Narmad

• 1. Introduction

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  Narmadashankar Lalshankar Dave, known to everyone as Narmad, was born in Surat on the 24th of August 1833. A song he wrote, Jai Jai Garavi Gujarat, is now the state anthem of Gujarat in India. Its author worked as a poet, playwright, essayist, orator, lexicographer and reformer under the British Raj. He is considered the founder of modern Gujarati literature. He also lived with economic struggle for much of his working life. How does one writer earn a title like that? What did he give up in order to live by his pen? And why did a single poetry contest in Bombay leave him with a lifelong enemy?

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• 2. Teacher Turned Writer

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  A great fire in 1837 destroyed the family home in Amliran, Surat, though it was later rebuilt. Narmad's parents were Lalshankar and Navdurga, and the family belonged to the Nagar Brahmin community. At age five he began school with Nana Mehta in Bhuleshwar, Bombay. Over the following years he moved between schools in Surat and Bombay. His teachers included Fakir Mehta, Ichchha Mehta, Balgovind Mehta at Pydhonie, Durgaram Mehta and Pranshankar Mehta. At age eight he went through the Upanayan initiation.

  The 6th of January 1845 was his first day at the English School of the Elphinstone Institute in Bombay. He began college in June 1850. That same year he gave his first public speech, titled Mandali Malvathi Thata Labh, or The Advantages of Forming An Association. His mother died on the 23rd of November 1850, and he left college.

  On the 1st of May 1851 Narmad took up a teaching post at the school in Rander. He recited his early essay again to the Swadesh Hitechchhu Mandali. In July 1851 he started a magazine called Gyansagar. A transfer to a school in Nanpara came in March 1853. He left that post and went to Bombay in January 1854. A friend, Jhaverilal Umiyashankar, suggested that he go back to college. In June 1854 he did, and he joined a literary group called Buddhi Vardhak Sabha. He also began learning Siddhant Kaumudi.

  September 1855 is when Narmad began writing poetry, and he spent the following year studying literary metre. From March to December 1856 he presided over Buddhivardhak Granth. After his second marriage, he left college in August 1856. In February 1857 he wrote Pingal Pravesh and dedicated it to his father. He then joined Gokuldas Tejpal Vidyalaya as a teacher. Alongside the work, he studied Sanskrit texts such as Laghu kaumudi, Chandralok, Nrisimhachampu, Kavyachampu, Prataprudra and Adhyatma Ramayana.

  In February 1858 Narmad started teaching at Central School. He resigned in November of that year, having decided to pursue a literary career. From November 1858 to March 1859 he studied Sanskrit grammar and poetry in Pune. In March he returned to Bombay, determined to study on his own. A meeting that June would draw him into the city's circle of reformers.

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• 3. Rivalry With Dalpatram

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  Dalpatram came to Bombay in 1859 to have his eyes treated. He was a reformist Gujarati poet who had already won his laurels, while Narmad was only then rising to fame. They met in June 1859, and Narmad became involved in reform activities. Both loved Gujarati poetry, and a poetic contest took place between them. As it grew heated, the audience took sides over who was the better poet. The result was a lifelong estrangement.

  The contest carried on in the public papers and in a humorous paper. The Parsi Punch, a weekly, published a cartoon of the two poets fighting each other by their top-knots. A quarrel that began over verse had become public entertainment.

  Narmad's next fight, in 1860, would be over widow remarriage rather than poetry.

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• 4. Reform and Dandiyo

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  In 1860 Narmad discussed widow remarriage with a religious leader, Jadunathji Maharaj. That conversation drew him into the Maharaj Libel Case the following year. Jadunathji had filed the case against the writer Karsandas Mulji. Mulji, as a journalist, had published an article alleging sexual exploitation of women in the leader's religious sect.

  On the 3rd of February 1863 Narmad visited Income Tax Commissioner Curtis about a surcharge. In September 1864 he started a biweekly newsletter called Dandiyo, which means a drum stick, with the help of friends. He modelled it on the British weekly The Spectator. It took a loudly reformist stand and attacked traditional customs of Hindu society. It ran until 1869, when it merged with The Sunday Review.

  In July 1865 Narmad moved back to Surat and sheltered a widow named Savitagauri in a neighbouring house. His caste banished him for his reform activities on the 18th of August. He was reinstated on the 21st of November 1866.

  In September 1865, between those events, he published Narmagadya, a collection of prose he had written since 1850.

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• 5. Songs of Gujarat

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  The poem Jai Jai Garavi Gujarat, dated 1873, appears in the preface of Narmakosh. It lists, with evident pride, the cultural symbols that make up Gujarati identity. Some of those symbols are not Hindu. That choice implies that Gujarat belongs to every caste, community, race, religion and sect living there together.

  Sahu Chalo Jeetva Jang is among the famous songs through which Narmad promoted nationalism and patriotism. He was a strong opponent of religious fanaticism and orthodoxy. He worked as an outspoken journalist and pamphleteer as well.

  Nearly five decades before Mahatma Gandhi or Nehru, Narmad wrote about self-government. He also discussed having one national language, Hindustani, for all of India. Gandhi later acknowledged him for his philosophy of nonviolence.

