Bhalchandra Vanaji Nemadeย (Marathi Writer/Poet)
Being a writer is quite separate from the awards one getsโฆ. Bhalchandra Vanaji Nemade
Being a writer is quite separate from the awards one getsโฆ.ย Bhalchandra Vanaji Nemade
Marathi writer, poet, critic, and linguistic scholar from Maharashtra, India, Bhalchandra Vanaji Nemade was born on May 27th 1938 in a village calledย Sangaviย inย Khandesh. In an interview by Anjali Nerlekar, ย Bhalchandra Vanaji Nemade told about the village,ย โDeep in the Satpuda hills, in between two rivers, on the other side is the state of Madhya Pradesh, which is called nemad, and it is likely our family name comes from that source.โ After his matriculation, he moved to Pune and did his graduation (BA) from Fergusson College Pune. He got his two Mastersโ Degrees in Linguistic from Mumbai University and English Literature from Daccan College, Pune. His further studies earned for him PhD and D.Lit. Degrees from North Maharashtra University. Namade worked as a college teacher in several parts of Maharashtra. He taught English, Marathi and comparative literature in several institutions โ from 1973 to 1986, he taught English at Marathwada University Aurangabad, professor and head of department of English at Goa Uniiverstiy from 1987 to 1990 โ including the School of Oriental and African Studies in London for one year in 1991, before his retirement as the Gurudeo Tagore Chair for comparative literature studiesย from Mumbai University.
His first debt novel Kosala, (Cocoon), published in 1963, is a fictitious autobiographical novel of protagonist Pandurang Sangvikar, a youth from rural Maharashtra who studies in a college in Pune, and is based loosely on his own life, which he managed to write in just sixteen days. Yet the novel employs certain innovative techniques. As another innovative technique, the narration describes “historical investigations” often undertaken by Sangvikar and his friend Suresh Bapat, which ultimately uncover to them the absurdity and tragedy of their current condition.ย Koslaย has extensively been translated into various languages including English, Hindi, Gujarati, Kannada, Assamese, Punjabi, Bengali, Urdu, Oriya (or Odia, a language of the Indo-Aryan language family and the official language of the Indian state of Odisha), etc. This was followed by a tetralogy consisting of four novelsย Bidhar (1975),ย Jarila (1977)ย andย Jhool (1979), Hool (2000) with a different progagnist Changadev Patil, who ย is all for the world and is forever engaged in confronting and understanding it in more realistic way as compared to Sangvikar. In 2010, Nemade published his magnum opus titledย Hindu โ Jagnyachi Samruddha Adgal, wherein Khanderao’s consciousness moves across 5000 years to Indus Valley culture in theย Hinduย tetralogy. He also published two collections of poetry: Melody (1970) and Dekhani (1991), Nemade is also a literary critic and his work in the field of criticism includes: Sahityachi Bhasha (1987), Tikaswayamvara (1990), Tukaram (1994), Nivadak Mulakhati (2008), and Sola Bhashane (2009), including other works: ย โThe Influence of English on Marathi: A Sociolinguistic and Stylistic Studyโ, โRajahauns Prakashan, Indo-Anglian Writings: Two Lecturesโ, and โNativism (Desivad), Indian Institute of Advanced Studyโ.ย He propagated the theory ofย Deshivadย (nativism) โ a theory that negates globalization or internationalism, asserting the value and importance of writersโ native heritage, indicating that Marathi literature ought to try to revive its native base and explore its indigenous sources. Nemade has been recognized to be a strong advocate of literary movements in India. He was the leader of the Little Magazine Movement in the 1960s. And in 1963, Nemade worked for Rahasyaranjan in making it from a cheap popular monthly of detective stories magazine to a literary journal. He started and edited a little Marathi magazineย Vacha in 1967-68 from Aurangabad.
As a critic Nemade antagonized his contemporaries by contending that the short story is a genre inferior to that of the novel.
Nemade was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1991 forย Teeka Svayanwar. In February 2015, he won the prestigious 50th Jnanpith Award. Nemade is the fourth Marathi writer to win this award. He also won the Padma Shri in 2011.
โฆ.
ย
Talking about his mother language, culture, pluralism and colonial modernity Bhalchandra Vanaji Nemade said, โThe language that I still speak at home is Khandeshi, a combination of Marathi, Gujarati and Hindi. But these languages are a continuum and to pinpoint the exact location of our language on that continuum is impossible. But over the years, especially after the drawing of state borders, there has been a greater Marathification of the language. Thus it was a mixed culture in all respects and, I guess, my basic introduction to pluralism. So when people here in Mumbai come to me asking for my signature on petitions saying that we need to kick the Hindi people out from here, I flatly refuse โ I tell them I am also partly Hindi. Our culture itself is so syncretic; how can I classify myself as a pure Marathi?
