Man who unravelled the literary path, gets street named after him

In his lifetime of 80 plus, the renowned Gujarati literary critic and man of letters, Late Dr. Ramanlal Jethalal Joshi was known among friends as ‘Ramanlal Rickshawadi’. The ubiquitous three-wheeler was his pet mode of transport, although he could himself buy a car (which he did in the latter years of his life) or simply ask his eldest son, Prabodh, to send him one.

Thousands of times auto rickshaws, cars and two-wheelers would scurry on the road past Vijay Char Rasta towards Xavier’s Loyola school, turning near the side opening next to Sharad party plot. Some ardent students of Gujarati literature, a few authors and many more auto drivers would be aware of No. 2, Achalayatan Society where Dr Joshi lived and worked even after retiring as a university Don. From here he ran a small circulation, high calibre monthly, Uddesh, whose literary merit has made a name.

In this period of nothing but politics, politics and more politics in the aftermath of the Lok Sabha election, a modest but highly significant ceremony is taking place today. Noted Ramayani preacher Morari Bapu will name the hitherto nameless road as “Sahityakar Dr. Ramanlal Jethalal  Joshi Marg”. The city Mayor Kanaji Thakore and chairman of the Standing Committee of AMC, Mr Asit Vora  will also remain present.

Besides, this also underscores the raised awareness in the citizenry in the city, normally maligned as money-minded and not much interested in arts and literature.

The ceremony will be followed by a formal gathering at the Ahmedabad Management Association where Morari Bapu will deliver a Ramanlal Joshi memorial lecture. He will also release a 47-page booklet on the life and work of Dr. Joshi. The booklet has been authored by Prof. Nitin Vadgama of Saurashtra University. Vadgama is a poet of note too.

On this occasion, well-known literary figure and popular speaker, Dr. Suresh Dalal will address the gathering. One of the activities of Dr. Dalal is to look after the 50-year old Parichay Pustika that has so far brought out more than 1200 booklets of authenticity on a variety of topics of interest to an enlightened citizen.

Mr. Prabodh R. Joshi, himself a poet, has vowed to keep up the publication of Uddesh. He is the editor of the monthly, in addition to being a top corporate sector executive. He said that he would strive to carry forward the tradition of impartial, fair and liberal critique of Gujarati literature in his magazine. “I cannot match Dr. Ramanlal Joshi’s voracious reading and prolific writing, but I will make sure that high standards established by my father are not compromised.”

Mr. Joshi said that nearly 50 books were written by his father. Though a purist at heart, Dr. Joshi was not orthodox and open to new streams of thought. As a proof of his quest for viable, newer means of expression he gladly sat for a six-hour long down-the-memory lane interview with me when he turned 80. The interview, which was filmed, is not just the life story of the critic but is also a survey of literary scene as it unfolded in the latter half of the 20th century. It is veritable treasure of information and insights into the mind of Dr Joshi who had worked closely with mentors such as Umashankar Joshi and Sundaram and contemporaries such as Gulabdas Broker  and Harivallabh Bhayani.

Initially hesitant, during the course of the interview, Dr. Joshi came into his elements while turning nostalgic. A man adept with the intricacies of the written word, he was quick to grasp the nuances of the visual medium too where viewers can catch the emphasis of not just words but facial expressions and subtle body movements such as tapping of fingers. A set of CDs containing the interview was presented to the Gujarati Sahitya Parishad after his death in 2006.

Everything about Balwant Naik is correct; he is correctly dressed for a British public appearance and behaves politely and with great deference like a born British gentleman.

The 75-year-old Balwant is a gentleman but not a born British. The rise to power of Idi Amin in Uganda made him flee to Britain from Kampala where he was heading a multi-racial school of repute, with children of politicians and bureaucrats attending.

All this would not set Balwant apart from thousands of people of Gujarati origin who have migrated in search of an El Dorado. Balwant is a man of letters, who is prolific in Gujarati and proficient in English too.

He writes in both languages and one of his books, a novel set in Uganda and the United Kingdom, has just been released in India in the two languages. Sir Edward Heath, a former British Prime Minister, is slated to release in Britain the English version, Passage From Uganda, sometime in February.

