CHAPTER 2. Worshipping the Green World A Study of Early Indian Writers

Transcription

1 Ecological Concerns in Selected Indian Fiction 58 CHAPTER 2 Worshipping the Green World A Study of Early Indian Writers Contemporary western civilization is built of brick and wood. It is rooted in the city. But Indian civilization has been distinctive in locating its source of regeneration, material and intellectual, in the forest, not the city. India s best ideas have come where man was in communion with trees, and rivers and lakes and away from the crowds. The peace of the forest has helped the intellectual evolution of man. The culture that has arisen from the forest has been influenced by the diverse processes of renewal of life which are always at play in the forest, varying from species to species, from season to season, is sight and sound and smell. The unifying principle of life in diversity, of democratic pluralism thus became the principle of Indian civilization. Rabindranath Tagore

2 Ecological Concerns in Selected Indian Fiction 59 Abstract - The second chapter describes the ecocritical strands of the first wave of criticism and deep ecology in texts like an essay The Religion of the Forest by Rabindranath Tagore, Kanthapura by Raja Rao, The English Teacher by R. K. Narayan and three short stories No Room for a Leopard, An Island of Trees and Dust on the Mountain by Ruskin Bond. Rabindranath Tagore, R. K. Narayan, Raja Rao and Ruskin Bond, the pre in-dependence writers, are ardent lovers of nature and believe in the aesthetics and ethics of place-attachment at a local or regional scale. The love of nature can be seen in the writings of classical writers who show men as being oppressed by society but comforted by nature. The canonical writers such as R. K. Narayan, Manohar Malgaonkar, Raja Rao, Kamala Markandaya, and Anita Desai have invoked Nature and nature-elements for expressing their views, their contemporary regional and social atmospheres. The cultures of east specially Hinduism, Buddhism and other primitive civilizations have a close affinity with nature. The common view in such traditions, as effectively pointed by M H Abrams, envisions the natural world as a living, sacred thing, in which each individual feels intimately bonded to a particular physical place, and where human beings live in interdependence and reciprocity with other living things. (Abrams 99) According to Peter Barry, an eco-critic s major concern is to re-read major literary works from an eco-centric perspective, with particular attention to the representation of the natural world (Barry 264). Eco-critics try to study a literary text from the point of view of the environmentalist, and the fear of the impending threat to the world. The binaries of man/ nature, and culture/ nature, as opposed or interconnected are also concerns and areas of study as a text is evaluated. The wild and the wilderness are attractive settings to many literary works and these provide ample opportunities for ecocritical study. The most ancient texts of Hindus have reverent mention of the powers of nature. During the Vedic age, it was nature that was worshipped. The Rig Veda is a testament to these beliefs. Most of the verses are tributes to nature. Man was wonder-struck by the universe and its incomprehensible power and beauty. There is a deep reverence for Bond or web in which man lives. The

3 Ecological Concerns in Selected Indian Fiction 60 panchmahabhutas or tatwas, that is, the Earth, Air, Water, Fire and Space are elements of Prakriti. Life flourishes exuberantly and abundantly in an ambient atmosphere where there is a deep interconnectedness. Hindus worshipped the sun and the moon, many trees and animals, the changing weather conditions and the seasons, and the power of thunder, lightning, rain, the rivers and the seas. They prayed to these powers and called them the heirs of the Gods. There is a deep spirituality in nature. The epics and all the holy scriptures of India are full of invocations to the myriad powers of nature. Man, and Nature share a deep bond. Hindus believe in the concept of Vasudhaiv Kutumbhakam, that is, the whole world is one family. Nature and religion share a close-knit bond. It is with a feeling of love and awe that Indians view nature. Literature and nature have a close relationship in the works of writers of all ages. At present the intimate relationship between the natural and social world is being analysed and emphasized in all areas of knowledge. Literature in general and literature environmental all the more, reflects the state of disposition of the society which it is written in and concerns itself with issues and matters of its contemporaries. It does not only describe but in ideal case progresses, advances, offers thoughts to be pondered and inspires toward taking action. Nature (environmental) literature must then do the same in relation to the natural world (environment). This type of writing dealing with a man s relation to his environment has established for itself a stable category of literary works as well as its study called ecocriticism. Ecocriticism, like any other field, has undergone relatively significant development, the major change having occurred in the last twenty years. As a result, ecocriticism currently finds itself in a new, second wave, the main change residing in a shift of a perception of what environment means. The first-wave ecocriticism writers most common focus was nature, as it took up a bigger part of the places people inhabited. The first wave ecocriticism attached to the aesthetics and ethics of place-attachment at a local or regional scale, i.e., the concept of house/place or in general, setting (of the story, literary work) has always been of central interest to ecocriticism. However, with technological progress followed by extensive growth of urban areas, environments began to take different shapes, now it being possible for one to live in a place which was mostly human-constructed, a state unimaginable by the first wave. Although according to Lawrence Buell (perhaps the best known contributor to ecocriticism for the field of literature), No definitive map of environmental criticism in literary studies can... be drawn (Buell 17), as he argues in his book The Future of Environmental Criticism, there are certain aspects common to the writers that are typical for such writing Conventionally, nature has been seen as a peripheral setting in the discursive practice of representation. Ecocriticism subverts this traditionally available

