Madhubani Painting with Maithili Writers
Image Courtesy: Vivekanand Jha

Maithili Literature Tomorrow: Some Reflexions

Literature in this new age is not afraid to ask questions or sit in protests. It does not need a ritual or a festival to call for celebration, but its joyful reaction could come up at the slightest success in sewing or intertwining words. It is not interested in history but is constantly contributing to events that may turn out to be important milestones in history. It knows that there is no way it can hide itself. Today’s critics would accord primacy to the texts as written, and as they are recited, enacted, narrated or performed – but they would still be willing to go beyond the confines of the textual boundaries, and travel through the bye-lanes of politics or social contexts. They are also greatly interested in the inter-textuality that connects today’s authors with yesterday’s, or the authors here with those who can be anywhere else. Today, the ‘authorial intents’ are as important as the readers’ readings or interpretations, because the authors today are neither ‘dead’ nor ‘alive.’ They are like any other member of her speech community proposing to be understood; or, even misunderstood.

The problems and challenges we are to face in 2020 is not what we saw in 1950s and 1960s. The pain of dismemberment of a Greater Indian Cultural entity was multiplied by the most massive population dislocation in human history, a crisis that is an entirely politically crafted. People had to leave their natural habitat and establishments and institutions to migrate to an unknown terrain which spoke in a different voice. A variety of unknown languages and unspoken dialects welcomed them with very little prospect of regaining the lost life-style and comfort of home. There was a great space crunch, making it difficult to find a workable shelter, and added to that was a man-made “famine”-like situation. They had already lost all prestige and honor as they were made homeless overnight, and a large number of women in their family had to face unprecedented humiliation. The situation had worsened with a direct military confrontation between India and her newly established neighbor. Bengal being so close to Mithila region, there were repercussions here too. Also, the agitation and the anxiety for one’s own mother-tongue that prevailed in Bengal in early 50s also inspired Mithila to a great extent. Many of our earlier generation writers felt that they were connected to this crisis. The impetus to Maithili movement came from a number of groups and organizations that were located there. In performing arts and theatre, Maithili found its natural ally in Bengal at that time, as one witnessed emergence of some great theatre directors and celluloid story-tellers around that time. There was also a spurt in creative writing in Hindi from different regions, and it was not surprising that many of our own authors (such as Yatri/Nagarjun and Rajkamal Choudhary) also turned out to be best known authors in Hindi at that time. I recall a parallel development at that time all around Mithila. Inspired by the ilk of Satinath Baduri of Bengali, we find a talented Maithili author, Phaniswarnath Renu making his mark in Hindi fiction world around this time with Maila Anchal (The Soiled Linen, 1954) and Parti Parikatha (Story of the Barren soil, 1957), etc.

Coming to 1950s we find a renewed interest in play-writing in Maithili. It was at this time that many   good plays were written and produced.  They  included  Ishanath Jha’s  Cinik laDDu (1947, popularized in the ‘50s), Sharadananda  Jha’s Pheraar (1950), Parameshwar Mishra’s  TriveNi (1950), Yogananda Jha’s Munik matibhram (1953), Krishnakant Mishra’s Atma maryada (1953), Kanchinath Jha  Kiran’s Jay janmabhuumi (1955), Chandranath Mishra Amar’s Samadhan  (1955)  and Harishchandra Jha Harish’s Chiik (1956).  But by and large, the spurt in writing and production of plays that we witness in Maithili after 1960s was not witnessed during the 1950s. The plays from Bangla (Chor), Hindi (Anher Nagari) and French (Premak Rog) translated and introduced by Prabodh Narayan Singh also enriched our performing arts scene then.

Even in essays, serious work in and on Maithili was emerging with Subhadra Jha’s (1958) The Formation of Maithili and Jayakanta Mishra’s A History of Maithili Literature (1956) as well as Rajeshwar Jha’s book on History of Maithili’s Tirhuta writing system. Subhadra Jha did for Maithili what Suniti Kumar Chatterji had done for Bengali in 1926 with his monumental work – the ODBL. Mishra repeated the feat of Dinesh Chandra Sen, Haraprasad Shastri and R C Majumdar of Bengal a few decades ago. A few other scholars in Maithili who began making impact during this period, but whose major books on literary theory appeared after 1956, the cut-off period mentioned by Prof Sisir Kumar Das: For example, Durgananda Jha ‘Sreesh’ (Sahitya vimarsha, 1959), Umanath Jha (Alochana:  samakalin pravritti) and Damodar Jha (when he analysed the Bhakti movement) reproduced the arguments of the traditional western scholars and the views of the Marxist critics.