We speak many languages, eat different foods, we had so many different castes, so what is so terrible about preserving pluralism? In opposition is the uniformity of globalization; what is so great about that?
If we had taken that older culture and developed it further, that would have been the right modernity according to me. Instead we adopted the colonial modernity of one English language, one colonial culture. We were always linguistically multiple, you know.โ
โThe contradictions of village culture and urban life โ it was too much for any thinking man. What is this modernity and how does that compare to what I know of my village life? โ that was a constant concern for me. Even today, I prefer that other side of โmodernityโ โ it had and has more life, more inspiration and better writing.โ
To the question: โBut what prompted you to start something like Vacha in the first place?โ
Bhalchandra Vanaji Nemade replied, โI was newly settled in Aurangabad then and getting to know the literary and educational context of Marathwada in general. There were entrenched old people like the then-dominant Marathi critic, Wa. La. Kulkarni and good students were being misled into romantic rhetoric and reading something formalist and piecemeal from the west โ some William Empson here, some I.A. Richards there, and so on โ and importing it here without thinking. Despite their living here in Marathwada with such a rich cultural history of Urdu and old Marathi, none of that was being learned here. There was no idea about showing the students what rich folklore we had in the region, or making them aware of the everyday language we speak. Therefore some of us like-minded people โ some young students, some graduate students, a few faculty โ got together and decided we had to do something about it. In the second issue of Vacha, I wrote an essay โHalli Lekhakacha Lekhakarao Hoto To Ka?โ [How Does the Writer Become Mr. Writer?], and this essay was directed against all those people in positions of power there at the time. The Marathwada Press where it was published was connected to the Sahitya Parihad, you see. There is a lot of censorship in our society and while other governmental obstacles can be seen clearly, such underhand censorship is hard to define. Our third issue was delayed by them for almost six months.โ
โI wrote that essay as a semi-philosophical overview of what was happening around me in Aurangabad, but also how that was symptomatic of what was transpiring in Marathi literature overall. It was about the writer who feels the need to win awards at all costs, or the one who starts of at the margins but what happens when he moves to a more euphoric central position. It was about the careerism of contemporary post-Independence Marathi writers. And I reread it recently and I still feel the essay speaks the truth. I know I have got awards etc. now, but I fully share the philosophy of that piece. Being a writer is quite separate from the awards one gets, I still feel that. The essence of being a writer is quite removed from this.โย
I wonder frequently why I am spending so much time on official functions and so forth when I have an unfinished book of poems waiting to be completed. But there is also a social responsibility unique to writers that they alone can execute. His is not a justification of the process but an observation of how it happens. It is the writerโs responsibility to ensure that he does not let his art deteriorate under these circumstances.
ย
โThere was resistance from the start in my mind. [And it was about the language used]. At heart, I am a village person and came from a village of Khandesh. You see, you must look at this from the point of view of the centre of Maharashtra which is in Mumbai, and its periphery where I grew up as a child. Somehow I could not coordinate my experience from the villages in Maharashtraโs periphery with my knowledge of the rich literary and cultural creativity from there. We needed our language, our literature, but at that time, even rural writers used an artificial standard language and did not use the real rural dialects and idioms. This distorted the entire literary expression. I thought, my language is Khandeshi and why should one not write in it?โ
When he was asked questions: โThe criticism is that the little magazines rebelled only at the level of language and did not take a political stance on thingsโฆ. You have said elsewhere that when we brought out the little magazines, we had no idea of what a little magazine was โ that it was not a movement. Would you care to revisit that idea?…andโฆ Do you think that the little magazine movement had any creative influence on your own subsequent writing?โ
He replied all the questions respectively, โI went to Aurangabad and stayed there and published from there; isnโt that a political act? Or when we could have published in many mainstream venues, we chose to bring out little magazines ourselves? And I never applied for the state government awards, although all the top writers used to scramble for these awards. That too is political.โ
โA movement implies structure, manpower, a format in which protest happens. We had nothing like that. Whoever could write, whoever could publish, here, there, without any agenda.โ
โI would say almost all of my writing emerges from that. Let me see . . . Aso was in 1963 and my novel, Kosla, came in 1964. I remember Ashok Shahane took me to so many unexpected places โ illicit liquor houses when there was prohibition in Maharashtra during that period, drug hangouts behind masjids to meet addicts who wrote poems. Writing can happen in the weirdest of places and that is what we believed in.โ
