When Y. N. Krishnamurthy, the renowned Journalist & writer from Bangalore 'vanished in the air' after meeting his friend Dr. GK Jayaram, whom he met after a long gap in America, Dr. Jayaram wrote this tribute. I have reproduced it below on behalf of him:
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A man called YNK
(Y.N. Krishnamurthy)
by Dr. GK. Jayaram
Dear God:
It is rather presumptions of me to address You as 'dear', or
to address You at all, since 1 am not a devoted fan of Yours. Of course, it is
only presumptuous if You exist; if you don't , then this letter to a
non-existent tie/She/It is a waste of time. But time I have in plenty, or so I
think unless You have some plans for me that I do not know about. The reason I
mention Your plans is because an old friend of mine recently visited me and
spent three days going around places. I had not really met this old, precious,
ornery, mentor-friend for thirty-five years. Yet, by some unknown coincidence
or plan, he came, and we spent a lot of time together . Then he boarded a plane
to fly back home, and halfway across Europe, he cried out in pain. By the time
the stranger doctors, co-passengers of his, got to him, he was gone.
What was Your plan there? Why did this man come to America
for only the third time in his life to spend the last three weeks on earth here
in this strange, foreign land? Why, getting self-centered for a moment, did I
get to spend so much time after not meeting him for so long? Was that an
unsolicited gift from You? Do you really care what happens to us all?
And why this strange death? Maybe all deaths are strange -
or it is irrelevant how you die, since you are not there anymore and for those
who cared for you, the body that housed you becomes unbearable, unkeepable, to
he buried or burnt soon so they can keep their memories and move on towards
their deaths. But it is dramatic that a famous theater critic should enact his
own final drama in this manner, dying high up in the air at 35,000 feet above
the earth, not in any one country, not at his home or in his India, but up
somewhere without a marker for the place of death or even the time of death, since
who knows what time zone he was flying over at the moment of his departure?
He said I have never been hospitalized in my life". He said,
" I have not had western medicine, only Homeopathic; no Allopathic at all
for the last 25 years". I asked him how old he was, and he said
seventy-three. I said "Touch wood, and let God bless you. You look so good
and healthy". When I asked if I was making him walk too much across the
Delaware River bridge from Lambertville to New Hope, or on the boardwalk in
Atlantic City from Trump Taj Mahal to Caesar's , he said " Oh no! my
friend Julie in New York took me on a two-and-half hour walk". As my
mother used to say, and as my wife said now, maybe evil eyes struck him. We
tempted the Gods with our, and his, boast of good health. You wouldn't know
anything about this, would You?
Looking back 1 wonder why did You, or did You, arrange for
me, a fourteen-year old at that time so long ago, to meet this man?
He must have been all of twenty-nine then must have met him
at the end of some Inter-collegiate debate where I spoke and won, and he was a
judge. I do not recall the beginning; but soon a routine was set.
I would walk from my home across the shopping street, to his
home ten minutes away. He lived there with his mother and sister. He never
married; the rumors of a jilted affair and a broken heart floated in the
grapevine many years later. Journalism for a profession and thinking, reading,
and above all talking for an avocation, the man was a fount of knowledge for a
fourteen-year-old. Maybe for whatever- year- old.
He would offer a book to me each time I met him. A book a
week, mostly old and somewhat beaten books from his personal library, They were
all there in his small room, stacked from floor to ceiling. Invariably, I would
arrive just as he was preparing to leave for work. He would pick out a book. I
don't know how he chose them. At random? With deliberate thought? These were
not books he had just then read, so he must have spent a few moments thinking
what shall I give this kid today. It didn't matter. He gave the book, with a
rapid shotgun critique and an introduction of the author and the book. He must
have had a speech impediment, because all his life he spoke very fast and
repeated many words for the benefit of his listeners.
He'd say, " I want you to read Jack London. Very
powerful, Leftist/socialist American writer. Went as a sailor when he was very
young. One day determined, when he was 17, that it was a fool's game to earn a
living with your brawn instead of your brain. So, he started writing, He once
went and fought with the editors of a magazine who had rejected his story. They
threw him down the stairs. He enjoyed it immensely. 'Sea wolf - 'Sea wolf is
one of the best descriptions of socialist thought I have ever read. Better than
all the boring, serious writers. Remember to return it when you are done. I'm
not in a hurry, but I have lost three copies of it".
Jack London's "Sea Wolf: and "Iron Heel", all
of Shaw, Wilde, Chekov, R.K Narayan, Colin Wilson's "Religion and the
Rebel", Gore Vidal's "Best Man', Arthur Koestler's "Darkness at
Noon" --- he gave my mind more stuff to chew on than anyone alive.
Lord, or Lady as the case may be, A man's mind matters, You
know. As You may know since my teens I have lived by my wits. Those wits, which
have sustained me all my life, were the legacy of my teens - and of this man
called YNK. He gave me free lessons in how to exercise the muscles of my mind.