4 Ecological Concerns in Selected Indian Fiction 61 way of seeing to turn this prevalent mode of thinking upside down. It reinstates nature to the position of centrality undercutting the anthropocentric assumptions and observes the non-human environment not merely as a setting, but as an overwhelming presence, which begins to suggest that the human history is implicated in the natural history. Environment is analyzed as a process rather than as an unchangeable given. The early writers who follow such environment ethics and whose works show ecology or in other words nature not only as an important or dominant theme, but there is also concern for natural depletion that is taking place. The writers of early age are ardent lovers of nature. They breathe through her and write for her. It is an everlasting love affair which knows no satiety because it goes on renewing itself time and again through transient scenes and colours. They feel that nature bares her bosom alike for all big and small, weak and strong. The difference lies in individual s sense of perception. One may approach nature to conquer her, the other may try to exploit her but Rabindranath Tagore, R. K. Narayan, Raja Rao and Ruskin Bond are filled with love for her and they choose to live with her in total harmony. Nature acts as an emotional counterpart for their sensitive souls. It acts in dual role. It provides them with new themes and background for their stories. At the same time, it charges and refreshes their creative vigour. In the exhaustive process of writing a novel, even a tiny bird, or a flower outside their window freshens them profusely. It recharges their creative spirit. The clattering of rain drops, the warbling of birds, the rippling and gurgling of brooks, the whispering of plants and the dancing summer breeze radiate their fiction with an exquisite softness. Even the occasional hurdles of writing process are removed by the benign influence of nature. These writers with the natural world has sustained and inspired them over the years. Their kaleidoscopic portrayal of nature enamours the heart and stirs the whole being of those who experience it. They invoke the serenity and the splendour of nature that enraptures by the warmth of captivating scenes, picturesque descriptions and lively images exalting cheerfulness and originality of expression. The devotion to nature is ever present in their work and runs through it like a vein of gold. For over a half century, these writers of early phase celebrated the wonder and beauty of nature. The evocation and the adoration of nature and the record of their relationship with the natural world is a recurrent and predominant feature of their works. Like a true devotee of nature, they find an ample delight in exploring its myriad vistas. Their response to nature is unique. Their meticulously drawn natural phenomena are marked by accurateness. Their heart-warming relationship with nature is perceptible through every leaf that covers their work. They have truly imbibed the spirit of a pagan. Nature to them is the only deity and entire universe is the manifestation of her force.

5 Ecological Concerns in Selected Indian Fiction 62 Their characters are also drawn from that section of society who lives in close association with nature. They are small farmers, shopkeepers, tonga drivers, gardeners, and retired people. The distinctive mark these characters is their primeval innocence, simplicity and purity. They represent life s finest attribute and ability to find happiness and contentment in everyday events. They get strengthened in the company of nature. Nature emerges as a powerful background conveying the spirit of the story. They are skilled in painting world landscapes in accordance to the motif of the plot. Nature highlights the character also. Nature herself dominates the course of life. Their attitude to nature begins from the simple sensory delights and culminates into humanism. Their fiction gently brings us back to nature in order to regain our primitive innocence and faith. They have carved out a unique literary, landscape where man lies in perfect conformity with nature. Contrary to the current scenario of Indian English fiction, Narayan s, Rao s and Bond s mission is to reaffirm the faith in the potentialities of human beings. They call for action not for criticism, for acceptance not for derision. It is a world where people are learning the art of living in perfect relationship with other creatures of nature. The pre-independence Indian writers like Rabindranath Tagore, Raja Rao, R. K. Narayan and Ruskin Bond have the same concern and reverence for nature. Their concern for ecology and the threat that the continuous misuse of our environment in literature places their works in a new branch of literary theory, ecocriticm. Their writings can be read through the lens of ecocriticism. Environment has been used as an important backdrop against which the story develops. Ecology is defined as the way in which plants, animals and people are related to each other and their environment. Their works show ecology not only as an important or dominant theme but there is a concern for natural depletion. Rabindranath Tagore is a renowned and prominent figure in Indian Writing in English literature. The Gitanjali, one of his greatest poetic creations, marked a great transition in his life when Tagore s national longing became merged in the universal. It was this spirit of universality in Tagore that earned him the prestigious and internationally acclaimed prize, the Noble Prize in He is the first and the last Indian so far who has achieved this feet in the field of literature. In Tagore s poetry, we find a unique trait and the ecological wisdom. In his poems we see the harmony between human being and nature. After seeing his deep love for nature, a reputed critic, Edward Thompson also remarks in Rabindranath Tagore Poet and Dramatist, How little attraction Nature in some of her grander and vaster manifestations has exercised over Rabindranath. No poets have felt more deeply and constantly the fascination of great spaces of earth and sky, the boundless horizon and white lights of evening, the expanse of moonlight. To the way these have touched him with