โโฆit was a remarkably full life of literature and culture. These literary conversations, contacts with various groups of writers, editors and publishers, interactions across disciplines, are what one remembers.โ
โAnd I would say that one does not really know a foreign language, at least that realization should be there in the poet.โ
โI do not practise untouchability in any aspect of my life โ why should I treat anyone as untouchable here โ that is how I must have thought then. Itโs better to engage with those with whom you disagree. Without being compromised yourself, maybe you can influence or change them somewhat, who knows?โ
โThis is the progress of civilization maybe โ look at how the Bhakti literature (sant vangmaya) was at the margins but now has become mainstream. But for someone like me, in the middle of that process, it should be of concern. This fame does not happen intentionally โ there is no credit to the writer for this, the writerโs excellence is seen in his writing, not in his becoming the establishment โ in fact, the writer becomes helpless in this whole scenario of what we call in Sanskrit poetics abhiruchi or rasikata, or, in the sociology of literature, the factor of reception. I wonder frequently why I am spending so much time on official functions and so forth when I have an unfinished book of poems waiting to be completed. But there is also a social responsibility unique to writers that they alone can execute. His is not a justification of the process but an observation of how it happens. It is the writerโs responsibility to ensure that he does not let his art deteriorate under these circumstances.โ
โWell, I try to see the opposite side of where I am if possible. For instance, just yesterday I read the manuscript of poems by a writer who works as a barber and earns his living that way. He wrote these poems and I went through them and recommended revisions and edits โ of course for his voluntary consideration. This way, I consciously try to keep in touch with the younger writers. This is one very small attempt to counter the authority of my position.โ
ย
โThere I took up a project that had been stewing in my head for a while, about the place we belong to, based on which we make our critical estimates. What is it that constitutes your starting point? What is that ground from which we read and judge literature? And why do I think that the folktale is better than the short story? Vyasa or Homer, Shakespeare and Dante, Flaubert and Dostoevsky, what is the greatest common factor of all these?ย
โฆ. And many of them attacked my premises at the time โ โhis
will break our country apartโ, โhis is going in the opposite direction to where
the rest of the world is movingโ, and so forth. Even Prof. C.D. Narsimaiah
said, โThis is absurd, how can I take Shakespeare out of my system now?โ I told
him, โYes, what you say is right. But you were not born with Shakespeare, yes?
As a child, you heard, read, came across other cultural and literary elements.
Shakespeare comes only at the level of the school or university.โ
โThe first thing is you have to keep religion aside.
I
say that you should learn your mother tongue, be it Kannada, Bengali or any
other language. I am not saying everyone should learn Marathi, nor am I saying
English should not be learned. But English cannot be the mother tongue of
people in Nagaland, can it? Is it part of their culture, do they have
traditions rooted in that language? It can be one of the subjects at school but
surely not the only language to learn?
Ghalib and Mir are my inspirations; I appreciate Hindustani classical music which would not have been possible without the Muslim singersโฆ. Geography is more important in deshivad [nativism] than history. But I do agree that for the layman, it is easy to confuse these two different positions on nation and culture and I do not know what to do with that. For instance, when there was the proposition of closing English-medium education, writers from Nagaland actually accused me, saying that Nemade is asking everyone to learn Marathi instead. But that is not my position. I say that you should learn your mother tongue, be it Kannada, Bengali or any other language. I am not saying everyone should learn Marathi, nor am I saying English should not be learned. But English cannot be the mother tongue of people in Nagaland, can it? Is it part of their culture, do they have traditions rooted in that language? It can be one of the subjects at school but surely not the only language to learn?โ
โThe last census said that only 0.04 percent of Indians claim English as their first language. How do the needs of the miniscule trump those of crores of other people? However, I do agree that this is an important borderline case. The other day, Ruskin Bond said to me, โWhere do you put me?โ I told him that this is a big problem for me โ English is your first language, and English is also in the Indian constitution and obviously you need schools where your kids can study. But this position does not negate my other question either โ why should millions of children in rural Maharashtra have to learn second-rate English and not native Marathi? If you accept my position, I am fine with yours. But that is not what is happening today, where English is slowly killing all other native languages.โ
โI would say it is the awareness of the potential of our language, a restoration of its primacy in the creative process. These writers for the first time were from all over Maharashtra, from all levels of society and they brought with them a real sense of change in poetic expression itself.โ
***
