Krishnaleeleyinda Ramarajyakke

A collection of essays by S.Diwakar

pages: 120    price: Rs70

Vasantha Prakashana, Bangalore

S.Diwakar is a well-known editor, translator, critic, short story writer and essayist. His interests are wide ranging. He has translated and introduced major European and Latin American fiction writers to Kannada. His knowledge of music, painting and photography is commendable. He has not only written on these art forms as a critic but has creatively invested his rich experience gained in this engagement in   his own fictional narratives. He has been a tireless experimenter and has always been extending the possibilities of the media. “Krishnaleeleyinda Ramarajyakke” is his latest work, his second collection of essays, which contains eighteen delightful and thought provoking pieces on various topics as diverse as music, tigers, literary settings, lexicography and so on. They not only draw our attention to many interesting and less explored areas of arts and life but also throw light on the multifaceted personality of the author.

These essays are unconventional in nature. It is very difficult to push them into familiar categories. Diwakar often employs several narrative modes-lyrical, discursive, literary critical, reflective-in a single piece but fuses them into one another and attempts to create his own narrative strategy. He draws his material from myths, history, literature and arts but their details do not stand apart from each other but make useful and meaningful contributions to the intended narratives of the author. These essays are a testimony to the erudite scholarship of the author but are never pedantic and they are miles away from any form of exhibitionism.

  His essays stand somewhere between short story and criticism. He always attempts to touch the chord of familiarity with his readers but is never interested in loose talk or lighthearted gossip. That is the reason why one feels that one is sensitized, enlightened and even provoked after reading the essays of Diwakar. Take for example his essay “saabhinaya sangeetha”. It opens with a reference to an interesting observation in Adiga’s autobiography where Adiga remembers one Chikkaramarao who would never sit constantly at one place while he is singing but would hop like a frog on the entire stage. There is also a reference to D.V.G.’s narration of how Mysore Vasudevacharya used to sing. Diwakar says that there is no exaggeration in these anecdotes as he is himself a witness to various forms of  ‘abhinaya by the musicians. He recalls the  ‘performances’ of Madhurai Somasundaram, M.D.Ramanathan and Bhimsen Joshi. However, Diwakar’s essay is not just a collection of anecdotes or incidents. He is not entrapped by the jargons of semiotics, but his essay should actually be read as a semiotic response to music concerts. Diwakar has written on pure form of music elsewhere. But this essay looks at music not just as ‘sung’ but as ‘enacted’ and ‘performed’ by musicians. Diwakar argues that the experience of a music concert is not born only out of aural rendering but also out of the visuals of the ‘abhinaya’ of the musicians. Thus in a music concert ‘aangika’ becomes  as essential  as the ‘vaachika’. Needless to say how unusual, unconventional this response is to music concerts as compared to the weekly reviews of professional music critics! This essay ends with a story where one Tiruvengadu vaidishwaran forgets all the ragas and is no more able to play on his violin. But he does not forget his ‘abhinaya’. Diwakar’s essay describes how afterwards his friends would meet him to enjoy his silent music only through his abhinaya.

The title essay traces the history of the legal fight against Krishna by the protestant missionaries during the colonial regime which ultimately results in the replacement of Krishna by Rama in the Indian polity. “Huliraya” records the changing imagery of the tiger from the pre-modern times to the present times. As C.H.Raghunath observes in his foreword, the essay is not a conventional writing on tigers but a collage of different interesting entries. The narrator is completely absent in this essay. Diwakar’s essay is in the act of collaging the details drawn from different sources. The pieces on Bhimsen Joshi and Balamuralikrishna are illustrations of the author’s taste and eye for details. His essay on lexicography is very short but nevertheless a mirror to the world of lexicon and lexicographers. In “kathasahityada kriyakshetra” Diwakar demonstrates the significance and importance of setting in the world of fiction. One important feature of Diwakar’s essays is that they do not have a formal closure. Therefore the essays have the potential to go beyond the personal world of the author and enter the public space where a trained reader can transform  these essays into his own narratives by his own readings, observations and entries.

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T.P.Ashoka

Professor & H O D

Lal Bahadur College

Sagar-577 401

Shimoga Dist.

Karnataka

94482 54228