6 Ecological Concerns in Selected Indian Fiction 63 peace and the power of beauty a thousand passages in his work bear witness (Tagore 25). He loved nature which comes close to the habitations of men. As mentioned by Edward Thompson, his rivers are not left for long without a sail on their surfaces; they flow by meadow and pasture. His flowers and bees are in garden and orchard; his forest is at the hamlet s door. His fellow-men were a necessity to him. Even so, it remains noteworthy how little of mountains we hear in his verse, of rains and rivers, trees and clouds and moonlight and dawn, very much is spoken; but of mountains little. (Thompson 25-26). The chapter does not confine itself to mere presentation of the beautiful aspect of nature but it also brings forth Tagore s deep concerns about the maintenance of its purity. In other words, he was a staunch believer of God as he thought that the best way to continue to have faith in God would be to make an earnest effort to preserve nature or to let the nature be in its natural form. His nature poetry reminds us of Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley and Tennyson. Undoubtedly, with the kind of a rapport that Tagore established with nature, he was able to achieve oneness with it. He had become so engrossed in the activities of nature that the other concerns of the world became subservient to him. As Rabindranath Tagore himself says: From the first time that I can remember, I was passionately fond of Nature. Oh! It used to make me mad with joy when I saw the clouds come up in the sky one by one. I felt, even in those early days, that I was surrounded with a companionship very intense and very intimate, though I do not know how to name it. I had such an exceeding love for Nature, that I cannot think in what way to describe it to you; but she was a kind of loving companion, always with me, and always revealing to me some fresh beauty. (Gupta 328). Thus, the exploration of nature became the main motto of his life by trying to hear the mystical and mysterious sound of the flowing water, and even the blowing of the wind seems to give him some kind of a message which has the spirit of Godliness in it. For instance, in Gitanjali, the poet juxtaposes two contrary situations while talking about the playing on a flute by some villager. He is surprised how Krishna was able to produce a celestial sound by playing on a flute made of a simple reed. One of the noted critics on Tagore, Mohit Chakrabarti also supports the idea and says, The quest for the endless as Tagore makes through his songs in Gitanjali unfolds a new vision of soul-consciousness. The adoration of nature as he makes most poignantly brings forth a new wonder of infinity that becomes a constant partner to unending beauty (Chakrabarti 47).

7 Ecological Concerns in Selected Indian Fiction 64 Here, the researcher would also like to critically engage with one of Rabindranath Tagore s essays The Religion of the Forest from his Creative Unity, and show Tagore as an eco-conscious writer who, way back in the first two decades of the twentieth century anticipated some of the fundamental premises of the recent discourse of ecocriticism, thereby foregrounding his relevance as a practical environmentalist to combat the threat of global warming and climate change in the twenty-first century. We have to trace back the time defying notion of the forest, put forward in this essay to a Bengali essay Tapoban anthologized in his book Santiniketan and written during 1909 to In another lecture The Message of the Forest we find the key ideas of the essay under discussion. We have to take these three texts into our critical span to get a coherent picture of Tagore as an eco-conscious writer. Thinking of this from a broadly ecological perspective, we might say that the seed of the idea was planted in his mind, which grew and matured over time and eventually recycled to meet the demands of his contemporary history. This organic way of thinking, reading and writing can be seen as Tagore s unique gesture in an age when everything was fast transforming into the mechanical, the mechanized. Tagore s pantheistic vision was flexible enough to incorporate within it the Upanishadic philosophy of material renunciation, self-determination and the search for the divine infinite in nature. According to him the kernel of India s value-system is that of reconciliation of the diverse. This is the teaching of the hermitage, which is inscribed in the cultural memory of India: The hermitage shines out in all our ancient literature, as the place where the chasm between man and the rest of creation has been bridged. (Tagore 51). Citing examples from texts like Shakuntala, Kumara Sambhava, and Ramayana, he observes a symbiotic relationship between man and nature in the vast biosphere of the forest. He even notices that the entropy (i.e. the negative energy) of material wealth and prosperity was gradually threatening this equilibrium and the poems of Kalidasa contained a warning against the gorgeous unreality of that age, which like a Himalayan avalanche was slowly gliding down to an abyss of catastrophe (Tagore 55). Juxtaposing Europe s mastery over the elements of nature through the use of machines to the Indian ideal of syncretism, Tagore views: For us the highest purpose of this world is not merely living in it, knowing it and making use of it, but realizing our own selves in it through expansion of sympathy; not alienating ourselves from it and dominating it, but comprehending and uniting it with ourselves in perfect union. (Tagore 49)