Balwant was in town–"This is is my first-ever visit to Ahmedabad"–to attend the function to release the Gujarati version of the novel, Ne Dharatine Khole Narak Verayun, as also its Enlgih version.A third volume, comemorating Balwant's 75 years of life, too was published.

Advance copies of the novel have already brought in critical acclaim for Balwant. Dereck Humprey of The Sunday Times, London, felt that the story said much for the spirit of the Asian community and Uganda and its self-resilience. Of the 27,000 who fled to Britain, the British government had to pay air fare for only two.

For his 75 years, Balwant retains a great deal of zest for life and is bubbling with enthusiasm, characteristics that make him look at least a decade younger. Born on April 13,1921, at Vapi in south Gujarat, Balwant experienced the sheltering benefits of a composite family, from Day One of his life. His father had passed away even before Balwant's birth. "But, my mother and her brothers ensured that I never felt my father's absence", he says.

Balwant went to MTB College in Surat and Wilson College in Bombay, where he took his M.A. in literature, before setting sail for Kampala to join a school in 1953.He wielded a facile pen in Gujarati and kept writing in a host of journals in India. "These were folk tales of Africa, love stories, stories of life and death." Balwant's creative eye sensitively saw and relished the throbbing life in the natural setting, people, their way of life and their struggles, deeply impressed. He was prolific in putting all this on to paper.

Balwant rose to become principal of Shimoni school, then a Uagandan counterpart of our Doon school. The writing took a back seat,but his mind kept registering images, situations and dialogue. A jolt came in 1972 when Iddi Amin took over the reins of power in Uganda, triggering an exodus of Gujaratis. Balwant,whose family spent a night huddled together, listening to ominous firing by Amin's soldiers, too came to Britain. Hetook the family to London.

A Passage From Uganda was  written against this backdrop, a moving human drama of the period when disaster struck Asians after generations of peaceful and prosperous existence. It is at once a saga of deeply-felt nostalgia, a cry of longing and displacement. But if the past lingers on in the present, it is not a defeatist story; it looks to future with shining eyes and high expectations.

The central character of the novel is a Gujarati woman, Asmita, who had seen happy days in Uganda, witnessed the life crumbling all around her as Asians fled, and valiantly tried to reconstruct the happy days once again in Britain. " It is a celebration of the family values in Indian tradition", says Balwant, modestly. The story also weaves in its narrative fictionalised characters of noteworthy Indians who made a great contribution to the development Uganda, people like Manubhai Madhwani and Nanji Kalidas Mehta.

Balwant who retired from working in the field of education in 1985, has no plans to quit writing. What he is doing is important in two ways: Gujaratis carry a stigma of never being able assimilate in the mainstream of cultures where they settle and live for a life time, and even if they do, they never put their experiences on to paper. Balwant has , and is planning, to do both.

Are we, Gujarati, a forgetful people or ungrateful people? The question is more than a million dollars worth because you have no answer many a time. One such occasion was the birth centenary of an extra-ordinary ordinary Gujarati, Jagan Mehta. It fell on January 29, 2009, a day before the Martyrs’ Day, which coincided with the day of assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.

Only one low-key function washeld under the auspices of Gujarat Lalit Kala Akadami.An exhibition of Jagan Mehta’s photographs of Gandhiji and others was opened in Ahmedabad as the sole tribute to the camera wizard. Gandhian leader Narayan Desai and some others were to speak but skipped speaking as a mark of respect for the late President R Venkataraman, whose passing away was being mourned by the nation and no official celebration could be held.Everybody grumbled privately, but being good, obedient Gujaratis, refrained from unburdening their souls.

Gujaratis as a people are largely unaware of the tall feats by the photographic excellence of Jaganbhai. The apathy also brought back a flood of memories of a meeting with him in 1986. The hour-long encounter with the camera wizard remains firmly etched in the mind. The memory trailer has been ever green because thereafter Jaganbhai became a phone friend.

The body showed the ravages of time, the face a map of wrinkles, veins standing out like a canal network on the back of his palms, the left hand supported by a cast owing to a shoulder bone injury in a fall, and a corset around the spine.

