‘My Truth' by Narmad: Abhijit Kothari's much-needed translation of the first Gujarati autobiography

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15 hours ago

Narmadashankar Dave, or more popularly, Narmad, wrote the first autobiography in Gujarati titled Mari Hakikat in 1866 when he was 33. Narmad's book broke new ground in Gujarati, providing a template for self-writing as well as illuminating the upper-caste, male subjectivity during the rise of the reformist movement, technological advancement, and the accompanying consolidation of colonial rule.
Mari Hakikat, now available in an erudite English translation by Abhijit Kothari under the title My Truth, brings Narmad's radical work to non-Gujarati audiences. Narmad, credited with writing Jay Jay Garvi Gujarat, the unofficial anthem of the state, also published ten volumes of poetry and compiled the first comprehensive Gujarati dictionary, in addition to writing numerous essays. The autobiography, divided into ten chapters (which Narmad chooses to call 'Viram', or temporary stops), covers Narmad's ancestral origins, his childhood, his early education and financial struggles, his growing reputation as a poet and reformer, his relationship with different women (unnamed for the sake of anonymity) as well as his forays into the consumption of Bhang and Opium.
Narmad was also the first-ever Gujarati writer who sought to meet his financial needs solely through his writing, and, despite ups and downs, succeeded for a few years. For the non-Gujarati readers who may not be familiar with Narmad, the English translation acts as a time capsule and provides an insight into the mind of a growing poet and cultural reformer, revealing various personal and social forces that led to his copiousness. For those like me, who are familiar with Narmad's oeuvre, the translation forces us to confront questions of Narmad's literary and cultural legacy in the face of the rise of the Hindu right.
Portrait of a poet as a young man
Perhaps to best appreciate Narmad's work, one needs to see it as a coming-of-age story, given the fact that he was only 33 when he wrote his autobiography. The most attractive, and my personal favourite, parts of the autobiography are the ones where we see Narmad's growing consciousness as a poet, which happens in tandem with his sexual and political awakening.
Exposed to both English and Sanskrit poetry at a young age, Narmad was not serious about writing poetry until he was in his early twenties. Despite occasionally dabbling in writing verses, Narmad did not take poetry seriously until he was stirred by learning Wordsworth's various poems and William Falconer's poem 'The Shipwreck' at Elphinstone College. Later, he felt the same sense of pleasure and ecstasy on reading verses by Dheero Bhagat, a late 18th-century poet.
While he was still in College, Narmad had already faced various tragedies in his life, including the death of his mother, his child, and his first wife. Narmad candidly admits that writing poetry led to a catharsis and gave him much-needed peace of mind.
Once he takes poetry seriously, Narmad never stops. His early poems thematise various contemporaneous issues of reform, such as women's education, widowhood, and superstitions. The inspiring part of Narmad's journey as a poet is his willingness to go to lengths to learn the rules of prosody, metres, and other poetic techniques.
Narmad provides a detailed account of the letters he writes to his superiors, who could teach him prosody and poetics, and the discussions he carries on with his peers and superiors on the nature of good poetry. One of his frequent interlocutors is his senior contemporary poet Dalpatram, who was more famous in the Saurashtra and Ahmedabad regions of Gujarat. One can sense from the autobiography that Narmad uses Dalpatram as a foil to form his own poetic self. While Dalpatram was heavily inspired by traditional Gujarati forms of Garbis, Narmad takes Gujarati poetry into previously unexplored realms since, unlike Dalpatram, his inspirations were not the Bardic saints but contemporary British and ancient Sanskrit poets. Narmad supersedes Dalpatram in popularity, at least in major cities such as Surat and Bombay.
The Narmad–Dalpatram rivalry stands as an example of literary rivalries forged on mutual respect which ended up benefiting the literary culture at large. Their rivalry also stands as a painful reminder of the utterly disheartening state of the contemporary Gujarati literary scene, where no rivals exist, no rivalries exist, and where most writers either lose both their credibility and creativity in the institutional politics or feel disillusioned and stop writing altogether.
Former self, latter self
To date, Narmad remains a complex figure in Gujarati literary circuits since his early radical reformist position took a sharp U-turn later on. Disillusioned with the reformist movement towards the latter half of his life, not covered in the autobiography, Narmad changed most of his liberal positions to conservative ones and became an advocate for Hindu revivalism.
If read closely, one can see that the seeds of his conservatism are present in his early life. Narmad provides a detailed account of his ancestry and copiously records the caste, the sub-caste, the sub-sub-caste, and so on, which eventually led to his birth in the Nagar Brahmin family. In the early chapters, he records his belief in rituals and superstitions (which he advocated against in his youth) and repeatedly notes throughout his autobiography how his reformist stance came with the threat of getting ostracised by his caste members.
He also records his role in the Maharaj Libel case, now popular across India due to the recently released Bollywood film Maharaj, as well as the first widow remarriage that Narmad and his fellow reformers orchestrated, which eventually turned bitter and ended up failing. Importantly, he notes how his fellow reformers left him alone at various points and refused to stand up with him on issues related to reform. It may not be a stretch to assume that these experiences, mixed with various racist laws of the colonial state, could have acted as a catalyst for Narmad's disillusionment towards the reformist movement which was a by-product of colonial rule.
Although there is hardly anything to complain about Abhijit Kothari's lucid translation of Narmad's candid and direct prose, I cannot help but take issue with the critical introduction by Kothari. While it does provide a context for Narmad's life and times, it fails to engage with the above-mentioned, uncomfortable side of Narmad. The introduction celebrates Narmad's voluminous oeuvre, as well as his candid and confessional style, but when it comes to his latter life and the implications it has for the current state of both Gujarat and India, we are not given anything, except a finger pointed towards Tridip Suhrud's academic work on Narmad. A famous Gujarati saying goes: Angli Chindhyanu Punya, which refers to the virtue earned simply by pointing a finger in the right direction. In this case, I thought it was more of a missed opportunity.
These minor quibbles aside, Kothari's endeavour to bring a much-needed landmark literary work from Gujarati to English readers is a feat worth all the praise and applause.