A nomad’s quest for new meaning in literature, arts

Mukul Bansal 

Ramesh Kuntal Megh, alias for Ramesh Prasad Misra, a history and art critic, former professor and head (1972-86) (1989-91) in the Department of Hindi, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, and Fulbright Professor (2000-2001), University of Arkansas of Pine Bluff, USA, has won the Sahitya Akademi  award for his work, Vishwa Mithak Sarit Sagar, for 2017.

Professor Megh says he hasn’t got this award in his personal capacity; instead this is recognition for his mission – to enable Hindi to become suitable as a medium of gaining knowledge, reflection and civilization in the 21st century. Also, he has worked a lot in the fields of painting and sculpture. 

“The award hasn’t come to me in a stereotypical way. I didn’t hanker after fame or money. It is only recognition for a mission I pursued in my life. I did not send my book to be considered for the award. When my book was awarded, I didn’t even know it. I was in Delhi. I got to know of it the next day,” says he.

According to him, he is a BSc graduate with physics, chemistry and mathematics. He did his MA (Hindi) from Allahabad University and PhD from Banaras Hindu University under the guidance of Acharya Hazari Prasad Dwivedi. “My Guru had a grand stature. We were like tiny flowers in a jungle. He transformed us into harshringar (night jasmine) flowers. He brought us up to a certain level of human behaviour and freed us of pettiness (ochchpan). The award given to me is a result of all this.”

When Professor Megh took up the study of Hindi literature, he says, he was quite ignorant about it, but he caught up with it within six months. “My viva for PhD was conducted by Mahapandit Rahul Sanskrityayan. He asked me what I would do in life. I replied I was from middle class, so I would take up a job. He further asked me if I read or wrote something. I replied that I wrote poems and one-act plays. The Mahapandit said there are any number of people doing that. You are capable of keen contemplation. Proceed in that direction.

“Afterwards, I started thinking in life from an inter-disciplinary approach. Now, my criticism veered to, instead of literature, literary socio-cultural.

“I devoted myself to mythography, aesthetics, human form and body language. For these reasons, my contribution is now being seen as an ‘initiative’. Among such people, apart from Acharya Dwivedi, Prof Pritam Singh, who is credited with creating a galaxy of scholarly students of Punjabi, and Prof Ram Bilas Sharma, late head of the English Department of Agra University, are among the foremost, says Professor Megh.  

“In this tradition, my books too veered off from tradition and convention into totally new directions. That’s why even today I’m considered to be quite complex and original,” says he.

Professor Megh says he’s basically an illustrator which reflects in his thinking, like drawings (lekha chitr) in my books and is expressed through emotional illustrations (bhava chchaviyon) in many ways.

“I want to reiterate that don’t perceive me as a jugaadoo person who ‘manages’ to get awards. Had it been so, I would have managed to get more awards 10 or 15 years ago,” he remarks.

When I referred to Harivansh Rai Bachchan, the writer from his state, he said in Hindi literature, Bachchan’s popularity was next only to Munshi Premchand. “Bachchan was an avatar of Vidyapati who lived in Radha’s durbar after the 16th century and was a Shiv bhakta. Like Vidyapati, Bachchan was also a love poet. His love poetry is free of inhibition. He uses delicate expressions with deep meanings.”

Professor Megh has already started work on a poetic translation in Hindi of Goethe’s epic, Faust.  He expects to complete the translation by December 2018.  “In Europe, the most ancient epics are Greek: Homer’s the Iliad and the Odyssey. In Rome, Dante wrote the Divine Comedy and in England, Milton wrote the epic, the Paradise Lost, he says.