29 Jaindra Kumar and Indian Poetics

Ms. Anshikha Adhikari

Brief Background of Hindi Literature

Hindi is one of the major languages of India. Not only it is the mother tongue of a large population of India, but it also serves as a medium of communication among the non-Hindi speakers in India. For thousands of years Hindi has given birth to gifted writers and poets who have set a benchmark in the Indian literary tradition. The beauty of hindi literature is based on the mystic poetry of Kabir and Jayasi, in the magnanimous religious epic of Tulsidas, the devotional songs created by Surdas and also in the profoundly good literature written by the many other writers. Hindi is one of the Indo Aryan languages spoken in the northern belt of India. It was earlier a dialect mainly spoken by the Aryans in the areas of Afghanistan, Punjab, Sindh, Western Gangetic plain and Kashmir from 1500 to 1200 B.C. From these literary dialect, developed a more refined form which was exclusively meant for the usage of Brahmin. This came to be known as Sanskrit, which became the language of the Vedas. Sanskrit was not meant for the common people but remained under the shadow of only upper caste literate brahmins.

But Sanskrit also underwent transformations. When the Aryans had settled in the plains of North India, they began mingling with the earlier inhabitants of the land. This resulted in the birth of other languages, one of them being Prakrit. Prakrit, eventually became the language of the masses. This happened around 500 BC. Prakrit was received positively by the preceptors of Buddhism and Jainism, because they wanted to reach out to the common people to propagate their teachings. Pali, the dialect of Magadha also acquired an importance because it was adopted by Mahavira. Gradually Prakrit morphed itself to Apabhramsha, which was viewed as a vulgar tongue by the Sanskrit scholars. Apabhramsha, gradually was adopted by wide number of communities.

Thus, the earliest period of Hindi can be traced back to 760 AD. In 1500 AD, Chand Bardai, ushered in with his bardic poetry and a renowned work of his, Prithviraj Raso.

Hindi literature includes literature in the various Indo-Aryan languages which have writing systems. It is broadly classified into four prominent periods based on the date of production. They are:

• Vir-Gathas (poems extolling brave warriors) – 11th–14th century
• Bhakti era poems (devotional poems) – 14th–18th century
• Riti or Sringar poems (poems of romance) – 18th–20th century
• Adhunik kaal literature (modern literature) – 20th century onwards

Vir-gathas

During the Adi kal period, regions beginning from Kannauj in present day Uttar Pradesh till Ajmer were famous for its writings. Chand Bardai, a court poet in the court of Prithviraj Chauhan wrote Prithviraj Raso which stands as the beacon of Adi kal. The last Rajput ruler of Kannauj, Jayachand gave more importance to the Sanskrit literary works in comparison to the works written in other vernaculars. Unfortunately, many literary works belonging to that era were lost and destroyed when Mohammed Ghori invaded Kannauj.

Bhakti kaal

As the name suggests, the medieval Hindi literature was highly dominated by the Bhakti movement and therefore, many epic poems were composed by various literary figures belonging to the Bhakti kaal. The poets of this age preferred regional languages like Awadhi and Braj to compose their beautiful compositions.

Some of the important works of this period are Padmavat written by Malik Muhammad Jayasi and Ramcharitmanas by Tulsidas. There were two major subdivisions of Bhakti school. They were: the Nirguna school, which believed in a shapeless form of deity worship and Saguna school which was devoted to the various incarnations of Lord Vishnu. The two major writings in Braj bhasha which stand out are Vinay Patrika by Tulsidas and Sur Sagar by Surdas.

Riti-kavya kal

The dominant and the prolific theme of Riti-kavya kaal was erotic subjects. Riti in hindi means ‘procedure’. This is so because, the literary sculptors of this age developed poetry and allied theories to its prime age. This period saw a significant decrease in the emotional aspect of poetry which was a major aspect of the Bhakti movement. Shringar rasa was brought to focus and literature revolved around it. The physical beauty of Krishna and Radha was brought out in the most alluring and elegant way. The love of Radha and Krishna along with Krishna’s playful banter with gopis became the lead themes of Riti-kavya kaal.

Adhunik kal

The first institute which began translating Bible into Indian languages was established in 1800 in Kolkata, West Bengal. It was called Fort William College. During this period, the professors were hired in the college to write books in Hindustani language. In the context of Hindi writers, Munshi Premchand is considered as the chief literary figure of this era. His works brought the essence of realism in Hindi literature. Prior to this age, the chief themes around which hindi literary works revolved were religious tales, magical tales.

Jainendra Kumar: An Introduction

Jainendra Kumar was an influential Hindi writer of 20th century. He was born in a small village Kauriganj, Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh in 1904. Since his father passed away when he was just two years old, he was reared mainly by mother and her brother. He completed his higher education from Kashi University and then joined Non-cooperation movement in the year 1921. Since his school days he was inclined towards writing. In other words, he wanted to be a writer.

