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- Introduction
- Mythical approach
Raja Rao's Kanthapura is one of the finest novels to come out of mid-twentieth century India. It is the story of how Gandhi's struggle for independence from the British came to a Typical village, Kathapura, in South India. Young Mouthy, back from the city with "new ideas," cuts across the ancient barriers of caste to unite the villagers in non-violent action–– which is met with violence by landlords and police.
Raja rao's literary career was launched by family tragedy, instigated by the rigidity of the caste system. His first prose essay was a response to the suicide of an aunt, who had been excommunicated by her family for sharing a meal with a Muslim Woman. His first main novel, Untouchable, published in 1935, was a chilling exposé of the day-to-day life of a member of India's Untouchable caste. It is the story of a single day in the life of Bakha, a toilet-cleaner, who accidentally bumps into a member of a higher caste. Bakha searches for a salve to the tragedy of the destiny into which he was born, talking with a Christian missionary, listening to a speech about untouchability by Mahatma Gandhi and a subsequent conversation by two educated Indians, but by the end of the book Anand suggests that it is technology, in the form of the newly introduced flush toilet that may be his savior by eliminating the need for a caste of toilet cleaners. Than in the kanthapura in mythical approach more detail.
The dramatic tale unfolds in a poetic, almost mythical style which conveys as never before the rich textures of Indian rural life. The narrator is an old woman, imbued with the legendary history of the region, who knows the past of all the characters and comments on their actions with sharp-eyed wisdom. Her narrative, and the way she tells it, evokes the spirit of India's traditional folk-epics. This edition includes extensive notes on Indian myths, religion, social customs, and the Independence movement (given at the end of the book) which fill out the background for the American reader's more complete understanding and enjoyment.
This simple book, which captured the puissance of the Punjabi and Hindi
idiom in English, was widely acclaimed and Anand won the reputation of being
India's Charles Dickens. The Introduction was written by his friend, E. M. Forster,
whom he met while working on T. S. Eliot's magazine Criterion. In it
Forster writes: "Avoiding rhetoric and circumlocution, it has Gone
straight to the heart of its subject and purified it" Inevitably, Anand,
who spent half his time in London and half in India, was drawn to the Indian
independence movement. During his time in London, he wrote propaganda on behalf
of the Indian cause alongside India's future Defense Minister V.K. Krishna Menno,
while trying to make a living as a novelist and journalist.[5]
At the same time, he also supported freedom elsewhere around
the globe and even travelled to Spain to volunteer in the Spanish Civil War,
even though his role in the conflict was more journalistic than military. He
spent World War II working as a scriptwriter for the BBC in London, where he
became a friend of George Orwell. Orwell penned a favorable review of Anand's
novel The Sword and the Sickle and remarked that "although Mr. Anand's
novel would still be interesting on its own merits if it had been written by an
Englishman, it is impossible to read it without remembering every few pages
that is also a cultural curiosity," adding that the growth "of an
English-language Indian literature is a strange phenomenon".[6]
He was also a friend of Picasso and had Picasso Paintings in
his collection. Anand returned to India in 1946, and continued with his
prodigious literary output there. His work includes poetry and essays on a wide
range of subjects, as well as autobiographies and novels. Prominent among his novels
are The Village (1939),
Across the Black Waters (1939),
The Sword and the Sickle (1942),
all written in England, and Coolie (1936),
The Private Life of an Indian Prince (1953),
perhaps the most important of his works written in India. He also founded a
literary magazine, Marg,
and taught in various universities. During the 1970s, he worked with the
International Progress Organization on the issue of cultural self-comprehension
of nations. His contribution to the conference in Innsbruck (Austria) in 1974
had a special influence on debates that later became known under the phrase of
'Dialogue among Civilizations'. Anand also delivered a series of lectures on eminent
Indians such as Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Rabindranath Tagore,
commemorating their achievements and significance and paying special in
kanthapura.
- Conlusion
So
that in kanthapura at in myth of Gandhiji and also related to Indian myth and Indian
culture and Indian myth. New Directions was founded in 1936, when James
Laughlin (1914 - 1997), then a twenty-two-year- old Harvard sophomore, issued
the first of the New Directions anthologies. "I asked Ezra Pound for
'career advice,'" James Laughlin recalled. "He had been seeing my
poems for months and had ruled them hopeless. He urged me to finish Harvard and
then do 'something' useful. In this book also for Indian myth and example to
Ram and Ravan at compared at in village people in also for Gandhi and his
follower. Thus that in kanthapura at more than in mythical approach and also
for Indian culture, as well as myth in character to this village people.
