Professor C.D.
Narasimhaiah
Chairperson IACLALS 1974 -1993.
In the
winter of 1977, India hosted the Fourth Trienniel Conference of ACLALS, and the man
masterminding this massive and colourful event was Professor C.D. Narasimhaiah who had
been elected the chairperson of the Indian chapter of the this international association
only three years earlier. For many of us in India this was the first organised exposure to
the richness and variety of the literatures in English around the world. Basking in the
January sun of Delhi, with lunch plates perched on our knees, we listened to poets like
A.D. Hope, Chris Wallace-Crabbe and Nissim Ezekiel, and writers G. V. Desani, Raja Rao and
Yasmine Gooneratne read their works to small informal groups. Adil Jussawala and Saleem
Peeradina - both young poets then - improvised stalls for selling poetry books; Mulk Raj
Anand organized the screening of his short film `The Lost Child'. In the more structured
sessions we interacted with scores of fellow academics from Jamaica, Fiji, Taipei, Malta,
Sri Lanka, Australia, Canada and England, quite excited about a new-found sense of a
community. The High Commissions of the different Commonwealth countries vied with each
other to entertain the delegates with food, wine and hospitality every evening. It was
altogether a heady experience, more like a festival than an academic ritual.
Looking
back today I marvel at the tremendous organizational capacity and the store of goodwill
that CDN must have had to make such a conference possible. Sitting in Mysore he could plan
and co-ordinate this huge affair in Delhi mainly through his infectious enthusiasm that
retains its potency across long distances.
CDN was
present at the Leeds Conference in 1964 when ACLAIS was born, and at Brisbane in 1968 when
it learnt to walk. Thereafter he has been present at all the Trienniels -in Kingston,
Guelph, Singapore, Canterbury etc., giving the Indian branch a sense of continuity and
involvement. No one in India associated with the teaching and research of Commonwealth
Literature can be unaware of CDN's sustained work in this field - through his
publications, workshops and seminars and general dissemination of critical interest. By
now his kind of fame and eminence would have turned any other individual into an
institution, but CDN still remains a human being - warm, gentle, impulsive and
generous.
Commonwealth
Literature is only one of CDN's many enthusiasms. The limited space of a newsletter cannot
do justice to the range of his achievements-running a critical journal in English without
break for over thirty years now, fighting various battles to widen the scope of English
studies in India and to decolonise the vision of the English Literature teacher, building
up an ashrama like Centre for Literature and the Indigenous Arts in Mysore where writers
and scholars can work in seclusion or exchange ideas, research students can come together
for discussions and theatre groups can perform on an open air stage. |
In his recent autobiography, modestly titled N for Nobody:
Autobiography of an English Teacher (B.R. Publishing,1992) CDN gives a 'very low-key
account of his fascinating and eventful life--his humble beginnings in a Karnataka
village, schooling in Mysore, made possible by his parents at great sacrifice to
themselves, scholarship to Cambridge, Rockefeller Fellowship to Princeton, Professorship
at the age of 29, and continuous struggle against the lethargy and orthodoxy of the
English Literature establishment in India. I should like to add here an admirable quality
of his that makes him such a unique person, not allowing professional or ideological
differences affect his personal relationship. He has retired from the University of Mysore
in the seventies, but has done more work in his decade of retirement than most people do
in an entire life-time. Despite many offers to lure him to Delhi or to metropolitan
centres in the west, he has preferred to cultivate his own garden in Manasagangotri,
Mysore, "living locally but thinking globally". Although he wished to be
relieved of the responsibility of being the Chairperson of the IACLALS this year, he has
agreed to be on its Executive; so we shall look forward to his continuing involvement in
our activities.
Dr. K.C. BELLIAPPA
Dr. K.C.
Belliappa served as secretary of the IACLALS for nearly as long as Professor C.D.
Narasimhaiah served as Chairman. Colleagues at the University of Mysore, they formed
together a particularly dedicated, harmonious and successful team. Many writers and
critics from all over the Commonwealth who attended the Triennial International Conference
of the ACLALS at New Delhi in 1977 retain a warm impression of a cheerful, modest,
efficient and terribly young Secretary who looked even younger! Participants in various
seminars and workshops in Commonwealth Literature held at the Dhvanyaloka over the years
have found him to be constantly supportive and helpful in his characteristically genial
and self effacing manner. Dr. Belliappa is at present Reader in Commonwealth Literature at
the University of Mysore and thus, aptly enough, one of the few persons anywhere in the
Commonwealth to hold a position especially dedicated to this area of study. He has
published a number of articles on a wide range of subjects, as well as a book, The
Image of India in English Fiction (New Delhi: B.R. Publishing Corporation, 1991).
THE ANNUAL CONFERENCE 1993
The annual
conference of the IACLALS was held at the Maharaja Sayajirao University, Baroda (Vadodara)
on 25 and 26 January 1993. It was organized and hosted by Professor G.N. Devy, Local
Secretary for the conference, and Professor Ranu V. Vanikar, Head of the Department of
English, M.S. University. Over fifty participants from various academic centres of the
country, including Ahmedabad, Delhi, Mysore, Surat, Tirunelveli and Vadodara attended the
conference. |
