Makers of Modern India, I will Miss You 

Yogendra Bali 

The months of October and November, brought personal sadness to me but left still hope for me, and many incorrigible optimists, about the future of India. I could see some of the makers of 20^th Century India, whom I had the privilege of knowing, respecting and honouring in various fields of life, pass by into the world of milestones. We lost Amrita Pritam, Nirmal Verma and Madhvan Kutty from the field of literature, then K R Narayanan, the “People’s President’ and finally, the gentleman revolutionary, Madhu Dandavate too. I would personally miss them all who had gone to their heavenly abode, following my dear friend and brother, Sunil Dutt.

Why I want to share my fond memories about these great Indians who left their stamp on the life and literature of India? It is because, they represented thought, word and deed which represented the faith in the motherland, confidence in India and hopes for its future. They were among the great makers of modern independent India of 20^th Century. 

I do not know where to start and what to say about these great personalities whom I know, loved and respected. Of course, I would want the future generations of Indians to seriously and honestly be aware of what they all represented and what they gave to this nation.

Let me start with “Hamari Amrita” or Amrita Pritam. I got to know her in the days soon after the partition of this country in the burning summer heat of Delhi, that lonely but unvanquished rebel of a girl from Punjab, could be seen cycling from the All India Radio to her lonely abode, fighting odds but never said die.

She had started smoking heavily those days, of course, generally on cigarettes borrowed from the friends and acquaintances. Some of them were lecherous behind the mask of sympathy and friendship, others were cantenquerous, because they could not swallow the idea of a mere slip of a Punjab girl, trying to stand on her own in the male dominated world of Punjabi spoken and written word of literature.

They hated her guts for standing on her own in a world full of prejudice against woman making her mark in any field of life. There were my friends, like playwright Balwant Gargi, and some gusty women in the field of Punjabi theater and drama, who admired her, often grudgingly. There were those like Krishna Sobati, herself a rebel and an iconoclast, who had a sort of love and hate attitude towards Amrita. There were self-styled judges of everything in the world, with malice, and perhaps a certain amount of ingrained inferiority complex, like Khuswant Singh, who seemed to had ever a thorn in the heart for the mere girl, whom he failed to conquer. Perhaps none knew this very strange attitude of the extremely popular literary pungent malice-monger of Punjab, than the lifelong companion of Amrita, Imroz. He had manifested it in a decorative dig adorning the very entrance of Amrita’s house in South Delhi. It carried an inscription, “Zara Pagri Uttariye….Hamn Ne Suna Hai Ke Sar Hotey Hain Sardaron Ke?”-I have heard that Sardars have great heads, can I please peep below your turban.

But the fact remained that Amrita left an indelible stamp on 20^th Century Indian Literature in Punjabi, Hindi and several translated languages, in India and abroad and had become an icon in her own life-time. Amrita, you shall never die. I know it and may you know wherever you are. 

Nirmal Verma, who was among the pioneers who put 20^th Century Hindi Literature on the contemporary world literature map, was also a mild-mannered, pleasant and yet very hard hitting realist in depicting the world of the common masses, their joys and sorrows. His creations in print and television, touched everyman’s heart and mind. He spent a life time trying to bring the Hindi Literature to contemporary realities from the ancient world of nostalgia and fair tales. In his language, style and creativity, he was the fore runner of the stalwarts who put Hindi literature in his original and translated forms in the world map. If one were to make a serious evaluation of the modern Hindi Literature, the contemporary world would have a serious vacuum without Nirmal Verma.

Both Amrita Pritam and Nirmal Verma, fighting against physical ailments in the swansong days of their lives, carried to the last day their unrelinquishable creative spirit, despite failing and frail bodies. Their meekness had become their great strength. 

Madhvan Kutty, known as the smiling Malayali, was well known in the journalistic and literary circles, which happened to be my haunts too in New Delhi for the past 60 odd years. He put his region, its language and creative perceptions on the national map through his fiction, powerfully stepped in reality and modernity.

You could often see his fiction him in the Press Club of India in the earlier days, smiling and mildly but ironically discussing people, personalities and perspectives of life and literature, but with stout and indefatigable stance. Even the masters of irony, like the Late V K Krishna Menon, were reputed to have great respect for Madhvan, a journalist and literary world. 

In the political field, and many diverse walks of public life, I was sad at the great loss in the demise of K R Naryanan, former President of India. He died at the Research and Referral Hospital of Indian Army in New Delhi after a bronchial disorder, at the age of 85. He was the first Dalit president of India, and from the state of Kerela the seaboard state of seafafers, revolutionaries, poets, singers, ayurveda experts and now better known the world over as “God’s own country.”

I had always admired him and shall miss him all my own remaining days, for what he stood for and the way he turned the Rastrapati Bhavan into the abode of a president who was working all the time and not a mere figurehead of signing glory.

In an article by him, published by the Indian Express, the day after his death in its “Indian empowered” series he expressed some thoughts which I would take the liberty of focusing on. India would be empowered in his eyes only when the suppressed and exploited begin to assert their rights and empower themselves. He had ever highlighted the fact and reminded the people of this country that, “day in and day out, we take pride in claiming India as 5000-year old civilization. But the way Dalits and those suppressed are being treated by the people who wield power and authority speaks volumes for the degradation of our moral structure and civilized standards.” 

And then came the sad demise of Madhu Danadavete, former Finance Minister of India and a great follower of socialist path blazed by Jaiprakash Narayan, Ram Monhar Lohia and other revolutionaries. Mild in manner, a gentle and kind human being, he was a staunch supporter of the socialist ideology and would remain for ever an example of clean public life and shouldering ministerial responsibilities.

I could go on and on and on, remembering and paying tributes to these makers of modern India, but would end my nostalgic tribute with the hope that future generations benefited from the paths to future which these makers and shapers of free India had created.