The narrative of the well known writer Sathyanarayana Anathi, Hippemara , is a significant contribution to the genre of the autobiographical writing in Kannada both in terms of its style and content. (There is also a poem of Anathi with the same title published in seventies.) This book reads like a literary piece of writing rather than a realistic submission of the events that happened in the author’s life. In writings like this, the authenticity or the otherwise of the details presented becomes irrelevant and the narrative is, like any autobiography, an incomplete representation of author’s developing self.
The title of the autobiography is an epigrammatic statement of the author’s attitude towards life. Hippemara (Madhulika Lattifolia) is a tree which bears bitter seeds. The author is enamoured by the bitterness that he seems to have confronted and enjoyed in his life (like Lankesh who was fascinated by the sour taste of tamarind and Ananthamurthy by the fragrance of Suragi flower). At least three dimensions of Anathi which are complimentary to each other are conspicuous in this narrative. One is that of a creative writer, second that of a social /political activist and third is that of a family man. What binds the three together is a compassionate human self. Though the book records violence (including physical) inflicted on Anathi, the narrative does not revel in the injustices in the world around us. On the contrary, there is also a record of goodness of people around despite strong socio-political differences. What is also noticeable in the book is the ability of the writer to interrogate and look at himself with some sense of surprise and humour. Certain repeated linguistic (like the use of negative particle in Kannada, ittilla, ittittila, maditilla, etc) and discourse markers in the narrative are refreshingly used. The mixture of prose and poetry in the narrative, which the author humorously categorises as being written in champu shaili , makes the reading quite enlivening. The simple but mischievous, ideologically inclined yet pleasant and serious but endearing personality of the author comes through in this narrative. Anathi’s long association with many big personalities are narrated so exhaustively that one may mistake the details to be an act of names dropping.
Despite the awareness that there is nothing new or fashionable about middle class Brahmin boys turning agnostic, discarding their sacred threads, eating meat, enjoying their evening drink, etc., Anathi repeatedly emphasizes these issues as something most significant. Being a non conformist is as significant as being a conformist. It is a choice that each one makes and each choice has its justification. As a reader, one would always be interested in the motivation for the choices that the writer has made in the narrative rather than the choice per se .
If the autobiography is a little disappointing, the reason could be the lack of hind-sightedness in the narrative. The author does not look at the past with his present understanding of the world around him. So, the confrontations he had with the establishment all along his life are all seen as just reactions to some social, cultural and political issues that eventually popped up at particular points of time in his active life. It could also be branded as a middle class luxury – even while getting all the comforts from a system, but still fight against the same system being absolutely sure that nothing untoward would ever happen to his personal life. Hence, the validation of such series of experiences is to be realized only through a comprehensive understanding of how important the socio-political movements of his times are in the contemporary life. In other words, the autobiography does not attempt to consolidate all the rich experiences of the author in order to present a perspective which can throw light on the nature of various social and political movements and the nature of involvement of the activist in them. Another interesting feature of the book is the role of the author’s wife in the scheme of things. She seems to be portrayed as a wife who passively accepts her husband’s ‘adventurous’ life without much ado.
