Remembering
Dr Sujit Mukherji
[1930-2003]
It was in 1958. I was in M.A. Previous. The PG English Dept was in
Darbhanga House overlooking river Ganga. A tall, lanky newly-appointed
lecturer, with eyes mostly glued to the lectern, was trying his best to impress
us with his scholarship on Sterne’s Tristram
Shandy. Though much of that wisecracking exposition of the discursive and
bizarre novelist tended to drift over our heads. But outside the classroom,
Sujit Mukherji (SM in our timetable) was a familiar figure in the campus, the
most genial friend of his students, an avid cricketer, and the wittiest, the
most jovial figure among teachers in the campus. As I have recalled later here,
I had already met him once at the National Defence Academy (NDA), Khadagwasla,
Pune, and he was very genial towards me, in particular, for that reason.
Only a couple of weeks back, we had his 17th death anniversary.
I had in my computer files a memorable obituary tribute by Dr Sachidanand
Mohanty, then Professor of English in University of Hyderabad, an excerpt from
which I quote below, adding some reminiscences of my own at the end. Dr
Mohanty’s tribute was originally published in the Literary Review of the Hindu
on Feb 2, 2003, soon after SM’s demise in Hyderabad where he had finally
settled down, after serving a long stint with the publishers, Orient Longman.
Dr Mohanty wrote in his tribute:
“Dr. Sujit Mukherjee passed away in his sleep at his Rukmini Devi Colony,
Annexe House, Secunderabad, on January 14, 2003. It was the auspicious
Sankranti day. According to believers, "The gates of Heaven open on this
day to welcome the truly blessed."
“And blessed certainly he was! All those who knew Sujit Mukherjee would
testify to his qualities of the head and the heart. A man who cherished high
scholarly ideals but sought no position or worldly success, he endeared himself
to a whole generation of students, scholars and admirers. Recalls Tutun
Mukherjee, Professor of English at Osmania University, “You always came under
the spell of his care, concern and scholarship. He was a wonderful human being,
full of wit, humour and laughter. To me he was an elder brother, friend and
advisor." This would be a refrain with many who visited Sujit-da and his
equally distinguished spouse Professor Meenakshi Mukherjee at their SFS flat at
Hauz Khas, New Delhi. Many of us received their unbounded love during our trips
to the capital. Meenakshi-di then taught at Jawaharlal Nehru University.
“Sujit Mukherjee was a "Probashi Bangali", who came from an
illustrious family in Patna. His father Bhupati Mukhopadhyaya was a Professor
of Economics and his mother Amala Devi was a woman of strong ideals. Active in
social work, she started many institutions for widows. Sujit-da had four
brothers and one sister who excelled in varied professions and made up a
well-knit family. Today they are all gone.
“Sujit Mukherjee had his early education at St. Xaviers School, Patna and
Patna College. Years later in a contribution to an excellent volume devoted to
a profile of great educational institutions of India, edited by historian
Mushirul Hassan, Sujit-da recalled that there were three tennis courts by the
river and contemporaries included famous personalities like the current
External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha.
“Mukherjee obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, where he
worked on his dissertation: "A Passage to America" (1963). It is
about the rise and fall of the Tagore reputation in the United States. By this
time he was married. How did it happen, I asked Meenakshi Mukherjee.
"Well, I was his student", she recalled, "It was one of those
occupational hazards, you know!" Together they travelled to many towns and
cities and examined newspaper archives and microfilms. Robert Miller, of the
famous Cycle of American Literature fame, was his senior course
instructor and thesis supervisor. In the1960s this was decidedly pioneering and
required courage of a certain kind that bordered on the foolhardy. In 1964 he
and D.V.K. Raghavacharyulu brought out a volume together on Indian responses to
American Literature, a path-breaking work.
“Although they had offers from the U.S., the couple decided to return to
India. "There was no question then", recalls Meenakshi-di; "He
wanted to go out of Patna and didn't want to work abroad. The Poona University
appointment came in 1966." Professor S. Nagarajan, the acclaimed
Shakespeare scholar had taken charge of the Department and Sujit-da plunged
whole-heartedly into teaching from 1966 to 1970. While he taught at the
University, she joined the local Ferguson College. Two daughters, Rukmini and
Rohini added to their happiness.
“Why did Sujit-da quit teaching? "Well," reminiscences Meenakshi
Mukherjee, "he found that the syllabus was largely irrelevant, while the
proficiency of most students in the language was rather poor. An offer came
from Orient Longman and with this Sujit-da entered another significant phase of
his career, namely, publishing. He joined as a publisher, became the Chief
Publisher, then joined the Board of Directors of Orient Longman. And after
retirement he served as a consultant." In 1971 a post was created in the
North, and the couple moved to Delhi. Meenakshi-di joined Lady Sriram College,
and in 1979 she moved to the University of Hyderabad, English Department.
Fortunately, the Central office of Orient Longman too shifted around this time
to the Deccan.
“At Orient Longman, Sujit-da oversaw practically the whole of the
publishing programme, although clearly his forte was translation, literature
and culture….He started an in-house newsletter, called the OWL."
Incidentally, the Mukherjee drawing room at Hyderabad also boasts a lovely
collection of owls, as visitors would notice.