8 Ecological Concerns in Selected Indian Fiction 65 Thus, the synonymity between external and internal nature is established through the word Sacchidananda: (i.e. to be, to know and to enjoy the existence spiritually). It is for this reason that, according to Tagore, Rama could become a hero even in his exile, by sympathizing with nature, not by dominating it (Tagore 59). So, for Tagore nature was manifest not as an inanimate periphery; rather it came up as the sublime/sentient centre around which our lives evolve: That is why, when Sita was taken away, the loss seemed to be so great to the forest itself. (Tagore 60) Interestingly, this perception of Tagore anticipates two recent ecocritical coinages. The symbiotic equilibrium that Tagore saw in ancient Indian Civilization has been recently termed as the biotic community in an alternative manner by the Norwegian ecocritic Arne Naess. Influenced by the Buddhist doctrine of the non-harming of all beings, Naess views biotic community as a constellation of interconnected human and non-human entities. Its balance must be preserved to secure the future ecosphere as a whole (Naess ). The establishment of Brahmacharyashrama in Santiniketan, then, can be simultaneously seen as the reiteration of an alternative cultural and biotic community where pupils were educated to be one with nature and not to harm its balance in any way. Education was a means to attain this union, rather than becoming an end in itself. James Lovelock, in another instance, puts forward his Gaia hypothesis which foregrounds a complex and multifaceted entity involving earth s biosphere, atmosphere, oceans and soil. It is a totality constituting a proportionally organic system that operates like a living organism. Tagore s poetic/philosophical perception could initially sense this now-available ecological doctrine in a much earlier time. We are familiar with the notion of history as a repository of human phenomena. Nature is seen as a cultural construct that is made available to us through multiple discursive practices, which undermines the overdetermined relationship between nature and culture and the very existence of an essential nature in the reality. When in his The Message of the Forest, Tagore views, Man s history is organic and deep-seated life-forces work towards its growth (Tagore 399), he seems to radically deconstruct this position. In his essay Tapoban Tagore notes that the geographic/climatological location of a race is one of the key components in determining its cultural fate, and the collective mental structure also. So, the race that was nurtured by the sea-shore excelled in commerce, people whose spiritual appetite was not satiated in the barren and hostile climate of the desert, eventually turned towards conquering material wealth. Similarly,

9 Ecological Concerns in Selected Indian Fiction 66 the untamed nature in the form of sea posed before the Northmen of Europe the challenge to fight and dominate over it. The reason behind this belligerent attitude of Europe towards the non-europe then actually lies in the natural setting in which the civilization has flourished. Tagore, through this greening of his perception of historiography, was actually writing against the colonial paradigms of writing history: a history that had been reduced to some empirical database of anthropocentric phenomena. Interestingly, Tagore s position also undermines the stereotypical construction of the topos of the entire non-europe as a feminine entity, by locating in the Indian forest the notion of spiritual communion of man with nature; the oneness that has been ruptured in the European ethos. It is at this point, that the dialogic encounter between postcolonialism and eco-criticism becomes evident. Post-colonial criticism has been resolutely human-centred; committed first and foremost to the struggle for social justice; post-colonial critics have been insufficiently attuned to ecological issues and concerns. But in recent years it is gradually becoming aware of the threat of ecological imperialism. For Ramachandra Guha the empire s forced march to industrialization, rupturing the biodiversity and making cultural osmosis and plurality impossible (Guha 196). Among the races that encountered with India, the British were the first to play with the fundamental base of Indian economy. They detrimentally tried to convert the village-based agrarian economy of India to a city-centred industrial one. Jonathan Bate argues that colonialism and deforestation have frequently gone together (Bate 87). The ransacking of wealth by the colonisers rendered Indian villages into impoverished lands, which according to Tagore were the heart of Indian economy. Unlike Gandhi s pre-modern/anti-modern village community, he initially embraced technological modernity to give the villages a financial uplift. The intention was to draw some virtuous result out of it. But Tagore was increasingly becoming aware of the breach between the possibility and the outcome. In the name of global progress, technological modernity was slow-poisoning human morals, breeding avarice by the capitalist enclosure of humanity, whereas, globalization meant for him the globalization of values. The extreme idolatry/idealization of rationality and technology put forward by Europe was for Tagore, antithetically menacing for human salvation. In another essay Tagore pessimistically notes, today our homes have dissolved into hotels, community life is stifled in the dense and dusty atmosphere of the office, man and woman are afraid of love and wonders whether science can at all be humanized. He left it entirely upon science to bring back sanity to the human world by lessening the opportunity to gamble with fortune (Tagore 665). In his last years this feeble faith on the

10 Ecological Concerns in Selected Indian Fiction 67 prospect of a fruitful application of technology would also go bankrupt altogether (Tagore 22). Here we see Tagore as a theorist, who was aware of his environment. But his negotiation with environmentalism was not limited only to abstract theorization. The rural reconstruction work at Sriniketan bears a practical example of it. His insistence on the development of cottage-industries, the introduction of festivals like vriksharopana (tree planting) and halakarshana (ploughing) posit him as an activist who was painstakingly trying to restore the values, lost in the ancient Indian civilization and to relocate it in his modern hermitage: Visva-Bharati. Like Rabindranath Tagore; R.K.Narayan, Raja Rao and Ruskin Bond are the harbingers of a new age in Indian English fiction. K. R. S. Iyengar mentions Raja Rao s India is philosophical and Anands social and Narayans is essentially naturalistic (Iyengar 84). Raja Rao, the most powerful novelist of the trio, R. K. Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand and he himself, is India s modern writer of classics. In fact, he foreshadows, it appears, other writers of novel, by virtue of his legend-oriented genius. While many of the writers indulge in holding India s setting and tradition to ransom, with their satire and wit, Raja Rao places before us a formidable image of India which knows not the defeat, ridicule, cowardice and modern skepticism. The greatest writer, be it playwright, poet or novelist, never takes to deliberate art of interpretation, criticism and suggestion. Raja Rao, as a great writer, has nothing on his mind, e.g., the problems of the modern world least in Kanthapura. He devotes himself to an epoch of all times which grows enchantingly, an ingenious work of art. He is a dedicated writer. His works include Kanthapura (1938). The cow of Barricades (1947), The Serpent and the Rope (1960), The Cat and the Shakespeare (1965), Comrade Kirillov (1976) and The Policemen and The Rose (1978). Raja Rao has brought novelty and distinction to Indian English Novel, for him writing was a vocation and not a profession. He has a high sense of dignity of his vocation as a writer. Raja Rao believes that one cannot become a successful writer without spiritual and metaphysical knowledge. He has commendable knowledge of Sanskrit and modern European literature. As a writer he was influenced by the Italian, German and Russian literature. He was greatly influenced by his contemporary writer Andre Marlux. He was also impressed by Ananda Coomarswamy. He is contemporary of R.K. Narayan and Mulk Raj Aanand. As a writer he is the: Child of the Gandhian age and reveals in his works, his sensitive awareness of thwarting or the steadying pulls of past tradition. (Iyengar 386). Philosophically and

