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Great literary traditions leave their indelible imprint on succeeding
generations of people, writers and scholars. In India, the two great epics,
Ramayana and Mahabharata, have formed the nucleus of literary inspiration for
several millennia. The stories within the central epics have provided themes for
numerous dramatic verse – poems and tales. The Greek epics, Iliad and Odyssey,
have been the inspiration of many plays and stories in Europe for three thousand
years, especially during the Renaissance. Later, stories from the Holy Bible
provided literary themes. Nordic Sagas and Eddas have influenced the literature
of northern Europe. As the western classical musical tradition evolved, numerous
compositions drew their sources from ancient and medieval ballads.
Sometimes great literary traditions influence people beyond political and
cultural frontiers. In the days of Arab eminence, when splendid literature
blossomed in Damascus, Baghdad and Moorish Spain, folktales and legends from
China and India found their way into the works of Arab poets and storytellers.
These stories from the Orient also found their way into Russian and Eastern
European literature. Similarly, Shakespeare drew on Hellenic classical legends
for his plays. Perhaps it is the universality of themes that make such
assimilation possible. The literature of the 18th and 19th centuries, influenced
by exposure to new civilizations, power and wealth, idealism and rebellion,
created a new literary consciousness in the five continents – Asia, Europe,
Africa, and North and South America.
Growing up in England, Italy and America gave me the good fortune of such an
exposure. I was fortunate that in my mother, Leela, who, while being deeply
rooted in Hinduism and Sanskrit, was keen to learn from the alien ambiences
where my father’s diplomatic assignments took him. My father Moni Moulik, and my
husband Mohandas Moses, possessed something of the Renaissance man. They could
traverse many cultural worlds without losing their own cultural identities.
Listening to these two men discuss books and events were feasts for the mind
though each had his special predilection that sometimes provoked the other to
acrimony. However, all three were unanimous in their declaration that Lev
Tolstoy and Rabindranath Tagore were literary titans of the millennium. On the
subject of the great playwrights, there were diverse views though Eugene O’Neil
and Luigi Pirandello had the lead.
Being votaries of Rabindranath Tagore, we were guided and inspired by his
message – to be a “wayfarer in many lands.” So, along with my work on Russian
subjects, I read, researched and wrote Immortals of Italian Literature, Eldorado
Revisited – A Spanish Chronicle, Captors of Time – Monuments of the Millennium
and Literary Titans of the Millennium. These works deal with the literary
traditions and physical heritage of numerous civilizations. While writing these
books and editing my husband’s book (after he passed away) Dialogue of
Civilizations, I realized the wide affinity that exists between different
cultures even when they are in conflict.
At the grand ceremony in the picturesque town of Nizhni Novgorod where I, along
with several other non-Russians specializing in Russian studies, received the
prestigious Pushkin Medal from President Dmitry Medvedev, several Russian
press-persons asked me what evoked my interest in Russia. Paradoxically, I told
them that my introduction to Russia was through Rabindranath Tagore’s Letters
from Russia, which my father gave me to read as we were flying over the Atlantic
Ocean on the way to Washington where he was posted. With a seven year old logic,
I assumed that we were on our way to Russia. Why else should I have been given
this rather difficult book to read? Much of Tagore’s insightful travelogue was
then beyond my understanding, but I liked the description of Russia – of snow
and forests and rolling steppes. Landing in New York, I was bewildered by the
skyscrapers and glittering lights. When I questioned my mother, she informed me
with elaborate patience – we were now in America. But the distant land of snow
slumbered in my imagination and came alive when I saw the display of Russian
culture.
The cultural events of the fortieth anniversary of the Russian Revolution burst
upon London with a splendour that provoked the reserved and undemonstrative
Britons to something like ecstasy. My father was then posted at London, and due
to the warming relations between Russia and India, his counterpart in the Soviet
Embassy sent him regular invitations to these glittering performances. British
audiences were dazzled by the display of colour, music and vivacity of a people
who were still shrouded in mystery. Young people began to learn the Russian
language; there was renewed interest in Russian authors whom the world had
forgotten (such as Goncharov) and a cautious curiosity in Soviet literature. I
remember the long queues at cinema houses to see the screening of film based on
Sholokhov’s famous novel of the revolution and civil war, Quiet Flows the Don.
The grandeur of Russian culture, buried in the snow of revolution and terrible
wars, resurfaced in the spring thaw of the 1960’s and influenced writers both in
India and the West.
My return to India and entry into the Indian Administrative Service, and
inability to continue Russian language lessons in the districts, might have
diverted me from Russian studies were it not for my husband who had read Russian
classics and the country’s history. By training he was an economist and
mathematician, but he had a lifelong romance with literature. It was at my
husband’s suggestion that I wrote my first book – Silhouettes of Russian
Literature and once more, the play Pushkin’s Last Poem which was performed in
Moscow and Petersburg in 2009 during the Year of India in Russia.
I began reading Alexander Pushkin’s verse-novels and stories when I was sixteen.
He described dramatic events and powerful men with the same concern as he dealt
with humble people. Pushkin’s gentle humanism and reckless courage are reflected
in his works, and was like a pole star to aspiring writers.
When I started writing The Conquerors – a novel that describes the coming of the
British to India and the intertwining of the destinies of two families (one
British and one Indian) – I read Tolstoy’s War and Peace all over again to learn
how to weave historical characters with fictional ones and how to create a
panorama of events as a backdrop to the story without letting those events dwarf
the characters. Perhaps the success of my novel was due to what I learnt.
Sholokhov’s Quiet Flows the Don (along with Prince Giuseppe Lampedusa’s The
Leopard) have been my guide for the novel on which I am working because this
Russian novel is set in modern times portraying the predicament of people caught
in the maelstrom of dramatic events – something I am trying to depict in
contemporary India.
Russian literature has been shaped as much by her tumultuous history as by her
vast terrestrial space, her long bleak winters and the magic of her luminous
summer nights. Standing at the confluence of Europe and Asia, her culture has an
eclectic quality. It has a universality that touches responding chords in
readers whatever his or her creed and colour. Like Greek and Indian epics,
Russian literature dwells on the grand themes of human destiny, suffering and
triumph. These themes never go out of fashion and are a perennial inspiration
for serious writers.
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