EXT2---OLD ENGLISH

 Pragyansharma  Polavarapu

I write a few more lines about my very limited reading habit. About the few  English books of high literary merit, some  old classical works which secured permanent place on library racks and in hearts.

 (a)The immortal works of  Shakespeare with their old  medieval world charm and majestic movement of words and phrases and equally great magical (spiritual/philosophic /poetic) meaning 

(b) The nature descriptions  of Wordsworth with mighty jolly smiling  nature filling all the poet’s canvas

( c ) Sir Walter Scott with  knights and warriors riding the horse at wind speed(some times kidnapping a loved woman warrior-like ,some times rescuing  an isolated warrior fallen and suffering on the wayside, the warriors seen galloping on speedy steeds on  special trescue missions  passing  thick forests among hills and dales and beside the fast  streams or placid lakes

(d)Jane Austen describing beautiful home scenes as in modern day TV serials and weaving stories with feminine charm and patience and fairy like charm and also criticizing society with a sharp mind

(e)Thomas Hardy with his most beautiful old rural scenes and weaving stories like the ancient greek tragic dramatists

(f)John Galsworthy  in  his simple easy modern racy English language  demonstrating beauty of modern English and writing with a kind and cultured heart and mind and creating modern day urban family life taking us sometimes completely out of medieval sceneries( as in the voluminous “Foresyte saga”).

I can not also forget Robin Hood , Treasure Island , Prisoner of Zenda, Prince and Pauper and Robinson Crusoe. I read in times decades back the first two novels in abridged editions atleast ten times each . I can proudly say I  read the unabridged  wonderful novel Robinson Crusoe (in Everyman’s library cloth-bound edition ). It is such a wonderful philosophical novel of a brave lonely shipwrecked soldier  in forest  living fearlessly  in  a cave for years with  gun  on his side . I saw the full length celluloid versions of Treasure Island and Prisoner of Zenda  on internet.But the wonderful thing I note in English novels is long nature descriptions of indescribable beauty in every novel –whether Thomas Hardy, RL Stevenson, Sir Walter Sscott or Daniel Defoe or even Sir Arthur Connon Doyle (in the wonderful adventure novel Sir Nigel). The stories are so cultured unlike the  violent, unscientific and ludicrous scenes in  some modern TV and cinema products . Ten lifetimes will not be enough to finish off the unabridged editions of classical novels (cloth bound editions of Everyman’s library)

 I took this  extremely interesting topic of English partly for my personal pleasure and joy and  to reminisce over my old  reading habits of some good  English books. Let me submit to my readers,most respectfully, my undiminished  interest  in old english lore in spite of my main interest in science and technology--- space technology, physics and chemistry  and computer science .

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There is a no time for reading books when one is in a busy government  job from morning to evening counting money at busy cash counter or checking monetary vouchers on line and clicking “enter” to record the transaction in the central computer’s digital brain, deciding the legality and technicalities in public complaint cases by minutely examining with the aid of the ruling manuals .  My morning on   many  days in those times of government service was   spent in glancing newspapers, reading one or two  editorial articles, science articles etc.There were also in library  great books in English by Indian authors and philosophers and statesmen like Rabindranath  Tagore, Swamy Vivekananda,  Aurobindo Ghosh, Dr Radhakrishnan ,Jawaharlal Nehru etc. There were  other great writers like Anand Koomaraswamy ( “Dance of Shiva”), Raja  Rao (“Serpent and the rope”),RK Narayan creator of Malgudi village in his immortal novels.  I only glanced through a few pages of many. But I read auto biographies of Mahatma Gandhi (My Experiments with Truth), Rabindranath Tagore and Jawaharlal Nehru.Who can forget Mulk Raj Anand’s short story “The Lost Child”, Dr Rabindranath Tagore’s “Babus of Nayanjore”or “Hungry Stones”  or his complex novel “Gora”. All the above  works all  were  in  English and gained fame at international level.There are too  other books of extreme beauty  and extreme importance in the old Indian situation of conservatism, poverty and exploitation . They were written in Indian languages-- like novels of Sarath Chandra chatterji and Munshi Prem Chand and soon were translated several times into all languages of India . I read completely Dr Tagore’s Nobel Prize winning Geethanjali (famous in world English literature) and Dr Rajagopala Chary’s English Ramayan and Mahabharatha . Dr Rajagopalachary’s works are  reportedly popular even in some American universities for their moral and philosophical depth and are prescribed as supplementary readers in universities.