11 Ecological Concerns in Selected Indian Fiction 68 culturally he is an Indian and an ardent believer in Advaitic truth of Shivoham, Shivoham. For him writing is Sadhana. So the idea of literature as anything but a spiritual experience or Sadhana, a much better word is outside my perspective. Literature is Sadhana - the best life for the writer. (Narayan 48). The lndian philosophical system has influenced and shaped the characters of one of the great writers, one from the East, right from the formative years of the writing career. Raja Rao s main characters go through, in a steady progression, the four stages of man's life as outlined in the lndian philosophy system. We come from a source unknown and again go back to a Source unknown after filling the gap between birth and death, otherwise known as one's lifetime. The key Sanskrit phrase tat tvam asi meaning 'that thou art' emphasizes the invisible connection between the human soul and the Soul unknown. Sankara's Advaita philosophy highlights this fundamental connection, rather the identity between the Brahman (the Supreme Absolute) and the Atman (the Self). In other words, the Brahman or the deeper eternal self is imminent in all human beings, the union of the one with the other is nothing but identity which "the sages call nirvana" (Hirayanna. 359). Raja Rao wrote Kanthapura in 1938 when he was at the threshold of his writing career. The spirit of freedom for the Indian masses dominated the political and social scene in the pre-independence India. In tune with the time the early phase of lndian freedom struggle under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi provides the setting to the novel. The liberation of India from the clutches of the British was the sole aim of all right thinking people. Gandhi considered political freedom as the destination of a pilgrimage. Religion the manifestation of the spiritual and politics, the temporal matrices, interacted in the Gandhian way of struggle. The very concepts of Truth and Non-violence depend on, and interact with, the nature of meaningful life for an individual to realize the goal of freedom. Raja Rao, in Kanthapura initiated and helped to recover and revitalize the Indian cultural, intellectual and spiritual traditions (Paranjape 19).Kanthapura is a legend. As the writer comes out in his foreword so is the yarn of the novel. It has a village with a rich Sthalapurana or legendary history of its own. Kanthapura, the village, is high on the ghats up the steep mountains that face the cool Arabian seas. The setting is not that of a modern novelist s description. The place has its guardian angels and protecting Goddess Kenchamma. The idyllic scene is nowhere dreamy as in reference

12 Ecological Concerns in Selected Indian Fiction 69 to the play of Goddesses, e.g., the Goddess of river, the Himavathy, plays with the Goddess of the hill throughout night as Kenchamma is the mother of the river. Raja Rao tells us not the superstitious nature of the Hindus but describes the scene of the epic. We fail to understand if we concede that Raja Rao is critical of superstition. It is a legend s part. The novel presents a graphic description of village life. In South lndia and the village Kanthapura may well be regarded as a microcosm of India and by extenstion, of the world. The theme of the Kanthapura is the continuity of Indian traditions naturally in the Indian air from the soil just as wild flower from the jungle. Samares C. Sanyal regards Indianness as the spontaneous flow of the heritage of Indian culture and not just tricks that develop an imaginative talent. It is an artistic involvement that affects the Indian creative spirit It is the undercurrent of Indian consciousness an off-shoot of traditional wisdom that matters with the creative activity at large (Sanyal x). Moorthy, Rangagowda, Bhatta, Ratna, Subhha Chetty, Ranganna and many other men and women seem to be rising from soil of Kanthapura. Kanthapura is a spectrum coloured with three hues the social, political and mythological. Kanthapura presents Indian ideal in which Indian cultural, sociological and political realities have been dealt with vividness and candour. Poverty, illiteracy, superstitions, untouchability and exploitation and the various painful evils found in Indian villages are in existence in Kanthapura too. It is in a sense, a work of realism in fiction and yet it is not purely realistic or naturalistic. This is combined with the strains of myth, of gods and goddess, of blind superstitious belief and uncanny insights. It is an image of real life observed in a visionary state of mind. The village has its goddess, its legends, and its ploughing season, its epidemic of small pox, its toddy boot etc., its village priest, its village bully and a village money lender. It is a beautiful small village of simple people who still belongs to the old world of superstition. The novel begins with a vivid description of the village Kanthapura which is high on the Ghats and in the province of Kara. The village is divided in five districts, namely in a Brahmin quarter, a Pariah quarter, a Potter s quarter, a Weaver s quarter, as well as a Sudra quarter. From this point of view, it results that every caste group has a particular social environment and an area in the caste ridden traditional rural society, where its members live and work. By portraying the landscape and introducing her acquaintances, the narrator Achakka, an old woman of the village, takes the reader on a walk through the village. Mentioning the vicinity like the Tippur Hill, the river Himavathy and the red Kenchamma Hill, the novel creates a tranquil atmosphere. Unfortunately, the noise caused by labour, when Indian goods are shipped off across the sea, destroys the peaceful tranquillity for a

