These are the star performers in Indian literary anthologies
Which is the most anthologised Indian poem in English? This question leads Karthik Venkatesh on a literary quest through the pages of some popular anthologies of Indian and Western literatures.
Internationally, it appears that James Thurber’s “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” is a strong candidate. First published in 1939, it’s rumoured to have made a hundred- plus anthologies. It’s been filmed twice in Hollywood, the second time as recently as 2013, adapted for stage and even adapted for Indian television about three decades ago as Mungerilal Ke Haseen Sapne.
Who is Walter Mitty’s Indian counterpart? One strong candidate is likely to be Rabindranath Tagore’s story “Kabuliwaala”. But other than “Kabuliwaala”, it is difficult perhaps to identify a single story which stands out as widely anthologised. Besides “Kabuliwaala”, Tagore’s poem, “Where the Mind is Without Fear”, is a good candidate in the poetry category for being the mostanthologised translation as it is a school textbook favourite.
Then there are Ruskin Bond’s stories set in the hills amid mist, rain and thunder—stories which seem to forever strike a chord with their sense of timelessness and have been widely anthologised. But, does any single story by Bond stand out? Maybe “The Tiger in the Tunnel” comes very close to being “the” Bond story. R.K. Narayan’s Malgudi stories, especially those featuring Swami, are also strong contenders for the widely-anthologised in the short-story slot.
In this debate, could Sarat Chandra’s Devdas get a lookin? It is, of course, a full length novel and not quite a short story. But it’s been filmed true to the original novel, at least once in the silent movie era, thrice in Hindi, thrice in Bengali (including a Bangladeshi version), twice in Telugu and once in Tamil, Malayalam and Assamese. There’s also a Pakistani version in Urdu, besides the modern-day rehashes of the Devdas theme, twice as Hindi films—the 2009 Dev.D and the more recent Das Dev— and as a web series. Surely, for its sheer ability to travel across languages, regions and generations, this work should get an honourable mention in the anthology space.
Still, coming back to anthologies, there are other interesting nuggets out there. Call it the colonial hangover, but essays by Francis Bacon and Charles Lamb still continue to feature widely in Indian textbooks. Which Indian work is likely to be their counterpart? Swami Vivekananda’s “Address at the World Parliament of Religions”, delivered in September 1893, which strictly speaking is not even an essay but a speech, is a contender. Would Nehru’s “Tryst with Destiny” speech (not an essay, again) of 15 August 1947 be anywhere close? Mahatma Gandhi’s writings probably don’t feature among the widely-anthologised, though his sayings (at least many that are attributed to him) feature in many places. In some sense, could they also qualify? And the current right-wing government notwithstanding, a story about Gandhi (the school inspector’s visit and his refusal to copy from a friend) is likely to continue being widely anthologised as a lesson in moral instruction. This story is the Indian version of the George Washington story about the cherry tree.
One is tempted to add that the 300 versions of the Ramayana (perhaps more) beat all of these modern-day contenders for the crown of the widely-anthologised, the title of the widely-travelled etc., hands down. And this factoid is likely to irritate both ends of the ideological spectrum for different reasons.