Tej Narayan Kak - An
Appraisal
Translated
by M.L. Koul
TEJ NARAYAN KAK who was a writer, poet and deft
story writer practically died unwept, unsung and
unhonoured. His death on
14th December, 1998
at the ripe age of 84 in the city of
Jodhpur failed to earn media attention. Even the
literary circles perhaps not acquainted with his
trend-setting contributions to the domain of
Hindi prose did not moot a simple resolution to
condole his demise. In fact, the new generation
writers are totally unaware of Tej Naryan Kak
who commenced his literary career in post-Dwedi
era and made a mark as a pioneer in the
evolution of poetic prose as a specific genre.
Prose alone was not his forte. Tej Narayan
possessed a variegated genius which found
prolific expression in the delicacies of poetry,
in the subtle drawal of characters struggling in
tangled situations and more than most in the
incisive analysis of issues of criticism. His
contributions to the manifold forms of
literature were published in the contemporary
journals and magazines like Saraswati, Madhuri
and Sudha. The famous personalities of the
stature of Ram Chander Shukla, Shyam Sunder Das,
Maithili Sharan Gupta and Prem Chand were
unanimous in recognising the prolific genius and
tremendous creative faculities of Tej Narayan
Kak.
The ancestors of Tej Narayan Kak had migrated to
the heat and dust of plains during the
tyrannical rule of Afghans in
Kashmir.
An ancestor of the family, Shiva Narayan Kak,
had migrated from the lust-green valley with a
view to saving his skin and faith and had
settled in the desert lands of Marwar in
Rajasthan. The grand-father of Tej Narayan Kak
was a man of high degree status who strutted the
corridors of power in Jaipur and Udaipur. His
uncle. Pandit Dharam Narayan Kak, was the Deputy
Chief Miinister of the State of Jodhpur and
continued to hold the position till 1946. Having
been born in such an aristocratic family, Tej
Narayan was well looked after and put to
educative processes in the reputed schools and
colleges of Allahabad, Lucknow and Nagpur. In
addition to a degree in Law, he assiduously
earned post-graduate degrees in English and
Hindi. With such educational endowments he
joined the administrative services of the state
of
Jodhpur
and retired as an IAS officer in 1972.
Tej Narayan took to writing prose right from his
student days. He wrote poetic prose which had
taken birth in the Dwedi era and flowered as an
independent genre during the romantic period. In
the domain of poetic prose.
Tej Narayan Kak enjoyed an equal footing with
the pioneers of the genre namely Rai Krishan Das,
Chatur Sen Shastri, Dr Raghunath Singh and Mrs
Dinesh Dalmia. Poetic prose is characterized by
the predominance of Rasa and sensibility and can
be differentiated from simple prose by its
attributes of music, ornamentation and Rasa.
‘Madira’ as his first collection of poetic prose
was published in 1935. Two more collections
titled as ‘Nirjar’ and ‘Pashan’ were published
in 1943 and earned tremendous appreciation from
scholarly cricles. Acharya Ram Chander Shukla
fully appreciated and lauded the musical prose
that Tej Narayan Kak wrote with absolute
finesse. Dr Shaym Sunder Das as an erudite
scholar and dojen of Hindi literature placed his
‘prose songs’ in an incomparable category, much
superior to those who wrote the same type of
prose. In his introduction to one of his poetic
prose collections Dr Amar Nath Jha candidly
appreciated the beauty, ornamentation and
subtlety of his writings. Dilating on some
samples of his prose Dr Jha lavished all praise
on the author for the lucidity of his expression
and enrobement of his prose with romantic
sentiments and nuances. Tej Narayan Kak started
writing short-stories in a period dominated by
the awe-inspiring personality of Prem Chand who
was a skilled craftsman none to excel him. He
won full-throated appreciation as a story
writer. His story ‘Myna’ was rated as the best
at a short-story session held at the Prayag
University Campus in 1935. The Sudha, Saraswati,
Madhuri and other journals and magazines went on
publishing his short stories till the fourth
decade of this century. He was also a master
translator. He translated the short stories of
Oscar Wilde, Edgar Allen Poe and O’Henry. Tej
Narayan was also a poet who had a full feel of
his timers. He wrote the patriotic poems after
the pattern of poets following the trend set by
the prime mover of the era. He also wrote poems
pervading with romantic sentiments. Till 1947
his three poetry collections titled as ‘Bansuri’,
‘Mukhti Ki Mashal’ and ‘Jeewan Jwala’ had been
published and had drawn attention and
appreciation on the part of literary masters.