13 Ecological Concerns in Selected Indian Fiction 70 moment. But as soon as the carts, which contain Indian commodities, have reached the hilltop, calmness returns to Kanthapura. Village life is certainly more closely at the heart of the novel than any of the other works, in spite of the fact that Raja Rao describes the movement of the village from solidarity to complete and utter annihilation. Much of the early part of the book is spent developing a sense of the village itself, establishing its ambience. In the first paragraph, Achakka informs us of its geographical location: Our village I don t think you have ever heard about it Kanthapura is its name, and it is in the Province of Kara. High on the Ghats is it, high up the steep mountains that face the cool Arabian seas, up the Malabar Coast is it, up Mangalore and Putter and many a centre of cardamom and coffee, rice and sugarcane. Roads, narrow, dusty, rut-covered roads, wind through the forest of teak and of jack, of sandal and of sal, and hanging over bellowing gorges and leaping over elephant haunted valleys, they turn now to the left and now to the right and being you through the Alambi and Champa and Mena and Kola passes into the great granaries of trade. There, on the blue waters, they say, our carted cardamoms and coffee get into ships the Red-men bring, and, so they say, they go across the seven oceans into the countries where our rulers live. (KP 1) Nature plays a significant role among the population of the village, because the mountains around the village and the river have always been present, even long before the first child was born in Kanthapura. All elements of nature have strong power over the village. The attention is drawn to the river Himavathy as well as the Kenchamma Hill. According to the narrator Achakka, a legend has grown up around their origin. It is said that after a long and hard fight Kenchamma the Goddess of the Hill finally put an end to the terror caused by a demon in the village. His blood coloured the hill, named after the goddess, red. After having defeated the demon, Kenchamma started to live in Kanthapura. Her daughter Himavathy became the Goddess of the River. Apart from being an inexhaustible storehouse of beauty, Nature is also a source of never-ending wonder to the unsophisticated rustic mind. Pariah Siddayya s long, rambling disquisition on serpent-lore in which hard fact and footloose fancy are blended together is a fine example of this M. K. Naik writes: The logic of through Nature up to Nature s God is readily acceptable to a mind receptive to the beauty and the wonder of Nature. Hence, the promontory near the village is an abode of Siva ; and the river is

14 Ecological Concerns in Selected Indian Fiction 71 the daughter of Kenchamma, the Goddess of the Hill. Animal creation too shares this divinity in its own way; the eagle is the feature of God and the vehicle of Kenchamma must appear in the sky at the ploughing ceremony so that the Kanthapurians can be assured that the goddess has blessed their first agricultural operations for the year. Furthermore, the ceaseless and regular operation of forces of Nature is itself an external manifestation of the divine moral law that governs the universe it is precisely because of this noble nexus that there is perfect empathy between Man and the external Nature including the animal creation. (Naik 36) Ramakrishnayya declares: There is still many a good heart in the world else the sun would not rise as he does nor the Himavathy flow by the Kenchamma Hill (KP 131). Hence, when his remains are burnt on the banks of Himavathy, the river pays homage to him by rising and sweeping the bones and ashes away; and that night as no other night, no cow would give its milk, and all the night a steady rain kept pattering on the tiles and the calves pranced about their brothers and groaned. (KP 145) It is because of this imperishable bond between Man and Nature that human experiences and attitude are described in terms of forces of Nature, as and when the narrator describes the sea- change that has come over Kanthapura as a result of the Gandhian movement in these terms: There is something that has entered our hearts, an abundance like the Himavathy on Gauri s night; when lights come floating down the Rampur Corner. Since the community of Kanthapura believes in religion and in myths, it shows great respect and admiration towards its mighty goddess. Watching over the villagers, Kenchamma helps them, when they need rain or when hunger or danger threatens them. The villagers pray for improving their situation, when powers like nature bring illness and misery. By donating a share of their crops, by dancing and celebrating, men and women give their thanks to Kenchamma. The villagers trust Kenchamma, because they are sure that their goddess will never let them down. When Moorthappa, the member of the rural society and the initiator of the rebellion against the colonial rule, is obvious falsely accused, the villagers appeal to Kenchamma begging her to destroy this Government. Nevertheless, they do not wait inactive for the wondrous deed of the goddess. Together with men from