His first story collection was titled Phaansi (Noose). From there, young Jainendra never turned back and went on to become one of the most celebrated writer of Hindi literature, after Premchand. He gave new directions to the storytelling styles of Hindi literature. He was a known close associate of Munshi Premchand, another well-known Hindi writer. But Jainendra’s writings never reflected Premchand’s influence in any way. He was known for his unique storytelling style. His writings were incomplete in the sense that they gave ample space to the readers to venture in the dark field to surmise the following plot. Not everything was served to his readers. He preferred to use symbols than to recount everything to is readers.

He explored the human psyche in novels such as Sunita and Tyagapatra. In his work he explored the tensions implicit in the human relationships and showed deep understanding and sympathy for human motivational values, psyche and ethics. His characters spoke volumes just by the subtle language which he used to weave around them.

During his period, Jainendra Kumar, Bhagwati Charan Verma, Ajneya were viewed as prominent Hindi individualistic writers. That is the reason Kumar’s works obviously were tinted with psychological philosophies and autobiographical elements. It is widely accepted that Jainendra Kumar was the one who gave birth to the psychological novels in Hindi.

Jainendra Kumar at first broke Premchand’s tendency of narrative form. In his novels, the story line is limited, he seeks only to draw the character’s mental state. He can be christened as the first writer who brought a link to literary pieces and human being’s psychological depths and understanding. In today’s world, only a few people go into the depth of the mind. Jainendra is more interested in minuteness in place of bulkiness. In Jainendra’s novels picturisation of place, time and the environment is not generally found. The environment is picturised only in the form of symbol. Symbols are made use of in most of the time. The individualistic philosophy is there in the novels of Jainendra Kumar, Ilachandra Joshi and other psychological novelists. Their philosophy is born out of mixing of the western and Indian philosophies.

As we have read earlier, the time when Jainendra began writing, people were swayed by the Premchand and his literary masterpieces. Premchand’s works focused on the society and evils lurking in the former. On the other hand, Jainendra’s works focused on an individual’s psyche and his/her nature with his/her surroundings. Jainendra’s female protagonists have been under critical eyes as they were given quite an independence by their writer. But this never discouraged Jainendra from backing down and alternating anything previously mentioned.

Human nature comprises of societal intricacies and his/her own mental nature. They both have to coexist and cannot be viewed independent of each other. From this point of view, the literary pieces of Jainendra Kumar complete the literary pieces of Premchand. There has been a sense of void in Premchand’s literary works which has been filled by Jainendra Kumar.

Among the best novels of Jainendra Kumar include Sunita, Tyaagpatra and Kalyanee. These works gave the readers a perspective which was freshly set by the writer. These works gave a new path to ponder upon to the adult readers.

The names of Jaywardhan, Parakh may be mentioned among his other important and famous novels. Let us look at three of his famous novels one by one.

Sunita

The story of Sunita is brief — Shreekant lives with his wife Sunita. Sunita is talented and beautiful. One day Shreekant brings home his revolutionary friend Hariprasanna. Shreekant asks his wife to please Hariprasanna. On that day after telling Sunita to concentrate on Hariprasanna, Shreekant goes out. Without any interest of her own Sunita comes close to him. Hariprasanna wants to enjoy her. When Sunita goes naked after removing her clothes one after another Hariprasanna detaches and stands up. Later leaving her at home by any means he goes away. The depression of Hariprasanna is shown in the novel. Hariprasanna is a revolutionary, but he is much depressed inside, weak and broken. There is vast difference between his external and internal. The writer enters into his unconscious mind and finds that there is need of treatment for his depression. Shreekant makes arrangement of his depression. In order to remove the sexual depression inside Hari, he directs his own wife.

Tyagpatra

Tyagpatra, was published in 1937. It is a much talked about and very popular novel by Jainendra Kumar. In this novel also there is the influence of Gandhian philosophy. As like, as ‘Sunita’ it is also a woman character-based novel. The self-infliction of its heroine Mrinal is the source of this novel’s subsistence. The central character Mrinal is a girl from a respected family. She lost her parents when she was a child and her elder brother is her guardian. She is sent to school. She is naughty and restless. She falls in love with Sheela’s brother. Therefore her sister-in-law beats her. She is married to a middle-aged man. One day she told her husband about her pre-marriage love affairs for which she was thrown out of the house. And henceforward the sorrowful life of Mrinal starts. After being deserted by her husband she wanders from place to place. She also stays with coal traders even after being aware of that, that affair was not fair. After receiving the information about her miseries her nephew Judge Pramod arrives to take her. But she refuses to go with Pramod and accepts the sorrowful life.

The common readers can easily support Mrinal’s decision. It seems that Mrinal herself has chosen the life of sufferings. If she had wanted she could fight with the situations. But the writer did not expect it. He has presented his view and philosophy through the medium of Mrinal’s character. Suffering was not the fate of Mrinal because if she had wanted perhaps she could get relief from these situations. There was also possibility to make the character of Mrinal memorable by producing her as a brave and powerful woman character. However, through the medium of Mrinal the writer discloses the social discrepancies.

