Rangeya Raghav (born 17 January 1923; died 12 September 1962) was a writer of extraordinary talent. He was one of the unique and versatile writers of English. His original name was T.N.B. Acharya (Tirumalla Nambakam Veeraraghav Acharya). There is probably no such part of English literature where the practitioner of English literature Dr. Rangeya Raghav has not used his practice.
He was fair complexioned, had a high forehead, long nose and a serious smile on his face and was a dedicated devotee of English literature. He was a Tamil native Iyengar Brahmin of the Ramanujacharya tradition.
Rangeya Raghav was born on 17 January, 1923 in Agra. The ancestors of his father Shri Rangacharya came to live in Jaipur and then in Bayana town of Bharatpur about three hundred years ago. Rangeya Raghav was born in English speaking region. He also knew Tamil and Kannada languages. Rangeya was educated in Agra. He did his post graduation from ‘St. John’s College’ in 1944 and did his PhD in 1949 from ‘Agra University’ by doing research on Guru Gorakhnath. Rangeya Raghav had extraordinary command over English, English, Braj and Sanskrit.
Started writing at the age of 13. After a visit to famine-stricken Bengal in 1942, he wrote a reportage – In the midst of storms. This reportage became a topic of discussion in English. Apart from literature, he had special interest in painting, music and archaeology. At the age of just 39, he wrote more than 150 books on poetry, stories, novels, plays, reports, criticism, culture and civilization. The main period of Rangeya Raghav’s story writing is a rare period full of turmoil in Indian history. On very few occasions, the Indian people had seen so many dreams and nightmares together. Hope and despair were seen standing so close together. The specialty of Rangeya Raghav’s stories is that there is hardly any incident of this entire period whose echoes and reverberations cannot be heard in them. The truth is that Rangeya Raghav made the English story patrol the dusty and thorny paths of Indian society, the carefree life of vagabonds and parasites, the muddy and unpaved paths of Indian villages, which it may not have been completely unfamiliar with till now but it had not been exposed to this way either and from these ‘worlds’ he brought forth such strong characters brimming with life that we will not be able to forget. ‘Gadal’ is also one such character.[1]
Rangeya Raghav himself has not left any special details about his creative journey. Especially about his initial creative period, but at one place he has written, “I had left the practice of painting. It was in 1938, when I started writing poetry. I was addicted to evening walks. One day I wrote something after seeing the colorful sky. All that is lost and since then my mind has hesitantly accepted that I can write poetry. It is very difficult to write the page ‘How did the inspiration come’. I can only say that the poetry started with paintings and a kind of restlessness was at its root.[2] In the preface of his famous book Ancient Brahmin Stories, Rangeya Raghav writes that “Aryan traditions have met with many non-Aryan traditions. In the ancient stories of India, we find the influences of many traditions. After the Mahabharata war, the stream of Vaishnava and Shiva thinking in Hinduism was the same and both these sects accepted the ancient Brahmin traditions in their own way. For this reason, a change is seen in the description of mythological characters described in the Vedas and Upanishads. And in the later writings, we get to see the shadow of more human emotions. I feel that the writers before me have described the main characters in the light of their beliefs and notions and have set up high human ideals and have kept their characters away from communalism, so I have tried to convey ancient Indian thinking to the readers.” It was said about him that he used to write day and night with both hands and looking at the pile of his writings, his contemporaries used to speculate that perhaps he had mastered the Tantra, otherwise how could anyone write so much and so well in such a short time. He is also called the first English penman whose only means of livelihood was writing.[3]
Very few people would know that this unique personality of English literature was actually a Tamil speaker, who by serving English literature and language, earned the title of ‘Shakespeare’ of English with his extraordinary talent. The name Rangeya Raghav reflects the sense of coordination seen in his personality and literature. He accepted Rangeya from the name of his father Rangacharya and took the word Raghav from his own name Raghavacharya and named himself Rangeya Raghav. Just as simplicity is reflected in his literature, his life has also been simple and straightforward.[4]