15 Ecological Concerns in Selected Indian Fiction 72 other regions Moorthy s followers march to toddy-booths in order to boycott them. Despite of attacks by the policemen, they still stick to their plan. At this point it should be mentioned that Kanthapura is far away from the city, but also from other villages. Forming a special, individual unit, the village exists autonomous. In this novel, the author wants to show that the structure of the village differs from the city. Whereas anonymity predominantly prevails in the city, in the small community of the village, however, many people know each other, because they cooperate. Concerning the Brahmins like Achakka, they own several acres of land they cultivate to live off its fruits. Other members of Kanthapura have different tasks. Some of them e.g. lease their services by spinning cloth. Leading a simple, religion-affected life, the Brahmins are used to meditate, but also to pray. Although the village is separated from other communities, the society of Kanthapura is united by various celebrations. The Brahmins organize a Sankara-jayanthi, a regular festival which takes place alternately in different houses. When the villagers pay tribute to one Hindu god or another, the very learned old Ramakrishnayya reads the Sankara- Vijaya and, thereafter, men and women talk about the Vedanta. In order to celebrate the Rama festival, the Krishna festival, the Ganesh festival and to finance the next festival, Moorthy requests contributions of different people. A Harikatha-man tells stories of gods. Regularly, the villagers are reminded of the nearness of the deity. Thus, myths and legends strengthen the solidarity of the community as well as its religious faith. The Indian Folk tradition, as is elsewhere, has its roots in nature; it reveals close ties between man and nature. People accept women to be an embodiment of this nature and they worship nature in the form of a woman as a saviour to protect them from possible dangers. Sometimes the same woman becomes a daughter of a farmer, a wife of a common man. Sometimes she comes to the same people as the benevolent mother.this tradition, unaffected by the superimposed culture of the colonialists is a preferred area for all the post-colonial writers- be it in India or elsewhere in the world. Raja Rao made it clear in the Foreword of his famous novel Kanthapura when he made reference of Sthalapurana : There is no village in India, says Raja Rao. However mean, that has not a rich SthalaPurana or legendry history of its own. Some god or god like hero has passed by the village-rama might have rested under the pipal tree. Sita might have dried her clothes, after her bath, on this yellow stone, or the Mahatma himself, on one of his many pilgrimages through the country, might have slept in this hut, the low one, by the village gate. In this way the past mingles with present and the gods mingle with men to make repertory of your grand mother always bright. (KP V)

16 Ecological Concerns in Selected Indian Fiction 73 and about the goddess Kenchamma in the novel as the saviour-deity of the village: Kenchamma, Kenchamma Goddess benign and bounteous, Mother of earth, blood of life, Harvest queen, rain crowned, Kenchamma, Kenchamma Goddess benign and bounteous (KP 4) The goddess of the village people is Kanchamma. The legend holds that she killed a demon who visited the place asking for the young sons as food and the young women as wives. The sages Tripura underwent penances to bring such a goddess down to the place. There was a battle between the demon and the goddess Kenchamma and the hills on which it took place become red with the blood of the victim. The villagers have great faith in Kenchamma who never lets them down. Kenchamma stands both as the source of inspiration as well as a symbol of power that drives the evil force out of the village. Rangamma is the oracle, the Cassandra of Kanthapura. She tells the people of plants that weep, of the stars above, of the universe, of God, of countries beyond Lahore, Kabul, Bhukara, of Gandhi and of Dharma. She is the soothe sayer of Caesar, like Moorthy and later a Panthselia leading her tiny brigade of women soldiers in the great battle. How is the battle? It is a war between a coward of enormous physical strength (Red man) and Satyagrahi of oceanic spiritual strength; between the man who robs (cardamons and coffee) and the spirit that tries to persuade the robber against his crime. Like Rabindranath Tagore s Gitanjali the Satyagrahi wants freedom to move into an endless world of truth. Started with lathi charge after three-day fast of Moorthy, the battle is waged through-out with no suggestion of a possible end. It is not a physical catastrophe. It is a spiritual battle captained by the Mahatma. Kenchamma, the Goddess, Siva the three-eyed, and Narayan, the Lord of Heaven, shall come to save the seeker of truth. The battle as it progresses takes obvious spiritual turn. Borannatoddy episode makes Satyagrahis feel as if they walked through fire in harvest time. Or in the picketing before Skeffington Coffee Estate the Satyagrahi feels a secret

17 Ecological Concerns in Selected Indian Fiction 74 exaltation even though Rangamma is kicked in stomach or Ratna slapped to sleep. The battle or struggle for freedom sweeps the epic to cosmic significance. The war has different episodes like that of an epic. It has true beginning in the shrieks of Parish women in Non-co-operation Movement in the main street of Kanthapura. This episode ends with Puttamma s unhappy event. For the occasion everybody is lost. The steadfast desire to conquer vice meets suspicion and we think neither of Puttamma nor Seethamma nor Moorthy nor the Mahatma, but the whole world seems a jungle in battle, trees rumbling, lions roaring, jackals wailing, parrots piping, panthers screeching if mother Earth had opened herself and said, Come in children. How real the epical battle is! Radhamma delivers there! Nature s violence selects the universal violence. The first one is called Satyagraha movement (lathi charge after fast). The last episode like the second one has no hero but heroes. An epic has many the city boys and women (of Bombay) and of Kanthapura, nearly three thousand people. Rachappa, Rudrappa, Ammayya and Siddayya fall down in service to truth. The legend has finery and primaeval simplicity. Ramakrishnaiah, the very learned father explains Maya-Vada; Jayaramachar chants the story of God. Karthik comes with the glow of light and unpressed footsteps of the wandering gods, with lights from clay trays and red lights from copper stands and diamond lights from bowers of entrance leaves; and Visakha with fine, first footing rain, running cattle, Rohini Star and yoking of new bulls to the plough, slides always in Kanthapura. The writer adds element of song to make us aware of the element of music which is a part of soul. Song is always an outlet for tragic or cosmic feeling except in the first few pages, e.g., Rangamma and Santamma and Ramakrishnaiah are troubled and silent; from the lit front house comes the Rock, Rock, which being joyous and in contrast to character s burdened heart, brings out inner human frailty. Song is highly scripture-like sometimes. It touches the heights of heaven. Laugh, laugh, laugh away The King of Heaven is coming, He, the King of Heaven is coming, Say Bodhayya. (KP 65) As far as the form and technique of the novel is concerned Rao makes a deliberate attempt to follow traditional Indian narrative technique and it is Indian sensibility that informs Kanthapura. In fact, both the spirit and the

