Jayanti:133

Shivapoojan Sahay: Memoirs & Diaries

BSM Murty

 

Shivapoojan Sahay began his literary career in the second decade of

the 20th century which extended for over five decades in his life in

which he wrote more than a hundred literary memoirs, along with

numerous reminiscences and obituary articles. These were published

in various journals between 1921 and 1961. Many of these memoirs

and reminiscences, including several short life-sketches, written up to

1959, were collected in the first part of Rachanavali (4). In the latter

part were collected his editorial articles and notes some of which also

contained reminiscences. The first memoir published in Rachanavali

(4) is on Shivji’s intimate friend, Kumar Devendra Prasad Jain, who

was also a budding Hindi-lover and publisher and who had sadly

met a sudden and untimely death. The memoir was published in

Chaitanya Chandrika (1921, Patna City). It was on his bidding that

Shivji, in the beginning of his literary career, had published several

anthologies of translated prose and poetry pieces – Prem Kali, Prem

Pushpanjali, Triveni, Sewa Dharm, etc. All these anthologies were

published in very attractive form by Kumar Devendra from his

publishing house ‘Prem Mandir’ in 1919–’20. But unfortunately

Kumar, a literature-loving man of very sophisticated artistic taste,

had an untimely death in March, 1921. And in this first of Shivji’s

memoirs, apart from getting an evidence of all the latent qualities of

his memoir writings, we also get an amazing picture of Shivji’s early

literary life.

 

This first memoir on Devendra Kumar also forms the starting

point for the writing of his literary memoirs when as editor of

Marwari Sudhar, an institutional journal of the Ara Marwari Sudhar

Samiti, Shivji went to Calcutta. And it was then that he became

the pivotal member of ‘Matwala Mandal’. Shivji’s memoirs written

in the ’20s generally presented short life-sketches of the persons

reminisced or reverent obituary tributes to persons deceased. And

generally Shivji did not have a direct contact with the person, or had only                                       a brief encounter with him. Memorial writings on Ramkrishna

Paramhans, Vivekanand or the poet ‘Eesh’ are all of this nature.

But other memorial pieces written on Pt. Ishwari Prasad Sharma,

Pt. Amrit Lal Chakravarti, Pt. Vinod Shankar Vyas, et al, are of

people he had known in his life. That is why, Shivji considered his

memoirs of the former kind as life-sketches, as his piece – ‘Deep

Nirvan’ – written on the death of Bal Krishna Gokhale, published in

Manoranjan (Ara, 1915), is a reverent obituary tribute.

 

The memoirs written in the second decade of the last century

generally belong to this life-sketch/obituary tribute kind because it

was only in the next decade that Shivji first came into contact with

literary personalities or became a witness to many of the literary

events whose reminiscences were to be the material used in his literary

memoirs written in later decades. That is why Shivji’s memoirs

written in the later three decades, and particularly in the last decade

of his life, are so valuable from the viewpoint of literary history. In

fact, in these memoirs of Shivji, written in the later decades, we

get a virtual living history of Hindi literature of the first half of the

20th century. And it is in this sense that the memoirs of Shivji must

be recognised as the most valuable part of his creative writing. As

Dr Nand Kishore Nawal writes: “Writing literary memoirs is not

only the most sensitive, but also the most hazardous of art-forms in

literature. Because if the writer is not careful, the memoir may turn

into a piece of self-adulation or self-projection, and if he is naïve,

it would tend to be too biased. Shivapoojan Babu is among the

very few of the topmost memoirists in Hindi literature.” All these

memoirs are particularly remarkable not only for their narrative

vigour and their sustained prose rendering, but still more for the

balanced self-abnegation of the memoirist and the sensitive depiction

of the character and ethos of the reminisced person in appropriate

style. The art and technique of memoir-writing thus achieved gains a

uniqueness to become a veritable touchstone for the genre.