Oh, that sounds dull, as though I was pumping iron and pushing dumb bells. It
was not dull at all. On the contrary, it was most alive, exciting, dreamy, full
of Zeitgeist.
I remember one week I read "Out of the Night" by someone
named Jan Valtin. What excited me was , as soon as I opened the book, were
these lines from a poem by William Henley. I have remembered them ever since:
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods be
For my unconquerable soul.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
That week, day and night I would read "Out Of The
Night", and see in my mind's eye the underground communist cells of
Central Europe, and men and women who lived for ideals bigger than themselves and
got killed for doing so. The next week I soared with Bonhoffers' "What is
Truth", and marveled at the subtle complexities of a truly moral life. Of
course, every week was Wodehouse week. Ah, Lord, thank You for creating a
Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, and a YNK who introduced him to me. I learnt all
the English I know because of Mr. Wodehouse. I can hardly wait to read his
publications at Your place, since he was a most prolific writer who wrote a
book each year of his life. I am sure that he is now writing a book each year
of his death, till it is time for him to come back down here and make everyone
laugh aloud all over again. Give him my most humble and best regards. I read
while I was walking in the streets; read in the bathroom; read while hanging on
the straps in jam-packed buses; read by the light of the lantern lamps till
mother would call out "sleep, sleep; or you will spoil your eyes reading
all those story books'.
I met with YNK aspiring poets and writers on the second
floor of the "Circle Lunch home" drinking one-by-two cups of coffee
and smoking endless cigarettes, while sniping at the latest work of a friend
who was absent that day. Those were the heady times of YNK's "Socratic
Circle". What manner of man was he? What did he mean to me? What did he
mean to the world he lived in? Why should we remember him?
He was an unselfconscious mentor to so many hungry minds, an
autodidact who gave what he got from literature to who he considered deserving
without asking for anything in return, except a hunger to learn and a genuine
willingness to return the books. The man read voraciously, talked incessantly,
rarely listened, at least not for long, and gave away the precious gift of his
mind for the pleasure of giving it. He treated me kindly, with an understated
friendship and a generosity never so labeled by either of us. We met in the
mornings; he gave me books, talked of them and the great authors; we walked
down to the restaurant, and he paid for breakfast, since I never had any money.
Then he took off to edit his newspaper, and I went wherever clutching the book,
dreaming as usual, and living for the moment.
We met thirty -five years later in America. Strange and
unusual as his relationship to me was in my early life, his visit to me right
before his death was equally so. I wonder if I would have felt so affected, so
vaguely scared , so desolate if I had not met him after so long and spent three
whole days with him.
It is hard to describe how I felt meeting him. At the end of
the first evening of dinner, and subsequently too, it was --- nice. A pallid,
lifeless word? Maybe. But it was good, affectionate, reassuring, nostalgic,
reaffirming to meet him. For sure, he was now all he was before. It was uncanny
how little change there was in him. The pluses and the minuses were all as they
were, like an ageless garden, thorns and bushes and bugs and flowers and fruits
all. He walked a lot and talked incessantly.
There was the same wit, the snapshot offer of a critique of a person or a book
or an event, the stories ... Ah, the stories always around a person. He
centered on personalities. This time it was someone called Amarish Shah, a
mystic/seer/psychic whom he admired a lot. He mentioned often, with reverence,
a man called UG, whose biography he had authored as a set of interviews. And so
many other characters. Some with admiration, some with caustic wit, all with
the same ceaseless restless inquiring analysis and expression. There was no
disdain of anyone this time, but to be fair YNK rarely disdained anyone. He
couldn't care that much. He would move on, if he wasn't interested in someone
as a person, long before disdain would set in. It was a waste of mental energy
to disdain.
And then he flew up and died somewhere in the sky Up in the
air closer to haven. Ah YNK. I miss you. Let God, or whatever, bless you, keep
you in peace. No; more than that. Keep you talking; give you admiring
intelligent listeners, and two shots of Scotch every evening.
And, selfishly, may I know you again as a friend in many
more lives. Because I know that people like you, and people like me are born
again and again. We love life too much; we are dissatisfied with it
perpetually; we will keep coming back to it, in one life and in Many lives,
trying to make sense of it or at the least, to have fun with it.
And God, if he is there with You-- and I think he should be,
because he was good man who gave a lot and did no harm-- just let him talk,
because he loves to. He is very witty, knows a lot including stuff peripherally
about You, and, of course, thousand other things. He does repeat himself quite
a bit; but it somehow never mattered.
And please arrange for two shots of Scotch, preferably a
really good brand, every evening. after which he would want to eat a relishing
South Indian meal to call it a day.
Are You there? Are You listening? Because this is important
for me, and You must do this.
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Here is a Kannada poem on YNK by Dr. GK Jayaram in his voice. Title:
YNK not in