18 Ecological Concerns in Selected Indian Fiction 75 narrative technique of Kanthapura are primarily those of the Indian Puranas, which may be described as a popular encyclopedia of ancient and medieval Hinduism, religious, philosophical, historical and social. Rao at the outset describes his novel as a sthala-purana - legend of a place. The Puranas are a blend of narration, description, philosophical reflection, and religious teaching. The style is usually simple, flowing, and digressive. Even Tagore emphasises, as reflected in song no 11 of Gitanjali: He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and Where the path-maker is breaking stones. He is with them in sun And in shower, and his garments is covered with dust. Put off thy Holy mantle and even like him come down on the dusty soil! (Tagore 43) The message is that people should respect those people who work hard for the sake of the mankind in the scorching heat. And he feels that God is also with them in the form of sun and shower, not in the temple. So, the best way to worship the God is to respect these people even as they are engaged in the physical labour. But, at the same time they live their lives amidst the nature or in very natural surroundings against the materialistic life. He always pleaded for preservation of nature in its original form. According to him nature was a creation of God and in order to achieve the Godliness or the perfection one needed to look at the nature and rejoice in it without making any harm to it. He was worried about the man s greed to try to exploit nature for his own small purposes. He was always in favour of the keeping nature intact and pollution-free. As M.K Naik writes, Narayan is similarly preoccupied with man s filling of the life-role entrusted to him by tradition and environment. The impact of life, the material and substance of our thought are the same everywhere, in any state, traditionally India in the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and the Puranas the values remain the same in every village town or city. (Naik 87) The most fascinating feature of Narayan s people is that he is a pure Indian both in thought and spirit despite his preference for English over his mother language for the expression of creative urge. His fiction mirrors microcosmic India caught in the crucible of tradition and change. Malgudi, the imaginary regional locate of his novels, is the clorama for the changing

19 Ecological Concerns in Selected Indian Fiction 76 Indian society. Narayan minutely observes the society and presents the most realistic pictures charged with gentle irony and light humour. His approach to subject matter is always marked with intellectual inspirations. His artistic excellence lies in authentic exploration of social problems in absolutely involved manner. K.R.S. Iyengar explains how his artistic excellence maintained under a limitation and says, R.K Narayan upholds the old traditional values of life prescribed by the ancient Indian culture and embodied in Indian epics Shastras Puranas Myths and Mythologies. He presents his concepts of traditionalism through the middle-class life of Malgudi an imaginary small town in South India, which forms the background to all his novels. Narayan s novels show that success and happiness in life lie in the acceptance of the Shastras and the Vedic values. The main purpose of human life is suggested as a journey in quest of selfidentify or emancipation from the miseries of life. The main purpose of life is to know the purpose of life (i.e.) who am I? Why am I here? One s eternal duty is to know that I am a sprit soul- the real ego. Indians epics, Upanishads and Puranas are the depositors of ancient values of life and moral codes of conduct. The profound knowledge of Vedas was uttered by Indian sages, seers and saints who were divinely inspired and blessed. They are commonly accepted even today to lead an organized and ideal life. These epics and Puranas have been the sources of moral teachings to common man and of inspiration to the creative writers. Narayan through his novels he expresses that the values of life preached in our scriptures are still relevant to human life in the present context. The influence of Vedas becomes more pronounced in Narayan s frequent allusions to Myths, Mythologies, Puranas and epics in his novels in order to show the content and that conflict between good and evil. In the ancient times in which the evil forces are powerful they may be ultimately destroyed by themselves. Further, as pronounced in the Vedas and puranas about the oneness of all elements of universe, the earlier pre-independence novelists including Narayan have invoked Nature and nature-elements for expressing their views, their contemporary regional and social atmospheres. R.K. Narayan is a very famous regional novelist. He is well known for his imaginary creation Malgudi. It is an imaginary world invented by R. K. Narayan. Narayan s novels and short stories have this Malgudi as specific region as a backdrop. The novelist has exploited the entire social, psychological and regional atmosphere in his writing. He has used nature as the setting and background in his novels and short stories. Narayan frames his fictional imagination within the municipal limit of Malgudi. Malgudi is an imaginary regional locale. R. K. Narayan s attachment to Malgudi, is a reality changed with all that is warm and emotional heartbreaking, in human life. As an imaginary south Indian town,