Novel in India:

PART-I

                        India was basically supportive of Verse than Prose. It used to write everything in the verse form – including Mathematics, Medicine and History. The narrative form, Novel, entered Indian soil through the reign of the British.

                        In the beginning, the novel form was used for the highlighting the ills of the rigid orthodox Indian society and advertising the hope of the Christianity. They were, to the most extent, didactic in nature. The reader could see the prototypes of the society, not the individual human souls.

                        “Yamuna Paryatan”, one of the early novels in Marathi, tries to present the sub-human lives of widows in Hindu society. It was rather episodic and loosely connected in the fashion of Jeffrey Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales”. Its main purpose is to present the various problems faced by Hindu widows in colonial India. It does not present any inner conflict and choices one can make in his life which good literature should do. It was only social document of particular period.

                        Though some novelists in this period converted themselves into Christianity and preached the colonizer’s religion in their novels, their novels do not present the conflict in the society between the Hindu and the Christian religions. Nevertheless, this didactic and publicizing novels gave way to sensible novels in the hands of Prem Chand (Hindi) and Sharath Chandra (Bengali) and many others.

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Why Literature?

To quote William. J. Long, Literature is an artistic expression of life. Man was born and succumbs to inevitable death one day. In this mean time, he/she eats, sleeps, has sex, laughs, fights, cries etc. Some times, he thinks of what his life is exactly in the wake of death. He thinks of unknowable truths and eternal bliss. He thinks how he should conduct his life. He thinks how his ancestors lived their life, what their thoughts are, what their emotions are towards certain experiences.

History presents the life as it was, to the most extent. It does not evaluate it and it does not inspire the current generation. Whereas, Literature presents life how it should be. It goes into the lives with sensitive soul. It makes the reader sympathize with the unfortunate as well as astounding lives of the past and contemporary. It frees man from shackles of human body, bonds, futile desires and heightens the level of spirit. It transports his soul into unknown and unseen vistas.

Reading literature enables man to live the hundreds of noble lives apart from his, as “ A great book is precious life blood of a writer” – to loosely paraphrase Milton’s great quote. Nevertheless, it is a bit hard to find the soul enriching pieces of literature.

To sum up:

1.      Literature presents the nobler lives of the past and the contemporary.

2.      It eye-opens futile desires, beastly life of Man.

3.      It allows the reader to taste the unheard, unseen, unimaginable sweets of soul.

4.      It transports the reader to the places like “magical casements on perilous seas forlorn”.

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The inevitable and compulsive comparision between Keshava Reddy’s “ He conquered the jungle” and Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea”.

                        There are many similaries between Keshava Reddy’s “He Conquered the Jungle” and Ernest Heminway’s “The Old man and the Sea”.

                        The vast canvas in “The old man and the sea” is the Sea with abundant aquatic life; Keshava Reddy’s is the Forest with full of terrestrial animals. The Man is alone in the both novellas. These novellas present the well-informed aspect about their canvases of the novelists. They succeeded in taking the reader with them to the dreadful forest and aloof sea.

                        The two protagonists, Santiago in the American novel and Old man in Telugu novel are the old men having their life at setting side. Strangely, both these old men are strong in their will power. Whoever reads these two novellas, they feel that these two fictional old men are brothers.

                        The other living things which take much space in these novellas are: the Giant fish in The Old man and the Sea and the sukka sow in He Conquered the jungle. The protagonists fell in love with those animals. They were very proud of their loved ones.

                        Strangely, the boys in the both novellas are so affectionate towards their old men. They wait for their oldie’s return. They are the protogonists’ only human companions in these novellas.

                        These novellas present aloneness on the sea and the forest. It suggests the elemental human condition about his/her existence: though the Man is surrounded by lots of humans, he is always alone, at the womb and at the graveyard. These novellas pass through undercurrent philosophy of human existence, though not consciously.

                        Though the themes are different and specificity and temporality of the both novellas are different, the reader can be compelled to assume that Keshava Reddy might have read the Old Man and the Sea and that novella might have had an unconscious and fruitful effect on this proven Telugu novelist.

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