But, then the  86-year-old Jagan Mehta, a photographer who is world famous for his sensitive Gandhi pictures taken during the Mahatma's peace march in the riot-torn Bihar in March,1947, was old in flesh only. The spirit, as revealed by his firm voice and bubbling enthusiasm about his lifelong passion, photography, was young – and willing.

He said, with obvious pride: “I can still wield a camera, maybe not with a great speed. But I can still capture good photographs." Before he had a fall, hurting his shoulder, he had taken a couple of lovely shots of the noted Gujarati writer, Josef Macwan.

Of the innumerable photographs Jagan Mehta had clicked over the past decades, pictures captured during the six momentous days, stood out. The 40-odd pictures of the peace march of Gandhiji earned him a world-wide recognition, not because these were news pictures, but because these were superbly evocative studies of the agonies and sorrow of someone whom millions of his countrymen had ,during his lifetime only, hailed as the Great Soul, Mahatma.

These pictures have been shown all over the globe, including for a year-and-a-half in the United States of America alone.

These and other treasure-trove of photographic records of yesteryear are now in steel cupboards at Mehta's house in Chandranagar society, in Paldi area of Ahmedabad, not far from the bed on which the old photographer slept and breathed his last. In the Spartan house, there is no indication of the documentary wealth it is holding.”I never was good at making money all my life", Jagan Mehta used to explain, without a trace of regret.

In truth, his life has been a story of grit, determination and struggle throughout. And, yet, for all the trials and tribulations, the man, now known as Jagan but originally christened as Jagannth, was a jovial person. He smiled easily, laughed heartily, launched into a discussion readily and pottered around the room, rummaging the cupboards and bags to locate a photograph about which he was talking. Dressed in a khadi shirt and pyjama,he was  more than ready to help a younger man in photography. Even as he remembered the olden days,in 1986,he noticed the camera of a friend, Gautam Mehta. Surfacing in the present from the past he asked Gautam: "Is it a Pentax ?"

Born in 1909,in the house of Vasudev Vaidya, Jaganbhai was interested in painting from his school days, doing art work in both pencil and colour. His father was a well-known Ayurveda physician in Gujarat in those days and his grand-father, Ganpatram, too was a vaidya of repute,having studied Ayurveda under the renowned specialist of yesteryear,Zandu Bhatt. Recalled Jaganbhai:” Although my father was a noted vaidya himself, he never made much money for two reasons. He was a very sensitive soul, never able to bring himself up to charging the poor for treatment. He would say,' If I charge fee from a poor, the money creates a  burning sensation in my hands.' Secondly, he had been a follower of Mahatma Gandhi ever since the Mahatma came to Ahmedabad, first to the Kochrab Ashram and then to the Sabarmati Ashram.Vasudevbhai was among the pioneers, along with Indulal Yagnik,Hariprasad Desai and others to have attended the Congress session in Godhra in days when the session did not attract many."

Vasudevbhai had settled in Sanand, some 18 km away from Ahmedabad,and was never hankering after either wealth or fame. The son, who had an innate liking for art, had begun to do drawings and paintings quite early in his student days. Ravishankar Raval, who was hailed as Gujarat's kala guru ,was a close friend of Jaganbhai's father.So,when after failing in his matriculation examination in 1929,Jagan told his father that he wanted to pursue painting as a career and would like to go to Bombay to join the J J School of Arts, the first thing the vaidya did was to consult Ravishankar Raval.Recalled Jaganbhai:"My father could not afford the money for sending me to Bombay,although we had no problem in meeting day to day expenses. A living example of Gandhian simplicity,father never had that kind of money."

Raval at that time was bringing out Kumar magazine in Ahmedabad,along with an associate, Bachubhai Rawat. He saw young Jagan's art output, and asked him to work with him for Kumar."Ravibhai guided me in painting and also got me interested in photography, impressing upon me that photography was going to play an important role. I would go out of town also with Ravibhai and take photographs. I was barely 20 years of age then."

Jaganbhai was very proud that he had learnt the ABC of painting as well as photography from Ravishankar Raval."I took to photography very keenly, and got so much into it that painting got left behind. Soon I was good at working in the dark room too, washing, developing and printing pictures."

