Jaywant Dalvi: A master storyteller who tackled sensitive themes like insanity and loneliness
Jaywant Dalvi, a prolific Marathi writer, created over 75 works exploring love, loneliness, and societal struggles, celebrated recently on his centenary.
Mumbai: Open a Jaywant Dalvi book and you will find people of different sizes and shapes tumbling out of the dog-eared pages, willing to hug readers, and share with them their stories of love and loneliness, malice and mirth, delight and despair—peppered with sensitivity and lyrical humanism.
A prolific writer, Dalvi reaped a rich harvest—over 75 books, including 15 short story collections, 16 plays, 22 novels, eight humour books, and film scripts, among other works. While portraying the myriad moods of Maharashtra caught in a socio-political flux, he created many characters who, despite being flawed, keep struggling against repressive societal mores and the brutal power of the state in a bid to retain their dignity, only to realise that life lacks both love and logic.
Insanity and loneliness, Dalvi’s pet themes, have made many of his literary works—for instance, Vedgal and Andharateel Parambya—timeless gems, said literary experts.
Dalvi’s close friends and colleagues, including publisher Ashok Kothavale, actor Dilip Prabhavalkar and writer Madhu Mangesh Karnik, among others, came together in Pune recently to commemorate the writer’s birth centenary. Dalvi’s son Girish was the host of the evening, which ended with a hearty dinner.
That no fish was served on the table would have piqued Dalvi, a ‘pucca’ Saraswat whose loyalty, according to the family lore, to surmai (king mackerel) and muddushe (lady fish) was almost ferocious.
Although Dalvi gave up fish in later years following diet restrictions, he would, on a bright Sunday morning, strategically position himself near the entry gate of the Borivali municipal fish market, inhale the smell of the fresh catch and return home to eat his staple daal bhaat (steamed rice and pulses).
From a rookie sub-editor to one of Maharashtra’s ace storytellers, Dalvi came a long way, displaying the grit of a migrant. He arrived in Mumbai at age 14 from Konkan, did his matriculation, spent a year or two in the newsroom of Lokmanya, a Marathi daily, and, armed with a master’s degree in philosophy, joined the United States Information Service’s (USIS) publication division in 1951.
He retired in 1976 as its head. By the 1960s, Dalvi had emerged as one of the key figures of the vibrant Nav Katha (New Story) movement. In popularity, he was next only to the legendary PL Deshpande.
Observers said Dalvi saw himself as the product of Konkan—with Mumbai as its nerve centre, both financial and cultural—and the Socialist-Gandhian movement. While the former nourished his sensibilities, the latter steeled his spine.
That Amba, the female protagonist of his play Purush, whose father is a freedom fighter, should Bobbitise (chop off the genital of) her tormentor, a corrupt politician, shows how deeply was Dalvi disgruntled with India’s political establishment. Also, he was worried that a decline in values would eventually trigger violence, said poet-writer Rekha Shahane. “Dalvi was prophetic,” she added.
“Dalvi’s female protagonists draw strength from within, without shouting from the rooftops,” said noted theatre person Anahita Uberoi.
On the other hand, the lengthening shadow of Konkan, largely seen by Marathis as a land of magic, myths and the macabre, lends a Kafkaesque touch to his novels such as Vedgal and Andharateel Parambya.
“Dalvi had a journalist’s eye for detail. Combining imagination with consummate artistry, he delved deep into the collective psyche of Marathis and wrote about their foibles and follies, angst and aspirations, with intensity and intuition,” said Ashok Kothavale of Majestic Prakashan, which has been diligently publishing Dalvi.
Ashok inherited Dalvi from his father Keshavrao Kothavale. The two were “great friends”, he said. Kothavale Sr would often consult Dalvi on manuscripts. Ditto with Ashok. “After I lost my father in 1982, Dalvi took me under his wings. It was he who advised me to publish Malika Amar Sheikh’s autobiography,” he said. Sheikh is a Marathi writer, political activist and wife of Dalit poet Namdeo Dhasal. Needless to add, her book created a stir in literary circles.
However, Dalvi, true to his type, remained unmoved by glamour and fame. “An affectionate father, baba led a simple, almost spartan life. He had a small circle of friends. This vastly helped him adhere to his writing schedule, rain or sunshine,” said Girish, Dalvi’s chartered accountant son.
Papa Dalvi wrote feverishly on weekends, while his wife Uma, with two children in tow, would retire to her mother’s Dadar house. “We would lock baba in so that he faced no interruptions,” added Girish.
Countless Marathis fondly remember Dalvi for Thanthanpaal (dim-witted), a crispy column he wrote for Lalit, a prestigious literary journal brought out by Kothavale. Dalvi used gentle humour to puncture the capital ‘I’ of Marathi writers, editors and publishers.
“Such was the wide appeal of Thanthanpaal that those ragged by Dalvi felt honoured, while others eagerly awaited the next issue of Lalit,” said Ashok Dhamnaskar, a book lover and retired government official.
The Thanthanpaal logo, designed by renowned cartoonist Vasant Saravate, said it all: a pot-bellied, moustached pehelwaan clad in a loin cloth, is all set to go for the jugular. He is carrying a solid wooden hammer to boot!
Dalvi’s innings as playwright began a tad late. He was 50 when Sandhyachchaaya, a compelling story about an old couple trying to come to terms with loneliness, was premiered in 1974.
The play flagged off a prolonged Dalvi-Vijaya Mehta partnership, which spawned masterpieces such as Barrister, Savitri, Maha Sagar, and Purush. With Dalvi and Mahesh Elkunchwar, her proteges, emerging as front ranking playwrights in the 1980s, Mehta finally bade adieu to the Vijay Tendulkar era, said cultural observers.
“I grew up watching Dalvi’s brainstorming sessions with my mother at our Nepean Sea Road apartment on a muggy afternoon, fussing over a scene or props,” said Uberoi, Mehta’s daughter. Describing Dalvi as the “sentinel of the golden era” of Marathi theatre, Uberoi said he combined intellectual thought with raw power to touch the aching nerve of his characters. “What is of greater significance is that the Dalvi-Mehta alliance was commercially successful too,” she added.
Dalvi dabbled in cinema as well. Barrister was turned into Raosaheb, an arthouse film directed by Mehta, while film maker Rabindra Dharmaraj’s Chakra is based on Dalvi’s novel, by the same name, portraying the stark truths of Mumbai’s slums.
Chakra, starring Smita Patil, Naseeruddin Shah and Kulbhushan Kharbanda, bagged the Golden Leopard award at the Locarno international film festival in 1981. Patil won the national award for best actor (female).
Dalvi must have celebrated the artistic success of Chakra with his wife and children, raising a toast to the film and digging into halwa masala!