P. Sheshadri has taken a break from feature films. The eight time national award winning film maker is currently busy in documenting the life and works of the renowned novelist, S.L. Bhyrappa.
The documentary commissioned by Central Sahitya Akademi has the working title, “The Doyen of Modern Kannada Novels”, and as a result of which he is now re-reading all major novels of Bhyrappa, which he read as a student of literature years ago. He has also been having extensive conversations with writers, intellectuals and critics from the past few months.
Bhyrappa, who has been writing for six decades and has 26 novels, five collections of essays and autobiography ( Bhitti ) to his credit. His works received critical and popular acclaim both in Kannada and other Indian languages, including Sanskrit and English. He is the only Kannada writer to have received prestigious Saraswathi Samman from Birla Foundation.
Known as critic of the Nehruvian consensus, he continued to write about things and issues concerning ancient Indian philosophical traditions . Many of novels, including, Matadana, Vamshavriksha, Tabbaliyu Neenade Magane, Naayi Neralu have been made in to films by renowned film makers such as Girish Karnad, B.V. Karanth, T.N. Seetharam and Girish Kasaravalli. His classic novel Grihabhanga and Daatu were serialised on television. Besides writing novels, music is his passion and could be described as an important aspect of his life. His novel Mandra is testimony for that. His forte is philosophy and as he has admitted in various interviews, witnessing deaths of his close relatives at an young age made him search for answers for death in philosophy. Bhyrappa's works are known for their details on the subject. His works are a product of huge amount of research and personal connections. Parva, a non-mythological retelling of the epic Mahabharata and widely acclaimed as a modern classic illustrates the research mindset of Bhyrappa. He is known for his fight for creative freedom of writers.
Documentary making is Sheshadri’s forte. So far he has made 12 documentaries for Doordarshan including some on writers like Devudu Narasimha Shastri, A.N. Murthy Rao, T.P. Kailasam and S.L. Bhyrappa.
Having made a one hour on Bhyrappa for Central Institute of Indian Languages, how different will this second one be?
“I made that film in 2013, now I am revisiting Bhyrappa again. While the one I did for CIIL is basically about writer's childhood, education, his struggle to become writer and his works, this one has new challenges. I am looking Bhyrappa purely as a novelist and the stress will be more on his works rather than his personal life. In a way it is like offering visuals of Bhyrappa through his novels in sixty minutes,” Sheshadri says.
While narrating the life of S.L. Bhyrappa, Sheshadri aims to portray the way his novels represent the changing phase of India and Karnataka. “I will shoot some important sequences from the novels to offer background of the work. Why did he write the novel? What do critics think of it?... I think this is first of its kind.”
Sheshadri dwells on the life, childhood, education and adulthood of Bhyrappa through the narration of writers, besides opinions of his friends, who are a part of his life. “It is a challenge to create transformation of time in the documentary. I have to record changes in the society for nearly six decades, as Bhyrappa's first novel Bheemakaya was published in 1958. The society and its values have changed since the days of Vamshavriksha .”
It is not an easy task to make a documentary on Bhyrappa. He started writing when the country got independence and was trying to cope with several issues such as industrialisation, culture and tradition. Bhyrappa is known for social realism and dealing with spiritual dilemmas. “His selection of characters, plots and themes rely on the existential pangs that Indians go through in villages, town, abroad and even in space,” Sheshadri says referring to Yana, which speaks of scientific problems and human relations .
Expansive canvasses, socially relevant issues, the popular ideas of modern India, the changes that caste system underwent due to the impact of industrialisation, the battle of modernity and traditional ideas form the core of some of his important novels. His works have ushered in many experiments in terms of language and characterisation.. “Translating all these critical things into a visual structure is a daunting task. I am re-reading all these works and understanding their complexities to paint picture of a novelist, who writes in Kannada and whose works are living testimonies to the sweep of India’s diverse geography, multitudinous cultural variety and apparent complexity -- all unified by a timeless strand of shared civilizational consciousness,” describes Sheshadri, quoting literary critic Ha. Ma. Nayak.
Ask him what the opening scene would be and he says it will begin with music, which is close to the writer’s heart. a voice over starts reading the opening lines of Bhyrappa’s autobiography Bhitti . Along with the voice over, several scenes of octogenarian writer walking in to the park, next to his house in Mysore discussing with his friends.
His writings will be introduced through literary figures such as Chandrashekara Kambara, Shatavadhani Ganesh, G.B. Harish and Girish Kasaravalli. Over 10 critics will select a novel or two and then speak about them. Focus will be on classics such as Vamshavriksha, Tabbaliyu Neenade Magane, Matadana and Nayi Neralu . “If permission is granted, I am planning to shoot in ISRO to create the atmosphere of Yana. I have discussed my plans, concepts with Bhyrappa thrice, and will seek his intellectual inputs, wherever needed,” he adds.