By 1961, when the Hungry Generation Movement took the cultural establishment of Bengal by storm, we find in Maithili the ‘Akavitaa’ movement gained ground with ‘Aakhar’ initially (led by Keertinarayan Mishra and others) and ‘Agnipatra’ (Ramlochan Thakur and Virendra Mallik) later in the ‘60s. The ilk of Brajakishor Verma ‘Manipadma’ focusing on folk epics and performances of the downtrodden for his topic of fiction, Somdev depicting abject poverty of Mithila, Jeevkant bringing in the beauties and realities of life in Mithila’s villages, and Ramanand Renu starting to write his short fiction fell in this category in Maithili. Although Yatri (Nagarjun) had begun writing fiction with his Maithili novel Paro in 1933, his Navturiaa (1954) and Balchanmaa (1967) established him as a progressive novelist who writes in an inimitable style. Although Rajkamal Chowdhury’s novel, Adikathaa (1958) appeared almost at the fag-end of his career, his stories began appearing in print much earlier some of which were published in the form of an anthology Kathaa  paraag (1958).  And his other well received work during this phase was – Lalkaa paag (1968). At the opposite end of these serious writers stood a serious philosopher Pt Harimohan Jha who wrote extremely readable and hilarious satires and comedy. Beginning with his collection Rangashala (1949), his Tirtha yatra (1953), Gappak phoRan (1954), Carcarii (1960) and KhaTTar Kakak tarang (1967) brought in much-needed smile in the poverty-ridden Mithila.

Given these changes in the way we would like to understand ‘literature of tomorrow,’ Muse India 88 will focus on new thinking patterns of the authors writing in Maithili – as to which way they would like to take their writings to, given the many different models in a multicultural and multilingual Indian scenario. The challenge is to involve those powerful writers in Maithili who live in villages and small towns where publication would still mean journals in print as they have no access to internet, computer or smartphones. Further, it is also difficult to ask the select authors in Maithili to opine or argue or defend in a language that is not theirs but a medium that would take them to a larger audience or readership.

The rich offerings on Maithili literature in translation is now available to readers through this Volume 88 (Nov-Dec 2019) of Muse India in which we have Poetry (15), Short Stories (5), Articles including Editorial (7), Interviews (2) and a One-Act play from twenty-eight authors/ translators. They include the following:

Kavivar Sitaram Jha, Kashikant Mishra ‘Madhup’, Baidyanath Mishra ‘Yatri’, Chandra Nath Mishra ‘Amar’, Kanchinath Jha ‘Kiran’, Rajkamal Choudhary,  Ramdeo Jha,  Dhumketu, Rajmohan Jha, Ramanand Renu, Chandramani Jha, Ashok, Ayodhyanath Choudhary, Harishchandra ‘Harit’, R C Jha, Ramesh Ranjan, Rajnish Mishra, Kaushal Kishore,  Arunabh Saurabh, Raja Nand Jha and Udaya Narayana Singh ‘Nachiketa’.

The contributors have written the articles afresh for our readers on relevant topics – ranging from highlighting Medieval patronage to Maithili writing and performing, on Vidyapati as well as on two leading luminaries of Maithili – Surendra Jha ‘Suman’ and Kashikant Mishra ‘Madhup’. ‘The Maithili Literature between Language and Dialect’ by the blogger-author Kaushal Kishore is an interesting literary piece looking at the dichotomy of language/dialect issue.

How we wish we had received more texts from women authors-translators who have been making very significant contributions in Maithili these days. But perhaps a separate volume may be required to be planned under the Muse India e-journal for them.

Besides the three editors, other translators included Bhairweshwar Jha, Murari Madhusudan Thakur, and Prabhat Jha. The likes of Raja Nand Jha, R C Jha, ‘Nachiketa’ and Ayodhyanath Choudhary appear as both authors and translators. There is no doubt that the two in-depth interviews of prominent authors, Chandranath Mishra ‘Amar’ and Ramdeo Jha will enriched our understanding of the background of Maithili literature. Of course, the poets of different generations, have articulated their concern on a number of themes as included in the anthology with a focus on futuristic thought that could see the ‘Writings on the wall’. 

VOLUME EDITORS:

Udaya Narayana Singh ‘Nachiketa’ | unsciil@yahoo.com  | 9434050218

Vivekanand Jha |  jha.vivekanand7@gmail.com

Bhaskaranand Jha Bhaskar | bhaskaranjha@gmail.com | 82405 29390