekly coming out from Jodhpur. In a longish stint he wrote three regular columns, under different pseudonyms. Besides, he wrote in Aag, Angare, and Riyasati Weekly during 1949-52. 1959 was a turning point in his literary journey. He left Hindi and resolved to write in Rajasthani, his mother tongue, and never wrote in any other language other than Rajasthani. Most his works are translated into Hindi by his poet-son Kailsah Kabeer.
The literary connoisseur was born on 1 September 1926 at Borunda of Jodhpur district in Rajasthan in a family of letters. His grandfather Jugtidan Detha was a famous poet in the Dingal poetic tradition in Rajashtani; father Sabaldan Detha, was also an accomplished poet. He moved to Jaitaran, 25 kilometers from his village, along with his elder brother Sumerdan who worked in the Civil Court, as he lost his father and two brothers at the age of four. Bijji studied there up to class IV. He did his school study at Bihar and Barmer, Durbar School, Jodhpur, as he had to move with his brother. However, after matriculating from Lahore in 1944, he completed his graduation from Jaswant College, Jodhpur in 1949. By that time he had already established his name in poetry. He used to acknowledge the credit to his cousin brother Kuberdan Detha, in whose name he was writing the poems. Applause brought from those poems and made him to think to establish his own name in writing.
For his lifelong dedication in revitalizing Rajasthani and Hindi, besides the Bihari Puraskar and the Akademi Award and Fellowship, he was honoured with innumerable state and national awards, including: Rajasthan Shri (1977), Rajasthan Ra Ratan (1980), the Great Son of Rajasthan (1994), by All India Conference of Jain Sahitya Intellectuals, Bharatiya Bhasa Parishad Award (1992), Nahar Award (1994), Marudhara Puraskar (1995), Sahitya Chudamani Award (2006), Padma Shri (2007), Rao Siha Award (2011), by Mehrangarh Museum Trust, Rajasthan Ratna Award (2012 ), Deepchand Jain Sahitya Puraskar, Delhi. Doordarshan and Akashvani conferred on him with their Emeritus Fellowship. This apart, Bharatiya Jnanpith has granted him a ‘Special Fellowship’ for fiction writing. To participate in inter-cultural programmes, Detha visited Amsterdam, Belgium, Paris, Frankfurt, Moscow, Leningrad, China, UK, USA, Holland, Germany, erstwhile USSR, etc.
A simple man, so distinctive in glittering Jaipuri outfits- a long white cotton kurta with pens in the breast pockets, a quilted vest on hand block printed fabric, white cotton dhoti down to his ankles, hand crafted leather shoes with a slight cull to the toes, and a monkey cap- seemed to be very ordinary. The ‘body’ of the legendry folklorist and a great writer is gone forever, but his ‘body of work’ will be remembered more fondly forever. In this year’s Jaipur Literary Festival, the panel of the session on Rajasthani literature first paid their tributes to Detha- like a waterfall from which the new generation draws its water of creativity. “His unfinished, half-drafted stories, books and even pens to be kept in a museum be made at his village”, where he confined himself throughout his life, relinquishing a number of offers and opportunities, this is what his last whishes, which is revealed by his educationist-son Mahendra Detha, if fulfilled will be a true tribute to Detha, who was celebrated for crisply written short stories, grapple with contemporary concerns, and age-old dilemmas.
Dr. Ashok K Choudhury, a lit critic & postdoctoral scholar, is with India’s National Academy of Letters.