There are hundreds of great authors in modern Indian languages. One wishes they also focus their sharp minds on non-poetry subjects like economy, science and  technology, foreign affairs ,world pollution,world militarism, nuclear wars,world trade ,world peace etc instead of writing only love poems and fairy stories. All major Indian languages have  great traditional literature developed since more than 1000 years but the terminology is tough and mythology –oriented . The terminology in all Indian   languages has to be modernized . The builders of modern versions in these languages  should  develop  a standardized people’s spoken language. Such a standard version of language has to be used even for university teaching of sciences and science research and thesis writing .English language,  since times of  Dr Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) was simplified, modernized and standardized by him and many other outstanding linguists and writers and essayists and  that is why it acquired such preeminent position in world . Let us hope  that  such efforts in all major Indian languages also take place to develop standardized spoken versions. Slowly the TV  medium in all Indian languages is taking all writers in that direction—to create a beautiful perfect standardized language using mainly vernacular words and not loading with un-understandable Sanskrit words. Such  sanitization of  spoken langauages is urgently necessary to speed up  progress of major Indian languages.

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I recollect  again  for my spiritual pleasure some  classical   English works of literature which continues to dazzle the world with their  beauty. Some books I only half read and glanced through first twenty, fifty or hundred pages. I read only concise stories of some novels.  I studied literary reviews. Now in the TV/computer/Internet days I  read dozens  of short reviews of books national and international. My interest is only on science,  economic reconstruction of India and educational and scientific and technical development of India.My reading is so very limited  ---Wordsworth( The Solitary Reaper, Lucy Gray), John Keats ( the wondaful poem “La Belle Dame sans Merci”),Lord Tennyson ,the poet laureate of his time  ( Lady Clare ,Lotus Eaters   ),Shelley(the great  poems “Wild West Wind” and “Skylark”), the famed critic Mathew Arnold (“The Forsaken Merman) . I also remember well two other poems. One is the poem full of music  “Song for St Cecilia’s Day 1687” . It was written by the great poet   John Dryden (1631-1700),poet laureate of England of his time. The other is “The Deserted Village “ by Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774)—a poem about how village crafts were destroyed when the Industrial Revolution descended. 

I may again add that  we have great poets and thinkers of  unparalleled  splendor, beauty , sensitivity  and artistic excellence in both ancient India and modern India .Saint Valmiki and incomparable Kalidasa in ancient India and the Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore. Rabindranath tagore and Mahatma Gandhi had mutual admiration. Tagore was also a guide and philosopher to Jawaharlal Nehru the first Prime Minister of independent India. There are hundreds of highly talented writers in all the Indian languages . One wishes and prays that they write serious material about necessity of a new moral world culture of high morality, equality and  scientific reasoning  and not love poetry and domestic fantasies.

While writing of classical English literature , all our  praise goes to the great  William Shakespeare—one of the greatest writers of world. John Milton too is such a forceful author with a spiritual and moralistic  puritan base . I fully read end to end some good  classical books — Sir Nigel ,Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe,  Pride and Prejudice, The Mmayor of Castorbridge, Razor’s Edge, Foresyte Saga. I  read “ War and Peace” of Count Leo Tolstoy (the great Russian writer-philosopher considered as one of the greatest writers of world).  The book  reminds us of the  great ancient Indian epic Mahabharata . The Russian novel too  has stories of both happy and troubled times in lives of princes in all pervading aristocratic environment  . Then an endless picture of  terrible war and sadness . The novel teaches the sad philosophy of life in the world of  princes and aristocrats .

