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A LOVER OF LIGHT AMONG LUMINARIES : Dilip Kumar Roy Dhan Gopal Mukherji's Caste and Outcaste (1923), Mulk Raj Ananda's Apology for Heroism (1946) and K. Subba Rao's Revived Memories (1933) can be considered literary autobiographies of high merit. Mulk Raj Ananda's autobiography, besides offering an objective analysis, also provides a valuable aid to the understanding of his fiction.
Other autobiographies of the period include social reformers like D. K. Karve (Looking Back, 1936) or men of spirituality like Swami Ramdas (In Quest of God, 1923) an educationist like G. K. Chattur (The Last Enchantment, 1933).
Suniti Devi, Maharani of Cooch Behar, was the first Indian woman to write an autobiography. Her book, Autobiography of an Indian Princess was published in 1921. Vijayalakshmi Pandit wrote three autobiographical volumes, viz., So I Became a Minister (1936), Prison Days (1945) and The Scope of Happiness (1979), while Krishna Huthee Singh wrote: With No Regrets (1944) and We Nehrus (1968).
After Independence, one can notice a rich harvest of autobiographies. Among the most outstanding of these are Morarji Desai's The Story of My Life published in three volumes between 1974 and 1979 and M. R. Masani's Bliss was in that Dawn (1977).
One of the most remarkable autobiographies is Nirad.C. Chaudhuri's entitled: The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian published in 1951. The book has become a classic on account of its linguistic and literary excellences. Other autobiographies which have attracted the attention of readers are Face to Face (1963) by Ved Mehta, My God Died Young (1967) by Sasthi Brata, My Son's Father (1968) by Dom Moraes and My Days (1975) by R K Narayan. Among the women autobiographers Nayantara Sahgal (Prison and Chocolate Cake 1954 and From Fear Set Free 1961), Kamala Das (My Story, 1976) and Lady Dhanvanthi Rama Rao (An Inheritance, 1976) are noteworthy. Moreover, Ravi Shankar's My Music, My Life (1968) reveals his career as an artist. Hazari's An Indian Outcaste (1951) presents the life-story of a member of the depressed classes.
Whether in the East or in the West, autobiography is described as a form of non-fictional literature as it is a record of the events of an individual's life. But, it can easily pass from history into fiction if the author is inventive like Kamala Das seems to be. Imaginative reconstruction itself anyway is an element of literature rather than history. The autobiographer becomes almost a stranger to himself when he thinks of his life in retrospect and orders and arranges the past events in the light of what he is at the moment of writing. He does not merely describe what happened to him in the past, but he also records how, he became
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