Ravibhai had set the young man on the road to photographer's life by presenting him with a Maximark camera. It was in 1933 that Jaganbhai took his first photograph of Gandhiji. Bapu had come to the Sharda Mandir for a meeting. Remembered the photographer: "I took the camera and the open stand to keep it on. I took three or four snaps, one of which came out very well. It was a very evocative picture."

In 1934,Jaganbhai got a scholarship of the then Bhavnagar state for going to Vienna, Austria to study at the Institute of Graphic Arts there.” Mind you, I was not a resident of the old Bhavnagar state. I used to go there with Ravibhai and still the ruler, Krishnakumarsinhji, was so nice that he gave me the scholarship." In August of that year,Jaganbhai left Ahmedabad for Austria, leaving behind wife,Malti,and his parents, friends and the familiar surroundings.

He pursued studies and research in photography, reproduction techniques, and photo-gravure printing and allied areas for more than a year and a half. During this period, he came in contact with a number of Indian leaders such as Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and became secretary of the Hindustan Academical Association set by Bose in Vienna,and later the underground movement in India.

In Vienna,everything seemed going well when tragedy struck. Well into the second year of his scholarship and assured of the third year,Jaganbhai fell sick. He had very high temperature in the beginning,later it was judged that he had a spinal problem, probably TB of the spine. He was hospitalised for 33 days, and when discharged at the end, he was told to spend a lot of time resting at hill stations and nursing his health back.” I had been living very frugally in Austria, cooking my own meals.But,after this illness, there was but no option to return home. My family too was worried stiff. I had been wearing a leather corset, sleeping on a flat bed, just like a living mummy in a coffin. I had such an excruciating pain in the vertebrae that I sometimes felt it was better to die than to suffer like that. I spent some five months in different sanatoria and hill stations in Austria before returning to India in May, 1936."

The old man looked out of the verandah of his modest home as he recalled those painful days. In the trees outside,crows were making a ruckus,but he did not seem to register it. "I was really in the state of a Trishanku,suspended between the planet earth and heaven. Back home, my father started my treatment, his medicines, sunbath, and home-made food rich in calcium. I began moving around on my own in 1938.But a big question was: what next?"

"Till then, I had not pursued photography as an independent profession. True, I had taken some pictures but that was not as a professional,"he remembered.Then,he got some assignments to go round Kankaroli,Udaipur and Mount Abu for photography and the work turned out to be very good. "I felt a surge of self-confidence and at the age of 30,in 1939, took a plunge as a photographer, launching what I called photo home service. The idea was to tell people that so long they were going to a studio for getting their pictures taken. Here was I who would go to their home and snap them in familiar, homely situations. I can see in my mind's eye even today myself going round in 1940 on a bicycle,with folding reflectors and a camera,for photography.I used to eke out enough to make both the ends meet,but I was never unduly worried,or impressed by money.Probably, it was the Gandhian upbringing in our house—a nationalist’s house- that led to it."

He had a friend,Dr Manubhai Trivedi, the son of a well-known Gujarati J.P.Trivedi who had made a name in Pune in those days. Manubhai had been to Vienna to study medicine, chiefly because he did not want to study in England. Later he shifted to Wardha at the suggestion of Late Jamnalal Bajaj and settled there as a medico.

Said Jaganbhai: "I had got an idea around that time that Gandhiji's day-to-day activities and life should be documented in photographs, and if possible on film too because one day all this would be of immense historic value. I had been writing to Manubhai in Wardha, tossing about the idea. Manubhai said it was a good idea and encouraged me to pursue it.

Recalled the photographer: "Though Manubhai was enthusiastic, I could not avail of his invitation to go to Wardha for several years.As I do introspection today, perhaps, I was lacking in a spirit of adventure. Or, perhaps it was because of the principle that I would never borrow money for anything.

He said,” Maybe God had ordained it that way. But an opportunity did come by in 1947.I was close to Madhavsinh ,a follower of Shri Devendraprasadji Maharaj of the Kalupur Swaminarayan temple and a painter himself.He asked me to accompany the entourage of the Maharaj to Ayodhya where at the Haumangadhi the mundan ceremony of today's Kalupur acharya,Shri Tejendraprasadji was to take place.I went there to do photography and  chanced upon a news item that Gandhiji was to make a peace tour in the riot-hit Bihar where communal trouble had sparked while the Mahatma was in Noakhali.I sought permission of the Acharya for going to Patna." Not only permission, Devendraprasadji also gave him Rs.400.Jaganbhai already had some Rs.200 he brought from home when going to Ayodhya. With this princely amount the photographer set out on his mission; he had no introduction from any newspaper, no idea if he would be allowed to join the tour.