 

The variety thus obtained by Shivji in his memoir-writing can

broadly be divided into the following categories:(1) memoirs of

eminent litterateurs, (2) memoirs written about lesser-known or

forgotten literary figures, (3) memoirs written about institutions, literary

 events, travels, or on contemporary contexts, (4) obituary

articles written on literary personalities, and (5) memoirs, lifesketches

and obituary notes written about personalities outside the

literary realm. If we select two outstanding examples from each

category, we could list them as follows: (1) Nirala, Premchand, (2)

Kishori Lal Goswami, Chandrashekhar Shastri, (3) ‘Kalkatta Pravas

ke Sansmaran’, ‘Sabha ka safal Mahotsav’, (4) Pt. Kedarnath Sharma

‘Saraswat’, Pt. Lakshman Narayan Garde, and (5) Mahamana

Malviyaji, Dr Sachchidanand Sinha. Among these 5 categories, the

maximum number of memoirs – virtually three-fourths of them –

belong to the categories (2) and (4). In fact, memoirs in these two

categories are of utmost importance from the point of view of literary

history, because they contain countless number of literary facts that

are most important from the point of view of research. Some such

nuggets of information of immense literary value can be given as

examples:

 

• The first Hindi public library, ‘Arya Pustakalaya’ was established

in 1881 by Pt. Kishori Lal Goswami in Ara when he lived

there as a priest of the Gopal Mandir.

 

• The moniker of ‘Bharatendu’ was first proposed by Shri Ram

Shankar Vyas, the grandfather of Vinod Shankar Vyas.

 

• Niralaji used to write reviews of book and journals in Matwala

under the pseudonym ‘Gargaj Singh Varma’. Once he had

written in his column a series of critical reviews of articles published

in Saraswati. Although Acharya Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi

then was no longer its editor, but he had so much affection for

it that in deep indignation he edited all those issues of Matwala

and sent it by post. On seeing them Niralaji kept laughing for a

long time. Mahadev Prasad Seth, the editor of Matwala locked

all those Dwivediji-edited issues in his locker never to be seen

again.

 

• On one occasion, Bharatendu Harishchandra had come to Ara

in a wedding party. On people’s request then he had written a

piece in 13 language scripts in 26 lines. I had got it framed in

glass and had taken it as an exhibit in the 10th All India HindiSahitya                                             Sammelan at Patna, but someone stole the precious

item. Also stolen from there was a manuscript volume of an exigesis

of Bihari Satsai by the poet Paramanand on which he had

been given an award of 500 rupees by Bharatendu.

 

• Prasadji would never go to a ‘Kavi Sammelan’ (poets’ meet)

and would tunefully recite his poems only in an intimate group

of friends. But once, and perhaps the only time, he recited his

poems tunefully in the ‘Koshotsav Smarak’ (commemoration

function of the publication of a dictionary) of the Kashi Nagari

Pracharini Sabha.

 

A great amount of precious information of historical value is available

in these incomparable memoirs of Shivji. Even in his memoirs of

Prasad, Nirala and Premchand we get to know many such intimate

facts of their everyday life. For instance, the astonishing fact

about Prasadji that he was not only a great scholar of the Vedas,

the Upanishads and the Sanskrit literature, but also a veritable

encyclopedia about the qualities and attributes of elephants, horses,

cows, etc, as also of the special markers and properties of gems like

diamond, pearls and coral. Similarly he had an vast knowledge about

the old aristocrats, scholars, dancers, female singers, ‘lawani’-singers,

goondas and ‘fakkads’(tantric sadhus) of his time. He also had a rich

fund of stories about the wrestlers, and their wrestling techniques and

an extensive and amazing knowledge of the secret argot (technical

lingo) of goldsmiths, boatmen, traders and middlemen.