I also enjoyed reading a voluminous book “ Mary,Queen of Scots” a nice bulky book which tells of the tragic story of the  young rebellious Scottish queen finally sentenced to death. I read some parts of sir Winston Churchil’s  “History of Second World War”( in four volumes  I  remember ). It  contains rare war documents and war photos. To read it is a great experience.

 I read science novels of HG Wells and Jules Verne.  All my reading  was possible because of a magnificient “District Central Library “ near to our house in a district town near south Indian city of Hyderabad. It was a gold mine of English books suitable even for university research scholars. It had majestic buildings with big halls,long pillared verandas and glass faced cabinets with encyclopedias and other reference books and above all many steel racks cloth bound English novels .There was an equally huge section of Telugu language works of great excellence. We had national and international journals. Later a big Internet section with tens of computer terminals was added. Really a heaven like reading place . I remember I could visit it for about two decades.

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I “came across” great novelists  only in the library hall--- Tolstoy,, John Galsworthy ,  Thomas Hardy  , Charles Dickens , Sir Walter Scott , Somerset Maugham , Jane Austen etc . But all my reading is   very little.I read some work of dr Samuel Johnson one of  the builder of modern English language . I read the famous biography of Dr Johnson  by James Boswell . I cannot forget Sir Roger de Coverly -- not any real person  but an imaginary eccentric character who frequented the  famed imaginary “Spectator Club”. Addisson and Steele the great essayists who wrote wonderful essays in sweet and majestic style and made the Spectator Club permanently famous in English literature. There are great modern essayists  creating nice  modern English styles like AG Gardner, Robert Lynd etc .I came across their essays in my college  years in the prescribed compilations. I just read one or two poems of Rupert Brooke (1887-1915) a famed  poet of time of first World War who died very young . He was a very sensitive poetic minded  person. He fought in the war in British army.He was deeply affected by the tragedy of the colossal world war. His poems too possess  flower like sensitivity. I remember reading the most beautiful poem “Silver” by Walter De La Mare. I read it now in internet and find the small poem so enchanting. “Silver fruit on silver tree…”  “Silver claws and a silver eye…”

Then who can forget the great American authors-- the  Wild West novels and novels dealing with American wars with Red Indians. We also  come across  many valiant fearless  Red Indians in the novels . I can not forget the travel diary “Oregon Trail”(1804)  authored by two daring college students (Lewis and Clark). I tasted writings of fine  authors like Nathaniel Hawthorne ,Walt Whitman and Edgar Ellen Poe but only to very small extent.  I am happy to say I read “Huckleberry Finn” most completely! It is a most enjoyable story written a rather colloquial stle by Mark Twain . It describes the beautiful childish mischievous ebullient  mentality of a little village boy . I have only vague remembrance of the book. I read a few pages of Ralph Waldo Emerson the philosophic writer. I  read “The Walden” by Henry David  Thoreau  a great nature lover like William wirdsworth and mystic philosopher .I read “Hiawatha’s  Song” written by  H.W.Longfellow. It is a most beautiful story of life of a red Indian  boy from childhood to becoming a youthful warrior and his  dialogues with wind gods etc .Recently I got hold of the poetry work of the most famous American poet Robert  Frost of modern times writing about the modern urban, industrial  world in a understanding optimistic way. He also exihibits a beautiful love for nature and love for human morality and simplicity. He represents not only modern English or modern USA but modern 20^th/21^st century global world also. His work is  intellectual and  pacifying and philosophical. President Kennedy praised him as the most important representative writer of modern USA. His poem “ The woods are lovely dark and deep, But I have promices to keep..” is justly famous.

My gathering knowledge decades back was through paper-made books and “real” newspapers and radio. I like others used the  old band -radio in beginning . Later the transistor radio  brought  crystal- clear newscasts from Hyderabad and New Delhi (AIR), London( BBC),America (VOA)! One felt the correspondents sat beside you in sofa. But after the TV  came  short wave radio transmissions are badly affected .It  is now only through  computer, internet, ipad ,TV to search for  inspiring ideas coming through English the lingua franca of modern world. My present habit is to sit for hours at computer to write small articles on  science, history, computer ,temple travel,other travel etc.