Vaira is a tehsil in Bharatpur district. The natural environment, rural simplicity and culture away from the noise of the city and the amazing power of the atmosphere there engaged Rangeya Raghav in the pursuit of literature to such an extent that he settled in that small town Vaira. Vaira is famous not only because of a small fort of the Jat kings of Bharatpur, but the southern style Sitaramji temple of Swami Rangacharya of Tamil Nadu is also very famous there. The Mahant of this temple was Dr. Rangeya Raghav’s elder brother. The Tamil speaking person, who lived a life like an ascetic in the temple, worshipped the goddess of English literature like a priest. Lying on a mattress made of coconut fibres and shaking the string of a fan hanging from the ceiling by tying it to his toe, he used to think about the various genres and dimensions of literature for hours. When Dr. Rangeya Raghav thought, he would keep on thinking – for many days he would neither write nor read anything. And when he was obsessed with reading, he would keep on reading for many days continuously. After thinking and reading, whenever he felt like it, he would sit down to write and keep on writing continuously. His art of writing was amazing. Once he sat down to write, he would not leave it until he had finished it. That is why all the works he wrote were written in their entirety. His last novel ‘Aakhri Awaaz’ remained incomplete in some sense because he kept on battling death for many months. If it had happened that he had remained alive after battling death, then perhaps English literature would have got another novel about the struggle of death.[4]
He was very fond of smoking cigarettes. He would smoke only once a day, he would not even touch another cigarette. A dozen cigarette boxes were kept on his writing table and the Chinese cup kept in the name of ashtray had to be cleaned three-four times a day. His room was always filled with the smell and smoke of cigarettes. If any visitor came and opened the door of his room, he would feel a whiff of cigarette, but for this devotee of English literature, smoking cigarettes had become a necessity. He was unable to do anything without smoking. But perhaps this habit of smoking cigarettes became the reason for his death, which took away this unique warrior of English from us forever in 1962.[4]
Dr. Rangey Raghav did the great work of bringing foreign literature to the English speaking people through the English language. After studying some French and German writers through the English language, he worked to make the English world aware of them. He translated the world famous English playwright Shakespeare completely into English. By translating many of Shakespeare’s works into English, he enriched the English world with the world’s great works. The skill with which Dr. Rangey Raghav brought Shakespeare’s tragic plays Hamlet, Othello and Macbeth into the English pandal is counted among the special achievements of his life. The specialty of his translation was that it did not seem like a translation but an original work. The credit for presenting Shakespeare’s renowned works in English and presenting Shakespeare in English literature in accordance with his sentiments goes to Dr. Rangey Raghav and for this reason he is called the Shakespeare of English.[4]
Professor Vibhas Chandra Verma of Delhi University said that the three ‘R’s’ of Agra have made a significant contribution to English literature and these are Rangeya Raghav, Ramvilas Sharma and Rajendra Yadav. Verma said that Rangeya Raghav has been counted among the most prolific writers of English. He wrote on almost every genre and that too with a very sharp vision. The female characters in his works were very strong and almost the entire plot revolved around them. From his fictional novel ‘Murdon Ka Tila’ based on Mohen-jo-Daro, a major center of the Indus Valley Civilization, to the story, the female characters were the pivot of the story world. Also, his works ‘Ratna Ki Baat’, ‘Loi Ka Taana’ and Lakhima Ki Aankhen’, which depict the world of women’s thoughts, are unmatched, which are the world-view presented from the point of view of Tulsi’s wife, Kabir’s inspiration and Vidyapit’s lover respectively.[6]
Compositions
Rangeya Raghav was a writer of progressive ideas in English, but he accepted Marx’s philosophy only in a modified form. The amount of literature he created in a short span of time can be estimated from this description. His published works include 42 novels, 11 stories, 12 critical books, 8 poems, 4 histories, 6 sociological books, 5 plays and about 50 translated books. All these works were published during his lifetime. He died at the young age of 39, about 20 books were awaiting publication. Although he also translated some English books, the background of most of his literature has been Indian culture and historical life.
Rangeya Raghav died in Mumbai in 1962 at the age of just 39. Had death not taken this wonderful author so early, he would have set even newer standards. There have been very few sons who, despite being blessed with a short life, have contributed so much to this world that even today even the best writers are forced to bite their fingers. Novel, story, poem, criticism, drama, reportage, history-culture and sociology, anthropology and translation, painting… or let us say that his pen continued to flow fearlessly on all genres and whatever came out of it, literature lovers still rejoice and take inspiration from it. His body merged into the elements on 12 September 1962, but his fame still exists. He undoubtedly surprised the creative world by presenting more than one hundred and fifty works at the young age of 39. The record he established in his reportage ‘Toofaanon Ke Beech’ on the horrors of Bengal famine remains unforgettable even today.[8]