In Patna,an old friend,Gunwant Jani, who had been living there for some years, helped him get aboard the train on which the Mahatma was travelling.

The historic pictures, taken in the last week of March, were in natural light, without any flash. Nor was Jaganbhai in mad competition with news photographers. He approached the subject as a pictorialist,intent on achieving best composition possible to reflect the inner divinity of Gandhiji. One of these, showing Bapu going for a walk,with hands on the shoulders two associates and the tall figure of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan,the Frontier Gandhi,walking on a side, has since been used countless times. The photograph has achieved a sort of immortality because of the perfect light and shade combination.Another showed Gandhi and his colleagues,talking as they walked.The third one depicted the agony of the carnage,with a riot-hit sitting on ground with folded hands in front of Gandhiji.The Mahatma listened to the man's woes with his head down,as if the burden of the misguided deeds of his countrymen was solely on his head.Yet another photograph brought out the pensive mood in which Bapu was sitting at a meeting,surrounded by followers, present physically, but wearing an expression of profound sorrow on the face, as if he were somewhere else.

Jaganbhai remembers one episode  most vividly, although he could not locate the print of the picture immediately. "I learnt that Bapu was to visit a  poor man's house badly damaged by the mobs.I reached it early, and occupied a vantage point in a corner of the hut.As Gandhiji  entered the place,the woman of the house touched his feet, crying. Bapu and another associate bent down to help her rise to her feet. I clicked away, capturing the moment showing the Mahatma lending a helping hand to the hapless woman, agony of the mankind writ large on his face. The frame was very moving and everybody around wept.

The pictures made him world-famous, but never rich. On return to Ahmedabad,Jaganbhai opened a studio on the Relief Road in 1948,only to close it down six years later in 1954. "To succeed in business was perhaps not in my stars," he ruminated.

For ten years from 1957,he served as an official photographer,the last one, at the Prince of Wales Museum in Bombay,capturing in his camera excavated ancient bronze sculptures,paintings,stone carvings and other archaeological invaluables ,which too have been shown in a number of exhibitions in different parts of the country.The starting salary was Rs.250 a month.

Returning home, he worked for a year at the National Institute of Design for the Nehru exhibition project. In 1968, he joined the C.N.Fine Arts College to teach phtography on a nominal remuneration. It was a part-time job,but he used to devote full five days a week since his friend Rasiklal Parikh, a great painter, was the principal.

He had another passion– that of photographing Gujarati writers and poets of repute,even if he were not to earn a single paise from the work.He had a collection of some 250 such pictures of literary personalities,another invauable collection of which many do not know.

In his twilight years, he lived with his son and grand-son, relishing the rich memories."I had to face trials and tribulations, but my wife, Malti, who died  at the age of 75, stood by me like a rock. During my studies and illness in Vienna, it was she who looked after the family,as also when I went away to Bombay. Never did shegrumble about anything in our life. Both my sons, Upendra and Bipin too owe a lot to her."

Jaganbhai was different from other old achievers; he rarely said "I did this or I did that." Instead, he would say such and such work got done through him. His modesty was matched only by his generosity to give of his time ,experience and knowledge to other young professionals. :"Whatever one has learnt should be passed on to others. We should not become possessive, even of knowledge, wisdom or experience. Doing so gives me great pleasure in life.I am in the evening of my life, contented and happy to be with  family members. God has been greatly kind to me."  Vishwa Gurjari bestowed upon him the 1995 Gujarat Award ,commemoriating his achievements. By a sheer coincidence,this happened to the 125h birth anniversary year of the Mahatma.

The uncomplaining wizard left this world quietly. He never aspired fame and we the Gujarati people have ensured it that he remains in the small print in the footnotes of our history.The question still begs an answer: are we forgetful or ungrateful? God only knows. Hey Ram!!!