Suman K Sharma
Lalit Magotra’s latest book, ‘Sahitya: MeriSoch, Mere Shabd’ is a pithy summation of his views on Dogra literature. The volume contains one essay and eight keynote addresses that he delivered at various seminars and workshops during the period between 2009 and 2014. It also carries one speech that he gave at the Sahitya Akademy, New Delhi, in acceptance of the Akademy’s award for his collection of essays, ‘Cheten Diyan Galiyan’. The speech reveals the workings of his mind as an established author and poet in his own right. ”I interpret life,’ he says, ‘not in terms of exclusivity, but in an all-encompassing inclusiveness.’
The 29-page essay ‘DogriKahani da Safar’ encapsulates in itself the fruitful journey of Dogri short fiction from mid-forties of the last century to the present times. The early stories that were written in the ebullience of the Independence showed ‘flights of fancy, straightforwardness and simple style of the folk-tales’ (p.82). Today, the Dogri short story has achieved ‘a competence to bring within its fold the inner as well as the outer worlds of man’ (ibid, p.110). For the scholars of the Dogri literature, the essay could prove a treasure trove. To the general reader as well, it can be a rewarding experience to see how in a relatively short span of seventy years, Dogri writers have climbed to such astonishing heights.
Of the eight papers, one titled ‘Padmshree Professor RamnathShastri: Vyaktitva and Krititva’ can be set apart from others. This paper is not about Dogri language and literature per se but what Late Prof Shastri did for his mother tongue. A smattering of anecdotes about Prof Shastri’s personal life would have perked up the paper. After all, it was meant to say something about his ‘Vyaktititva’ – personality – as well. But perhaps the author wisely chose to remain impersonal himself and leave the anecdotal part to his fellow participants.
The remaining seven papers at serial numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 and 10 are on diverse aspects of Dogri literature: its aesthetics, its way to modernity, depiction in it of violence, the present position and future concerns in Dogri writings for children, the condition of women writing in that language, the challenges and opportunities of Dogri language and lastly, Dogri literature in the 21st century. Overall, the anthology presents a beautiful collage of the growth and development of Dogri language and literature.
Magotra reminds us that there was a time – not too long ago – ‘when the educated Dogras felt shy of speaking in their mother tongue in public. In the ‘mandis’ of Punjab, Dogri-speaking men were considered porters and their children, ‘mundu’ or underage domestic help.’ Just three Dogri books existed before the DogriSanstha came into being (‘Padmshree Prof RamnathShastri: Vyaktitva and Krititva’, p.61). Today, Dogras can proudly claim that their language figures in Schedule VIII of the Indian Constitution. Output-wise, nearly 300 books were published in that language during the years 2000 to 2013, including 23 novels, 30 collections of short stories, 120 anthologies of poetry, 45 translations and 47 works in prose ( ‘Dogri Literature in the 21st Century’, p.125)
Most of Dogri literature created in the initial phase itself can be rightfully called modern. It is contemporaneous and based on modern thought (DogriSahitya ‘chAadhunikRujhaan’, p.30). Today, Dogri works, content-wise or in style, can vie with any other Indic literature. The short stories of OP Sharma Saarathi, ChamanArora, Chhatrapal, Krishan Sharma, Om Goswami, Shivdev Susheel and many other writers register their concern about a fast changing socio-economic milieu.
The poetry of Shivram Deep, JitenderUdhampuri and Saarthi evokes the tragedy of the contemporary man. In style, the Dogri literature has gone on to borrow even from foreign forms. The Stream of Consciousness technique has been used in at least two prose works: Ashok Jairath’s ‘DingalSochen Di’ and Padma Sachdev’s ‘Ik hi Suggi’. NirmalVinod’s haikus and KunwarViyogi’s sonnets are welcome signs of Dogri poetry adopting global trends (ibid, pp.30-33).
Dogras, particularly the Dogra women, have traditionally been vociferous about the gender-centric problems. ‘There can be no two opinions in that the authors of the folklore – especially folk songs – must have been predominantly women. Grandmothers told folktales to the children to make them sleep. Mothers sang lullabies to their little ones. Nubile girls gave expression to their love through romantic songs and the newly married women sang of the pangs of separation from their soldier husbands gone far away to the battle-front….What a woman could not say in a routine manner in her orthodox society, she felt free to voice through her songs and tales. (‘Dogri ‘chMahila-lekhan di Sthiti’ (p.80).Magotra makes an impassioned plea to writers today to discard the patronising attitude towards woman and see her as someone who has an independent identity as a human being; a person who can feel, think and act on her own (ibid, p.79).
The anthology would have been incomplete without a reflection on literature and violence. While agreeing that violence is an integral part of life, Magotra contrasts the violence among non-humans and that in human beings. Animals engage in it for survival; man does it for its own sake. It comes in many forms – self-harm, physical violence, mental violence, domestic violence and mass violence perpetrated by one group of human beings on another (‘DogriSahitya ‘chHinsatePratihinsa da Chitran’ pp.34-35). Dogri literature, as is the case with the rest of Indic literature, has an abundance of ‘Veer Rasa’ – glorification of mass violence in wars and battles (ibid, p.38). But poets have also voiced strongly against it. Says DarshanDarshi, a Dogri poet:
‘Jang darpokloken da hathiyar ay/Amansamratthloken da shangaar ay’
War is a weapon of a people scared / Peace is a medal only the puissant wear
(ibid, p.40)
In the recent years, militancy and jihad have added another dimension to human violence – ‘Sahsukkijaa’rdetejeenaukha hoi geya’ – People gasp out of fear and hard it’s become to live on (ibid, 41). But evoking only the cruel face of humanity is not the whole mandate of literature. When the time demands, a mighty pen can also act as a gentle counsellor and a guide. Poet DarshanDarshi has this advice for the powers that be –
‘Mulakaat.Vaartalaap.ShikharVaarta/Shanti. Shanti te bas Shanti. Jang nayeen’
A conference.Dialogue. A summit/ Peace. Peace and just peace. No war
(ibid, p.46)
Lalit Magotra has, in a compact volume of ten write-ups, covered a vast terrain of Dogri literature and effectively put it in a global context. This by itself is no mean achievement. His language is simple, emphatic and at places, even lyrical.
A former head of the departments of Physics and Computer Sciences, University of Jammu, he never lets his pedagogic self out-speak his literary voice. One can almost hear him talking, not talking down, to his audience.
Inclusion of his views on the Dogri drama would have added to the value of the book; but for that we may perhaps to wait for another seminal book from his prolific pen.
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