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The old trinity of Indian English
writers of fiction — Raja Rao, R.K. Narayan and Mulk Raj Anand
have dominated the Indian English scene for over 50 years now.
They represent three different facets of India through their
writings. RR constantly discusses the nationalist struggle and
its revolutionary implications in terms of Hindu mythology,
religion, culture and its metaphysics. The meditative quality in
RR’s writings unfolds itself in his deeper concerns for man’s
spiritual existence on earth and sets his characters on a
metaphysical quest for the Absolute.
From The
Serpent and the Rope, through The Cat and Shakespeare and
to The Chessmaster — which is also about man’s
pilgrimage to seek deliverance from the self (into the Self) —
RR’s quest for the metaphysical continues. Put together, these
three novels embody the qunitessence of RR’s genius and
philosophy of life. In the novel under review, the author
reveals his deep interest in Indian metaphysics. His earnest
desire to know the reality discloses that he has an ontological
awareness. ‘I have abandoned literature for good and gone over
the metaphysics’ is a remark which is often touted for his
interest in quest for truth. In all his novels, RR has captured
the cadences of the subcontinent. In this novel he ventures
beyond and has included Europeans, Africans and Jewish
characters besides the Indians, in his cast of characters. —
confined to just nine main characters.
For once, he
explores a seemingly tragic love affair between an Indian
mathematician, Sicarama Sastri living in Paris and a married
woman, a Rajput princess Jayalaksmi married to Raja Surender
Singh. Such relationships bring sorrow and despair in its train
and the next best course is to turn inwards to search for
answers and meanings. This very search transforms the book into
metaphysical exploration.
The novel
depicts Siva’s quest for truth as well as his interest in
Buddhist, vedantic, tantric ontologies. In this dramatic
presentation Siva is haunted by the echoes of love and the
anecdotal approach reveals the flashback technique — much
popular in the times when RR set out to set this love-tale in
the 60 of the twentieth century, the Nehru-De Gaulle era,
published it in 1988 and reviewed again as a reprint in 2002. A
span of 40 years have elapsed in-between and so many
mind-boggling things have happened in the world. Sastri’s love
for the French actress Suzanne or her compatriot Mireille serves
to underline the differences of approach between East and West.
They seek happiness in the world itself while Sastri looks for
freedom from the world itself. The novel portrays the
frustration and non-fulfilment of love between Siva and Jaya and
also ontological deliberations on love, God, time, truth, death
and a host of other things.
The symbolic
meaning of the title, to my mind, is that for RR, the
Chessmaster is an emblem of the creator, Brahma and the game of
Chess (with its Indian origins) is presented for the work in the
world and the Moves stand for Divine play. Whatever we may call
it, Sivarama who speaks and describes himself and others, of
course, from his experience and his angle is the Chessmaster and
his Moves, for the narrative implies his growth.
Unless you grow
you cannot give. And growth needs search. And search
fearlessness. And all search is inward — the outer leads one
to repetition. (P. 110)
Jaya, Suzanne
and Mireille, the three women who cross Siva’s path contribute
powerfully and comprehensively to his growth. -emotional,
intellectual, his metaphysics and his perception and
understanding of others. That growth deepens into one vital
direction through his friendship with Michael, taking him into
areas beyond the personal, the sensual, the mathematical and
towards the true universality of the Absolute. The dialogue with
Michael, the Rabbi, revolves around certain major themes invoked
by RR’s terms — dual, non-dual, dissolution, zero, truth,
God and introduces the most important theme in The
Chessmaster.
"Michel,
the real dialogue in the the world is not between the East and
the West, but between you and me, between the brahmin and the
rabbi." Michel closed his eyes... and slowly opening them
again, remarked you are probably right." (P226)
This dialogue
is an exploration of reasons for The Holocaust (the
killing of millions of Jews by the Nazis in 1930 s and 1940s)
and an attempt to expiate it.
Raja Rao’s
scholarship, range and reach, his knowledge of French and
Sanskrit, his compendium knowledge of Indian legends, myth,
history, religion from a native living abroad for the past many
decades — is inexplicable. One thing I can say with authority
that this novel is not for those who are mediocre in their
intellectual ability and totally lacking in enthusiasm and
idealism about things Indian. Every re-reading of the novel
reveals a few hidden truths, new beauties, new insights and
presents the world to all in a new light. The Chessmaster,
presents a vision of Indian civilisation from its radiant
origins in mythology to Gandhi-Nehru’s new India of the 60s
and thereafter.
It is not for nothing that The
Chessmaster have earned paeans of praise from the literati all
over the world. All fiction of RR takes you back to the India of
yore and keeps you engaged for quite a larger while and you are
forced to remember India that was Bharat not very long ago.
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RAJA
Rao’s The Chessmaster and His Moves first appeared in
the year 1988 and in the same year it was awarded the Neustadt
International Prize for Literature. The book under review is a
reprint and it informs us that RR at the ripe age of 90-plus
is revising the next two volumes of The Chessmaster
trilogy. This book itself contains three books spread over
700 odd pages.
