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G. V. Desani

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G. V. Desani
BornGovindas Vishnoodas Dasani
8 July 1909
Nairobi, Kenya
Died15 November 2000(2000-11-15) (aged 91)
Fort Worth, Texas
OccupationAuthor, educator
LanguageEnglish, Hindi, Urdu, Sindhi, Sanskrit, Pali
NationalityIndian
CitizenshipU.S.
GenreNovel, short story, essay, lecture
Notable worksAll About H. Hatterr (1948, etc.)
Hali: A Play(1952)
Hali and Collected Stories (1991)

Govindas Vishnoodas Desani (1909–2000), known as G.V. Desani, was a British-Indian writer and educator. He was born in Kenya, reared in India and achieved prominence in Great Britain.[1] Desani is best known for his 1948 book[2] All About H. Hatterr, which cast an absurdist, comedic spotlight on the plight of common man in a multicultural, pan-ethnic world.[3]

Hatterr is notable for reviews over half a century which describe the book as … a genuine literary rarity, "the lost-and-found masterpiece,"[4] "a lost classic",[5] and, of the author, an "elusive talent of the Fifties."[6]

Post 40, Desani forged a second act as a seeker, devotee, adept, reporter and profounder of ancient Indian traditions — including obscure mantric and tantric crafts — to Eastern and Western audiences.[7]

Bibliography

All About H. Hatterr

The 1948 publication of Desani's mock-heroic novel, with its high-velocity West-East patterings, attracted widespread attention. T.S. Eliot said of it, "… In all my experience, I have not met with anything quite like it. It is amazing that anyone should be able to sustain a piece of work in this style and tempo at such length."[8] Orville Prescott, in a mixed review in The New York Times wrote, "... To describe a rainbow to a child born blind would not be much more difficult than to describe the unique character of All About H. Hatterr ... as startling as a unicorn in the hall bedroom. Reading it issues dizzy spells, spots before the eyes, consternation, and even thought."[9] Four decades later Salman Rushdie wrote "Hatterr's dazzling, puzzling, leaping prose is the first genuine effort to go beyond the Englishness of the English language."[10]

Hali: A Play

Desani's Hali: A Play was published and performed in 1950.[11][12] It was described by Eliot as "completely different from Hatterr." Eliot — along with E.M. Forster – provided forewords to the 55-page lyrical tragedy. Eliot called Hali's imagery "... often terrifyingly effective," while Forster wrote, "... it keeps evoking heights above the 'Summit-City' of normal achievement." Other comments were less enthusiastic. Eliot added, "Hali is not likely to appeal quickly to the taste of many readers." And Forster observed, "It depends upon a private mythology – a dangerous device."[13]

Hali and short stories

In 1991, Hali was re-published in Hali and Collected Stories.

Biography

Desani was born in Kenya into an Indian family that had a general store, specializing in wood fuel. The family moved back to Sindh (now part of Pakistan) when he was about eight. Desani described himself as a rebellious child. He ran away from home three times and was, at the age of 13, expelled from school. Fleeing an arranged marriage, Desani at age 15 or 16 caught a steamer for the UK.[14]

He arrived in England speaking only Hindi but within a few years had mastered English to the point that he was befriended by several prominent Londoners. For example, he was recommended by George Lansbury MP, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, for admission as a reader to the British Museum Library.

Career

In the 1930s Desani worked as a film extra, an artists' model and as a correspondent for The Times of India, Reuters and the Associated Press, among others, contributing from both Great Britain and India. During World War II, Desani lectured in both English and Hindustani for the British Ministry of Information and the Imperial Institute.[1] He was also a regular commentator on the BBC. Recalling his popularity as a lecturer during the war, Anthony Burgess wrote, "Desani came to England, in fact, to demonstrate in live speech the vitality of the British rhetorical tradition, brilliant in Burke and Macaulay, decadent in Churchill, now dead."[15]

Search for Spiritual Knowledge

Decades later, Desani recounted how — despite his achievements — he was increasingly unhappy. In 1952 he returned to India where he sought out a series of gurus and fakirs. These teachers, typically residing in rural India, assigned him arduous disciplines, often requiring months of intense Sādhanā.[16]

Desani spent most of 1960 in Rangoon (now Yangon) practicing Samatha-vipassana under meditation master Mahasi Sayadaw. Upon completion, he was asked to address the Burmese diplomatic corps on Buddhist ethics and techniques. The meeting took place at the Israeli embassy, Justice U Chan Htoon presiding.[17]

Social and political commentary

From 1962-67 Desani contributed often to The Illustrated Weekly of India. His articles included short stories, and commentary on Indian social and cultural issues, ethics, religion and occultism. An unsigned weekly column entitled "Very High & Very Low"[18] ran from 1964-66.

Academic Career

In 1967 a Fulbright Program grant brought Desani to the University of Texas, Austin as a lecturer on Eastern Philosophy. In 1969 he joined the faculty as a full professor (notably Desani never graduated from high school and had no college). From 1970-79, Desani taught courses in Theravada Buddhism and other yoga traditions. He retired in 1982 following a semester as a Boston University lecturer under the sponsorship of then B.U. president John Silber.