“As a publisher, Sujit-da pioneered the translation series, the
"Sangam Books" in the1970s, his own interest going back to the 1950s
when he translated Rabindranath, published in Visva Bharati Patrika. A
translation of Bengali poet Nirendranath Chakrabarty called Naked King and
Other Poems followed. He issued a paperback translation of Iravati Karve's Yuganta,
which was a huge success. His Translation as Discovery (1981), was a
landmark in the field and Meenakshi-di recalled that he had almost finished Translation
as Recovery at the time of his passing.
“The corpus of academic and other works by Sujit Mukherjee who himself was
a fulltime publisher is truly remarkable. Besides the titles mentioned before,
there are numerous others: The Romance of Indian Cricket, (1968); Towards
a Literary History of India, IIAS (1975); Forster and Further,
(1978); Translation as Discovery and Other Essays, (1981); Some Positions on a Short
History of India, CIIL (1981); The Book of Yudhistir, by Buddhadev
Bose, translated by Sujit Mukherjee, Sangam Books (1986); A Dictionary of
Indian Literature, (1991); Autobiography of an Unknown Cricketer (1996);
Indian Essays on American Literature, Co-edited with K.Raghavacharyulu, (1996); An Indian Cricket Century,
edited with Ramchandra Guha, (2002).
“Cricket too was a passion. Rukmini recalls her father playing cricket in
Patna in his long-sleeve shirts. "Tennis, swimming, travel and his love
for the outdoor are what we remember the most about father", she said. He
played for the Ranji Trophy. At Patna, he was a legend. In his Autobiography
of an Unknown Cricketer, he profiled the role played by small towns of
India.
“In an obituary note emailed from Australia, the distinguished Sri Lankan
couple Brendon and Yasmine Gooneratne recalled that among their acquaintances,
Sujit Mukherjee stood out by the qualities of his head and heart. Yasmine said
that it was her singular good fortune to meet the ideal literary editor. Today
as I look nostalgically back at the letter I received way back in 1982, I think
of the myriad dimensions of this extraordinary personality that was Sujit
Mukherjee: his razor-sharp intelligence, imaginative apprehension of
literature, balanced assessment of complex issues, his support for projects
pioneering in character... I also think of his joie de vivre, his
impatience with claptrap and pretentious behaviour, his sense of humility and
total absence of academic arrogance, his encouragement to the younger
generation and spirit of consideration — qualities rare in today's academic and
publishing world.”
Meenakshi (Mrs Mukherji) was one-year my senior. After teaching us only for
a few months, SM went to Pensylvania for his Ph D, and soon thereafter, in
December, 1959, I too joined my lectureship at Munger. In his recently
published autobiography Relentless , Yashwant Sinha, also my friend at
Patna University in those halcyon days, writes in the early pages of his book
about an interesting interlude regarding his brief unsuccessful love affair
with Meenakshi and, soon thereafter, as an ironical denouement, his receiving
the embarrassing invite for the latter’s marriage with SM. Though, in
retrospect, it appears, God often disposes in His superior wisdom, as the
Mukherjis, in time, proved to be the most eminent scholarly couple Indian
English academia ever had.
I now recall an earlier meeting in December, 1955, with SM at the NDA, near
Pune, where I had gone to attend the passing out parade of my friend J K
Benipuri, my childhood friend, and second son of the famous Hindi writer,
Rambriksha Benipuri. After doing his MA, for a while SM had joined NDA as
English Instructor, and was very happy to host a lunch for us there, as we were
all from Patna where he belonged. It was a little later that he had joined
Patna University as lecturer, and taught us in our MA classes. His marriage
with Meenakshi had taken place during that very time; perhaps, in 1959.
I met him and Meenakshi next, years later in the mid-eighties, in their
Hauz Khas flat in Delhi, and also in his cabin in Sahitya Academy where he was
working as editor of A Dictionary of Indian Literature. Both in his flat
and at his Sahitya Academy office, we had a lot of memories to share of the
Patna University days, with Meenakshi joining more eloquently in the
discussion. In those days, I was editing a research journal CONTOUR, and
both Meenakshi and SM were very happy to receive its published numbers.
Meenakshi also agreed to be on its Editorial Advisory Board. In his cabin, SM
talked to me for quite a while about my father, Acharya Shivapoojan Sahay, and
his important contributions to Hindi language and journalism.
In the last phase of his life, the couple went back to Hyderabad, where SM,
even after his retirement from Orient Longmans, served that organization as a
Consultant Scholar till the end of his life.
I have fond memories of both Meenakshi and Prof. Sujit Mukherji, as eminent
scholars of in the field of multi-lingual literary studies and translation.
Surfing on the net, I also came across an obituary article on Meenakshi by
Sanjukta Das where she writes: “Along with her
husband and intellectual collaborator Prof Sujit Mukherjee she
brought to the field of translation, academic attention and critical insights
on the one hand, while building and consolidating on the other hand a discourse
on Indian English Literature… Mukherjee leaves behind a rich legacy for
academics and students of literature. Her students, readers and collaborators have
the assurance that this legacy is set to grow.”
I pay my homage to
the scholarly couple from Patna who have done memorable service to the cause of
Indian English studies in India, particularly in the field of inter-language
discourse.
Photos : Courtesy Google Images
Special acknowledgement to Dr Mohanty & The Hindu for the obituary excerpt.
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