‘Rakhta Kamal’ contains poems that are replete
with patriotic, zeal and fervour. The poet
sticks fast to the view that freedom does not
come on mere asking but has to be earned with
the spilling of blood.
Kis se padi hai jo aayega
Sat Samandar par!
Tere liye layega
Anupam swatantrata uphar!
Kabi kisi ne kutch paya hai
Anunany kar kar hath pasar!
Mukhti milegee tuje hath mai
Tere jag hogi talwar!
Who bothes to come to you
across the seven oceans.
Who minds to come to you
with the unique gift of freedom
Has anyone achieved anything
with hands spread outlike a beggar?
You will gain freedom
when you wield a sword fearlessly.
In the poems of ‘Rakhta Kamal’ Dr Prabhakar
Machwe found the tendencies of progressivism
which at a later date came to hold sway over the
entire realms of poetic expressions. Dr Gulab
Rai felt in them the bubbling spirit of
revolution. Dr Ram Kumar Verma was so deeply
impacted by the poems that he felt obliged to
evaluate them as superb in conception and
execution. Tej Narayan Kak as a sensitive poet
could not avoid the impact of a new trend of
poetry which came to be termed as ‘Chayavad’ in
the annals of Hindi poetry. In reality, his
poetry was multi-layered and multi-coloured. He
wrote poems brimming with sensuousness
reflecting the deep influence of poets like
Bihari and others. He harnessed his poetic
faculties and sensitivities to translate
excellent poems from many other regional
languages. Some such poems are found in his
anthology titled as ‘Vichitra’ published in
1949. The poems that are soaked in maddening
love relationships between man and woman are a
hall-mark of his poetic sensitivities.
In vastrui mai chippi huee
tumhari dehyashti
Aaisi lag rahi hai mano
Jeene megui ke aavaran mai
Chippi huee vidut-lata-ya
Neel sarowar kee lahriyi mai bal khati hui kamal
naal!
In these garments lies hidden
your body-form
and
appears as if the lightning-creeper
is hidden in a thin covering of clouds
or
Looks like a lotus-stalk
moving to and fro in the blue waters of a lake.
He has seen the rapturous joy of man-woman
relationships in the background setting of
nature and its sights and sound and he writes-
I am a man
I yearn for the company of a woman.
See that tree
It has entwined a vine, slend and thin,
round its burning bosom.
See that vast expanse of an ocean
it hides numerous youth-bubbling
streams in its lap.
The horizon of the poet encompasses manifold
emotions, feelings and stirring sentiments. He
imagines of love-fires of his beloved in the
descending shadows of dusk and of dense
hair-plaits of his love in the dense dark
watches of night.
This evening
is colourful like your love
but has the potential to burn.
and this night
is intense dark like your hair-locks.
Tej Narayan Kak gave forceful vent to his
patriotic fervour in his poetic outpourings and
followed the style of romantic poets. It
appeared that he would find it immensely
difficult to put his feelings, felt and lived,
in Braj which had found extreme refinement at
the hands of Surdas. Surprisingly, Kak wrote in
Braj and made it a plastic medium for the
expression of love, sensuous and voluptuous, in
a manner that he rivals Bihari, a brilliant poet
of the erotica. The dohas that he has written in
Braj are original and vivacious yet they are
deeply impacted by the style, manner and thought
content of Bihari.
Tej Narayan Kak made successful attempts at
translating poems and metaphors into Hindi from
their originals in regional languages. He
translated the ‘Nasidiya Sukta’ into Hindi and
also the hymns addressed to ‘Indra’, ‘Agni’,
‘Usha’s’ & ‘Surya’. He was deft at translating
poems from European languages into Hindi. George
Russel, Robert Frost and Davis are some of the
European poets whom he has translated into
Hindi, thus enriching the native languages
through such translations. He was highly
enamoured of Rabindra Nath Tagore whom he has
profusely translated. He was also influenced by
Urdu poetry which gets reflected in some of his
dohas written in Hindi or Braj. Tej Narayan Kak
is known for his experiments in the field of
essay-writing and critical appreciation. His
essays are collected in a work titled ‘Indradanush’.
He has also evaluated four prose-writers of
Hindi in a work published in 1983. He was fully
aware of the tools that make one a successful
critic of literature. Kak lived his life away
from public gaze. That is how his death did not
get splashed in the media.
Source: Kashmir
Sentinel
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