In his last years Desani hoped to write two more books: an autobiography and a book based on journal entries he made during his years investigating Nadi astrology and other occult crafts in India.[19]

Desani died at 91 in Ft. Worth, Texas.

Novels

  • Desani, G.V. (1970) [1948]. All About H. Hatterr (hardback). London: The Bodley Head. ISBN 0-370-01424-3.

Short Stories and Plays

  • Desani, G.V. (1950). HALI: A Play, (hardback). London: Saturn Press.

References

  1. ^ a b "G. V. Desani". The Open University, "Making Britain: Discover How South Asians Shaped the Nation, 1870-1950". 21 May 2003. Retrieved 1 July 2023.
  2. ^ Hagen, Charles M. (18 August 1970). "All About H. Hatterr". Harvard Crimson. Retrieved 1 July 2023.
  3. ^ Eric, Smith (2009). "Ambiguity at its Best! Historicizing G.V. Desani's All About H. Hatterr". ARIEL 2009. Retrieved 1 July 2023.
  4. ^ Christopher, Porterfield (20 July 1970). "Books: Towering Babel". Time Magazine. Retrieved 1 July 2023. Awakened by a Gong. All About H. Hatterr is one of those genuine literary rarities, the lost-and-found masterpiece.
  5. ^ Roy, Nilanjana S (14 June 2013). "The Return of H. Hatterr". The Business-Standard (New Delhi). Retrieved 1 July 2023.
  6. ^ Gokhale, Namita (5 January 1997). "How Indian has English Become". The Hindu.
  7. ^ "G.V. Desani Writings and Lectures". Retrieved 1 July 2023.
  8. ^ Eliot, T.S. (1948). "All About Mr. Hatterr" (review). Aldor Press.
  9. ^ Prescott, Orville (18 May 1951). "Books of the Times". The New York Times. Retrieved 1 July 2023.
  10. ^ Rushdie, Salman; West, Elizabeth, eds. (1997). Mirrorwork: 50 Years of Indian Writing 1947-1997. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
  11. ^ Russell, Peter; Singh, Khushwant, eds. (1 February 1952). G.V. Desani, a Consideration of His All About H. Hatterr and Hali. Karel Szeben, Bradbrook House, London. With … comments by J.R. Ackerley, Bruce Bain, Beverley Baxter, M.P., Edmund Blunden, Sir Frank Brown, Rt. Hon. R.A Butler, M.P., Admiral of the Fleet the Rt. Hon. Lord Chatfield, D.P. Chaudhuri, Prof. John Coatman, Sir Malcolm Darling, Baldun Dhingra, Christopher Fry, Daniel George, Sir Lancelot Graham, Harman Grisewood, Prof. Vincent Harlow, C.E.M. Joad, Prof. C. Day Lewis, Sir Harry Lindsay, Compton MacKenzie, R.J. Cruikshank, Hermon Ould, Alan Pryce-Jones, Prof. Sir S. Radhakrishnan, Herbert Read, Sir W.D. Ross, the Rt. Hon. Viscount Samuel, Major-General the Earl of Scarbrough, E.L. Stahl, C.P. Snow, Reginald Sorensen, W.F. Casey, Geoffrey Whitworth, L.F. Rushbrook Williams, W.E. Williams, Leonard Woolf, Woodrow Wyatt, M.P., the Rt. Hon. the Marquess of Zetland.
  12. ^ "G.V. Desani's Hali". Central Railway Magazine. 1 October 1952. In the world of Hali there is no time to bury corpses or to burn them all the way through. It is a world where hunger is not something you read about in the papers and try to feel sorry or angry, which is easier after all. It is something with a swollen stomach outside your door, an unforgettable smell in the side streets, something in the pariah dog's mouth. It is a world, moreover, where death has a central place in religion, and even where ceremonial religion has been consciously left behind.
  13. ^ Desani, G.V. (1950). HALI A Play:. London: The Saturn Press.
  14. ^ Dennis, Ferdinand; Khan, Naseem, eds. (2000). "Liars, Hypocrites, Imperialists and Sages". Voices of the Crossing. London: Serpent's Tail. pp. 117–131. ISBN 9781852425838.
  15. ^ Burgess, Anthony (1970). "Introduction". All About H. Hatterr. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
  16. ^ "The Benares That Was". ANON, a literary periodical founded by Saul Bellow and Keith Botsford. 1 December 1970.
  17. ^ Desani, G.V. (29 January 1961). "Yoga and Vipassanā Meditation". Burma Army Educational Corps. Retrieved 1 July 2023.
  18. ^ "G.V. Desani". New York Review Books. Retrieved 1 July 2023.
  19. ^ Dennis, Ferdinand; Khan, Naseem, eds. (2000). "Liars, Hypocrites, Imperialists and Sages". Voices of the Crossing. London: Serpent's Tail. pp. 117–131. ISBN 9781852425838. … I sought out a reader who had one of these [Nadi texts]. It gave my name and my parents' names. It said I was born in East Africa, Nairobi, nineteen hundred and nine. All correct.
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