Kalyanee

The third significant novel by Jainendra Kumar is ‘Kalyanee’. ‘Kalyanee’ is a novel written in autobiographical form. Vachak, an advocate, is a character of this novel. The leading characters of this novel are Kalyanee and Dr. Asranee. Besides, there are lesser important characters like Dr. Bhatnagar, advocate Sahab, Shreedhar, Premiyar Ray Sahab, Devlalidhar. Kalyanee is an educated and well-cultured woman. She has done her physician’s course in Britain. She had affairs with a youth in Britain but it did not end in marriage.

When she arrives in India Dr. Asranee brings allegation against her that she was characterless, but married her at the end. Their married life was not successful. Kalyanee does not accept the bondage of conservative life, but Asranee is traditionalistic and suspicious. He accepts Kalyanee only as a means of producing money. As a result Kalyanee has to endure both physical and mental sufferings in the whole life. Finally she passes away one day.

Jainendra Kumar has explained the character of Kalyanee in a psychological way. In the life of a woman love is an essential part. When Kalyanee is deprived of love from her husband she tries to find the same in other men. But after being frustrated she loses interest in life. She makes herself responsible for all that. Kalyanee becomes victim of mental dispute, tension and baseless delusion. All these are signs of the disease called ‘neuroses’. Kalyanee also suffers from sensitivity of death. The image of death is always there in her mind. The tendency of Thanatos established by Freud is fully applicable in Kalyanee’s character. She neither could become an ideal, wife nor an ideal doctor in her life.

Conclusion

In Sunita, Jainendra Kumar focused more on the plot than the development of the character.

As Theo Damsteegt remarks:

In most of these stories the narrator is clearly present, and there is an emphasis on actions, plot and climax that is lacking from the psychonarration stories, while character-bound focalization is found in scattered, individual passages only.

But he changes his style in his next novel, Tyaagpatra. He integrates the plot and its effect on the characters skillfully. The novel depicts the required impossibility and confusion of moral judgment in its highly compressed narrative of a beloved aunt of Judge Pradeep who slips down the moral and social scale by leaving the household to live with a low-caste man.

In Jainendra Kumar’s works, importance was always given to the psychological state of the characters. He portrayed that state so skillfully. The Hindi novel writing witnessed a shift from the presentation of the external world and its conflict to the psychoanalysis and stream of consciousness that was pioneered by Jainendra Kumar. His characters do not seek to adjust within the societal norms but challenge the existing norms of the society. It is mainly the female protagonists of Jainendra Kumar’s works (as we have seen earlier) which challenge such pre-existing norms.

Jainendra Kumar has contributed immensely yet it seems that people have forgotten his contribution in the recent times. Challenging an institution of marriage in an Indian society was a revolution of its own kind which has been pioneered by Jainendra Kumar and his works.

It is quite visible that these protagonists desire to maintain their independence even while they are bound to someone through the institution of marriage. Such conceptualization which have happened through Jainendra’s work is impossible to conceive some sixty seventy years ago. Moreover such conceptualization was a rare form of display in literary works at that time.

Jainendra’s works often do not give us any clear resolution towards the end. The characters raise questions and try to get answers. But unlike Premchand, where the audience are given all the answers in the end, Jainendra’s works lack this quality. Ultimately we see that the protagonists of his works have to bow down to the traditional views of the society and its selfishness. But they also possess the satisfaction of having an independent mindset which is also put forward with the sadness of the inability to change the society.

The critics believe that Jainendra uplifts his characters from being a mere participants in an ‘incident’ and takes us into a journey to their psychological understanding and their existence as an individual human being.

Reference

• Dutta, Amaresh;. Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature. Vol. 2. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1988. ebook.
• Dwivedi, Rekha;. Women in Jainendra’s Writings. Prabhat Publications, 2005. Print.
• Gopal, Madan;. Munshi Premchand: A Literary Biography . Asia Pub. House, 1964. ebook.
• Kumar, Lalit;. Gadya Kosh – Jainendrakumar. n.d. Web. 25 January 2017.
• <http://gadyakosh.org/gk/%E0%A4%9C%E0%A5%88%E0%A4%A8%E0%A5%87 %E0%A4%A8%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%A6%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%B0_%E0%A 4%95%E0%A5%81%E0%A4%AE%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B0_/_%E0%A4%AA %E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%9A%E0%A4%AF>.
• Shikha, B;. जैनेन्द्रकु मार। Biography of Jainendra Kumar in Hindi Language! n.d. Web. 25 January 2017. <http://www.hindilibraryindia.com/biography/biography-of-jainendra-kumar-in-hindi-language/3863>.
• Snell , Rupert and Ian Raeside, Selected Short Stories of Jainendra Kumar . Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 1988. ebook.