 

Among all the memoirs written by Shivji, those that he wrote

on Nirala are by far the most valuable. In them he has delineated

the poet as a super-human being. For him in his memoirs,

Shivji has used epithets like – ‘Tyagmurti’(idol of renunciation),

‘Deenbandhu’(friend of the poor), ‘Adarsh mahapurush’ (ideal great

man), etc. He has also revealed in them many unknown facts of the

poet’s life like – his being a very accomplished actor, although he

never appeared on stage in Calcutta in spite of his friends’ pleadings,

“Often he would recite his poem ‘Panchavati’ in a dramatic mode

and would, at times, also demonstrate his skill in acting in the Bangla

language.” When he came to Kashi, he would recite his poems                                                        duringboat-rides in Ganga with Shivji and Prasadji. “Once on a boat-ride

he had sung the bhajan – ‘Shri Ramchandra kripaslu bhaju man”

– playing a harmonium….He was also an accomplished poet of

‘Brajabhasha’”. There are many such rare piece of information even

in Shivji’s memoirs of Premchand. Indeed, in Shivji’s memoirs of

his times we get a living narrative of literary history in all its variety

and fascination. Indeed, in Shivji’s memoirs we get an unforgettable

depiction of the cultural and literary ambience of the whole period

from the Bharatendu age to the Chhayavad age.

 

In his reminiscences of the Calcutta days we also see a pathetic

picture of the exploitation and humiliation of the Hindi dramatist

working in the Parsi theatres. His memoirs of Mahadev Prasad Seth

and Pt. Kishorilal Goswami can be read as glowing examples of his

art of memoir-writing. In the last few years of his life, he had also

written some excellent story-sketches (of persons he knew in his

village life), one of them being ‘Mahesh Pande’ which was published

in Sanket of Allahabad.

 

Shivji’s memoirs, in all their richness and variety, are a

valuable part of his literary writing as well as his personal life-story.

Throughout his life, he would emphasise the need for getting

memoirs and autobiographies of Hindi literary figures written and

preserved, and he would himself collect and preserve in his life as

much of such material as he could. It can be affirmed with gratitude

that the treasure house of memoirs and reminiscences that Shivji left

behind are a rare and precious legacy for Hindi literature.

 

His diaries, too, are of immense value. Diary-writing had been a

habit with him right from his school days, though many of his diaries

written between 1906 and 1940 were lost in occasional mishaps,

except for some stray diaries and notebooks. But all diaries written

regularly between 1941 and 1962 remained intact with him, and in

his diary for 1963, diary entries uptil January 12 are available, because

the following week proved to be the last in his life. It is not difficult

to imagine how valuable and precious must have been his diaries

written while he lived in Calcutta, Lucknow and Kashi when we look

at the diaries that remained safe with him. Shivji has expressed his

views about his diary-writing at various places in his diaries whichthrow                                        revealing light on his distinctive style of diary-writing. As he

writes at one place: “Writing in my diary in the peace of night, the

thought arises in my mind – What’s the use of writing a diary? An

inner voice replied – Writing diaries enables one to evaluate one’s life.

If written truthfully, it can reveal many of the mysteries of human

life. While writing about one’s daily chores, one must also record one’s

thoughts and experiences, with the proviso that the experiences are not

imaginary and the thoughts are not unreal. But what’s the certainty that

my experiences are not imaginary? That my thoughts are not artificial.

Only Lord Ram is my witness. Hey Ram! Let only the truthful part

remain, because falsehood won’t last, in any case.”

 

Diary-writing for Shivji was, like his daily worship, a part of

his routine. That is why we get no trace of anger or truculence or

rancour in his diaries. In the calmer moments of the night, he would

write with great economy on one single small page, the gist of a day’s

happenings and his own reflections on them. It would be a record of his

experience sieved through truthfulness. Limiting the words of his daily

entry within the bounds of a small single page would impart a special

tightness of structure to his writing. Although in all his available diaries,

in a majority of them, we get a tightly composed account of his daily

activities, but in about a third of them we get only his deeply meditative

thoughts and reflections on social, moral, ethical, spiritual or literary

issues. To put oneself on the touchstone of truth demands a rigorous

disciplined attitude to life by a diarist, and Shivji every time emerges

completely unblemished in that test. For those studying the excellence

of Shivji’s prose, the diaries would provide an impeccable example of

the power, profundity and economy of Shivji’s prose writing. And it can

safely be asserted that when published in their entirety, Shivji’s diaries

would, perhaps, be his priceless contribution to Hindi literature.

          [Excerpted from SHIVPOOJAN SAHY : Monograph, Sahitya Akademi, 1994]

 (C) 

Sahitya Akademi