  Between 1858 and 1860 his poems appeared as numbered volumes of Narmakavita. Volumes 1-3 came out in 1858, volumes 4-8 in 1859 and volumes 9-10 in 1860. They were collected into Book 1 in 1862, and Book 2 followed in 1863. In 1864 all of his poetry was gathered under the single title Narmakavita. He brought new subjects into modern Gujarati poetry, including social reform, freedom, patriotism, nature and love.

  Prose, not verse, would fill most of his shelf.

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• 6. Firsts in Gujarati

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  Mari Hakikat, written in 1866, is the first autobiography in the Gujarati language. It was published only after his death, in 1933.

  Narmakosh, his dictionary, appeared in issues in 1861, 1862-1864 and 1865. A complete edition followed in 1873. In March 1876 he published the first dictionary of the Gujarati language.

  Pingalpravesh in 1857 opened a run of essays on poetics. Rasapravesh and Alankarpravesh followed in 1858. Narmavyakaran Parts I and II and Varnavichar came in 1865, and Nayika Vishaypravesh in 1866. These essays hold historical importance for Gujarati literature.

  Rituvarnan in 1861 and Hinduoni Padati in 1864 show how widely his prose ranged. In 1865 he published Suratni Mukhtesar Hakikat. In 1870 he published summaries of the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and the Iliad. Rajyarang, in two parts from 1874 and 1876, covers ancient and modern world history. Dharmavichar is his work on philosophy.

  Stree Geet Sangrah, from 1870, gathers songs popular among Nagar Brahmin women. It belongs to his research on folk literature. He also edited older works, including Manohar Swami's Manhar Pad in 1860, Dayaramkrut Kavyasangrah in 1865 and Premanand's Dashamskandh in 1872. For the stage he wrote a dialogue, Tusli Vaidhvyachitra, in 1859 and a play, Ramjanaki Darshan, in 1876.

  In 1875 Mahipatram Rupram Nilkanth edited a collection of his essays. Vishwanath Bhatt edited another in 1937, and Gambhirsinh Gohil a third in 1975. A second volume, Narmagadya-2, appeared only in 1936.

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• 7. Debt, Faith, and Family

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  On the 29th of April 1844 Narmad married Gulab, daughter of Surajram Shastri of Sudder Court, Surat. A girl was born to them in 1852 and died 15 days later. Gulab died on the 5th of October 1853 following a stillbirth. In May 1856 he married Dahigauri, daughter of Tripuranand Shastri. His father died on the 18th of January 1864, aged 56. Dahigauri had separated from him in 1860, yet he dedicated Nayikavishaypravesh and Uttam Nayika to her.

  In 1869 Narmad married Subhadra, later called Narmadagauri, a widow of his own caste. The marriage broke the customary taboo against widow remarriage. Their son Jayshankar was born in 1870. Jayshankar worked as a clerk for the Bombay Municipality and never married. He died of the plague on the 31st of March 1910.

  In early 1867 Narmad carried debts of 10,000, a sum that caused him great concern. In March 1875 he moved back to Bombay and met Dayanand Saraswati, a reformist and the founder of Arya Samaj. Narmad began to grow deeply religious. On the 16th of April 1877 he founded Vedsarasvati in Sarasvatimandir of Surat.

  The Aryanitidarshak Mandali performed his play Draupadi-Darshan in 1878. By 1880 he had become a full "believer" and performed the Upanayana ceremony for his son. In 1881 he wrote Shri Sarshakuntal, which was performed on stage. In 1882 he published a translation of the Bhagvad Gita.

  Financial difficulties then forced him into a post as secretary to Gokuldas Tejpal Dharmakhata. He took it unhappily, because he had resolved not to work for other people. In 1883 he wrote the play Shri Balkrishnavijay. The stress of starting a hostel wore down his health, and he left the job on the 19th of July 1885. After an illness lasting eight months, he died of arthritis in Bombay on the 26th of February 1886.

  His notes and letters were later published as Uttar Narmad Charitra in 1939.

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• 8. Remembered in Stone

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  Narmad has been called Arvachino Ma Adya, which means Earliest Among the Moderns. His house, Saraswati Mandir, has been restored and converted into a museum.

  Several places in Gujarat carry his name, among them the Central Library in Surat. Busts of him stand in Ahmedabad, Vadodara and Surat. In 2004 South Gujarat University was renamed Veer Narmad South Gujarat University in his memory. A replica of his house has also been built on the university campus.

  Since 1940 the Narmad Sahitya Sabha of Surat has awarded the literary honour Narmad Suvarna Chandrak every year. In 2008 India Post released a special cover for his 175th birth anniversary.

  In 1995 a soliloquy called Narmad: Mari Hakikat, or Narmad: My Life, premiered in Dayton, Ohio. Harish Trivedi wrote and directed it, and Chandrakant Shah performed it. Critics acclaimed the work, which later toured India, the UK and France. Chandravadan Mehta also wrote a play based on Narmad's life, so a poet who wrote for the stage has become a character on it.

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