Versatility is his hallmark and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose his passion. His latest novel Chandramukhi spins around the life of a Tamasha artist of Maharashtra and her relationship with a politician. While the novel revolves around what he calls the ‘‘age old struggle between power and beauty ever since the evergreen romance during the Peshwa period between Bajirao I and Mastani,’’ the book ‘‘is a cry of an artist of this dying art of Maharashtra. Because of its rusticity, people failed to understand the vitality of Tamasha, so integral to Maharashtrian culture.’’ However, what has put Sahitya Akademi Awardee Vishwas Patil on cloud nine is not his claim of Chandramukhi having been received well by the readers, but the English translation of Mahanayak (a fictionalised biography of Bose) which has just been released. This is the 10th language in which it has been translated, this time by Delhi-based Keerti Ramachandra. Patil is a government servant — he is the chief executive officer of the Raigad Zilla Parishad, and spent several years in the ’80s, doing research on his hero. He proudly tells you that Bose is ‘‘like the North Star in the sky and so despite differences of opinion and controversies, nothing can dislodge him from the eminent position he holds in Indian history.’’ However, what spurred him to write an in-depth book on him is that ‘‘though Netaji is known as a stalwart freedom fighter, in post-Independence India his valour is largely unknown. While, laurels have been heaped on Mountbatten’s statesmanship, I have come across many documents and references in military history which clearly record that on numerous occasions, the Japanese army and the INA made life very difficult for Mountbatten.” Patil’s extensive research manifests abundantly in the book. Besides travelling to Germany, Japan, Thailand and Burma, he has dug into hundreds of documents in various libraries. Says he: “I have also referred to books on Bose in several languages — 23 in Bangla, 27 in Japanese, three in German, 15 in Marathi, 8 in Hindi and 211 in English.’’ It is a wonder then that Mahanayak is not loaded with just a series of heavy historical references and facts. Patil’s dramatic style and well-researched facts have been woven together into a very readable story. The Sahitya Akademi honoured Patil for a novel on people displaced by development projects Patil, son of a marginal farmer of Kolhapur district, was a shepherd boy, besides being a schoolboy. ‘‘I carry the fragrance of my soil in my writings,’’ he says proudly. He shot to fame with his first novel, Panipat, in 1988, based on the Third Battle of Panipat wherein the Marathas suffered a humiliating defeat from the army of Ahmadshah Abdali, with 100,000 Maratha soldiers killed. The book created quite a stir in Marathi literary circles and 20,000 copies in seven editions were sold out within two years. The best compliment came to him from Jnanpith award winner V.V. Shirwadkar alias Kusumagraj who wrote to him: ‘‘The subject of the book is so vast that to write a novel around it is like skirting around a typhoon. I specially congratulate you for your picturesque language and grand descriptive style.’’ However, it was Jhadajhadati (1990) which fetched him the coveted Sahitya Akademi Award in 1992. The novel based on life stories of people displaced by various developmental projects in Maharashtra took shape when he worked as a rehabilitation officer in Pune. Says he: ‘‘This is a story not only of the people of Maharashtra or India but other people of the Third World too. My book does not deny the enormous benefits that accrue from such projects nor do I wish to decry industrial and technological advancement. But it asks: what does the government offer to those who are dispossessed? Uprooted from their homes, transplanted into unfamiliar and hostile surroundings, forced to give up traditional occupations and earnings, what is the compensation they receive for their sacrifice?’’ About this latest edition of his Netaji novel, he’ll say this much: ‘‘Regional literature in India is much superior to Indian English writings, only we lack good translators!’’ But even he’d have to admit, that is changing.
