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Literary Review
A bibliomaniac's passion
THIS collection of essays showcases the range and enthusiasms of the late T.G. Vaidyanathan. Lovingly edited by two former students, who also contribute a long introduction that doubles as a tribute, there is besides, a foreword by well known author Ramachandra Guha, a younger friend, who shared his passion for cricket (they edited an anthology of cricket writings together) and numerous appreciative and sympathetic reminiscences by, among others, his editor at The Hindu, Nirmala Lakshman and famous scholar/psychoanalysts Ashis Nandy and Sudhir Kakar. Clearly Vaidyanathan was adored by his students and friends. What comes across in these tributes is his infectious enthusiasm for the world of books, his generosity and his willingness to share with all those who crossed his path, the exciting world of knowledge.
Mostly written as book reviews or longer ruminations for the Sunday supplements, the editors have helpfully divided it into sections, bunching together essays on common themes. Broadly they are cricket, literature, cinema, the Second World War and psychoanalysis. The interests are revealing but also familiar. This is the world of second-hand English books, the manic devotion to the orange and blue spines of Penguins, coffee house adda, Bradley's Shakespearean Tragedy, motley gatherings at Film Society screenings, and trips every month to BCL or USIS to read back issues of Times Literary Supplement and New York Review of Books. The person I was most reminded of on reading these essays was the late Iqbal Masud of Bombay whose own enthusiasms were not dissimilar. Hip post-colonial critics have told us a thousand times how this familiar world of English literature and all it stands for is deeply imbricated in the mechanisms of power. Yet Vaidyanathan's essays give a different impression. English literature and English prose were for him the path that enabled Indians to become Modern.
Among other things Vaidyanathan had a serious interest in psychoanalysis. He co-edited a suitably weighty tome on the subject and also wrote the preface to the selected essays of Sudhir Kakar. Two long essays in this collection meditate on the "dividual" Indian persona, the enduring trajectory of the guru-shishya relationship, the relevance of the Oedipus complex to Indian psyche etc. Whether one agrees with Vaidyanthan's views or not, these rambling essays gesture at theorising Indian society. They also reveal Vaidyanathan as a closet conservative. This is evident from the examples he chooses to illustrate his views, which range from Shakespeare to Sankaracharya.
His essays on cinema are more celebrated (he had published a highly regarded anthology a few years ago) and this reviewer remembers particularly his provocative Freudian interpretation of Krzysztof Zanussi's films which left the audience at the Film Appreciation Course in Pune feeling slightly out of depth. But the selection reproduced here is disappointing. Vaidyanathan's approach is amateurish and overtly literary. This is in sharp contrast to, say, the essays of the American film critic Pauline Kael, clearly an inspiration to the author, whose witty reviews also had penetrating insights into editing, script-writing, music and camera. The essay on Marilyn Monroe for instance is really about Vaidyanathan's own collection of books on the diva. The interesting discussion on "Shatranj ke Khiladi" moves into the by-lanes of Wajid Ali Shah's fate and the ironies of history but has no insight into Satyajit Ray's craft. The Sivaji Ganesan essay shows how Indian film critics have little to offer when it comes to popular Indian cinema.
The literary essays chronicle a bibliomaniac's passion and obsession with naming and collecting. A really fine example in this genre is the essay on second-hand bookshops, "Memoirs of a Bibliophile". The book reviews on Wittgenstein and astrophysicist Chandrasekhar offer elegant biographical summaries, but carefully avoids any commentary on their work. Vaidyanathan came from a generation (born 1929) which had natural felicity with two or three Indian languages. Yet Indian bhasa authors do not find a place in his expansive world. This is particularly disappointing since one is forced to conclude that Vaidyanathan did not think that they were worth writing about. Tulsidas' Ramayana is described as "silkier" and "etiolated" in comparison to Valmiki. This is very clever, but clearly he had never seen a copy of Tulsidas. It is a real irony therefore that Vaidyanathan unselfconsciously ends up cocking a snook at "deracinated westernised Indians".
Vaidyanathan shone as a belletrist whose engaging and accessible prose is always fun to read. His essays demonstrate that the experience of the engaged consumer of books is not only valid but also legitimate. They also celebrate the armchair reader's delight in discovering new books.
Mr. Naipaul's Round Trip and Other Essays, T.G. Vaidyanathan, edited by Pradeep Sebastian and Prasanna Chandrasekharan, Penguin Books, 2003, p.261, Rs.295.
PARTHO DATTA
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