Ananthamurthy once said to me that -- in a cultural milieu like the one in Karnataka -- writers are more than just writers. They are also historians, sociologists, psychologists and philosophers though not of the academic type. I remembered this insightful observation when I heard in a Delhi seminar on Karnataka an academic sociologist lamenting the paucity of academic publications in Kannada in the area of humanities. This lamentation is not unjustified. Though tonnes and tonnes of dissertations in humanities are churned out in the ever increasing number of universities in Karnataka, I do not know how many of them make a big difference to the researchers´ areas. For the time being, I can only console myself with the fact that very few historians like Prof S. Settar and Manu V. Devadevan are enriching the literature humanities in Kannada.
Though literature in the area of humanities on the whole appears to be underdeveloped in Kannada, the objects of enquiry in those areas have been explored with great passion in the literary works by eminent Kannada writers. Are not celebrated novels like Shivarama Karanth´s Chomana Dudi or Anantamurthy´s Samskara replete with deep sociological insights which are not found in academic writings? Does not a novel like Tejaswi`s Carvallo give us a better idea of environment than academic publications on the subject? I do not mean to say that academic writings are of lesser value than creative expressions. At the same time, because a creative writer is not shackled by theoretical models and methodological imperatives of academic studies, the writer is free to say and show more than academicians in spite of the inescapable subjectivity of creative writers. Though I fully agree with Ananthamurthy in this, the phenomenon is not limited to Kannada. Both Marx and Freud claimed to have learnt more from Shakespeare and Dostoyvesky respectively about human society and psychology than from historians and philosophers.
Hanuru Krishnamurthy´s latest book Kaludariya Kathanagalu assumes great significance in the context of the above debate. It can be described both as a study in folklore and a work of fiction. As an author and scholar who has over decades enriched both folk studies and fiction, he has now ended up writing a book which is both and neither of them. His works of fiction like Ajnatanobbana Atmacheritre read like an elaborate folk tale or a legend. His writings on folklore are characterised by a greater amount of story-telling than by academic components. Alternatively, it can also be labelled as an autobiography of sorts. But it does not focus on his family or personal details. These are briefly suggested here and there because his objects of attention are folk tales and their tellers. Not for him D.H. Lawrence’s caution: ´Trust the tale not thee teller.´ In the unique narrative that this book foregrounds the tales and their tellers, real life and fantasy merge into a genre of writing difficult to name. The book takes us through an intimate narrative journey in a few well-marked regions of Karnataka where imagination is more real than history. It begins with a fascinating landscape of stories that he lived through in his home village close to Male Madeshwara Hills in Kollegal region. The space was resonating with the recitations of two great folk epics of the region, Madeshshwara and Manteswami as well as with the oral renderings of great literary epics like Kumaravyasa Bharata. The author’s love of poetry was shaped more by this milieu than by class room. The dense forest was another great teacher in his formative years. He narrates briefly how he encountered a real tiger in the jungle. The tiger just gazed at him and went its way. Here is another chilling experience:
During our journey through the forest, we found a gunny sack near Arkana Halli. It looked like a bundle in which something was tied up. It was all red from outside. When we adventurers opened it, the severed head of a long-haired woman fell out. Other severed parts of the trunk and limbs were also inside the same bag. We began to tremble. Which beast had killed her? How could someone bundle her up like that? Unable to sort this out we ran back to the village. There was no police station nearby in those times. There was not one anywhere nearby. We did not breathe a word about this to any one. At the same time the terror of what we had seen continued to haunt us.
Another figure who presided over his childhood landscape was Mammattiyar, a precursor of Veerappan. Alleged to have been magically empowered, he roamed the forest and broke into villages to kill, loot and plunder. He had turned into a dreaded villain following the murder of his near ones. Though a threat to the rich, he was a friend to the poor. Swift and shape-shifting, he would always elude the police and their informers. His story was also told by a contemporary British officer, Kenneth Anderson. This man who walked like the hero of many legends was betrayed by one of his disloyal women. The author´s desire to learn the great art of black magic from him never happened.
Following such captivating childhood stories, the author goes on to tell stories of his story-tellers. He does not see or treat them like an anthropologist looking at an informant. They are all well-rounded and full-fledged people who come out as great fictional characters.
Konasagara Hanumayya, who the author introduces is not just a storyteller but a story-teller about another story teller, Chenni, the maid servant and lover of one Papanayaka murdered by his enemies. Chenni composes a narrative song about the exploits and tragedy of her lover-master and roams around singing it. After she vanishes, only Hanumayya remembers the whole song.
To Krishnamurthy, stories are extensions of the wisdom, spontaneity and humble pride of illiterate but highly sophisticated story-tellers who are passionately in love with ´that one talent which is death to hide.´ They are men and women of extraordinary calibre. What is fascinating is not just the story but also the way they tell them punctuating them with pearls of wisdom. Says Danamma, for instance: Ýou can cross the ocean without wetting your feet but cannot cross life without tears.´ Some of their humble pride is astounding. Siriyajji, a literal ocean of stories, said when she confronted the Chief Minister: “Who is this man?” Another story-teller Sannabasavayya said when given an academy award: “Í don’t want their award”.
The enchanting story-scape that Krishnamurthy tales us through is where women have a pride of place. They assert their independent world-view when they narrate the same stories told by men from a totally different perspective e. What is more, men respect and appreciate them. This living world is the anti-thesis of the view of rural India as a site of unadulterated patriarchy. One is reminded of A.K. Ramanujan´s famous anthology of folk tales, Flowering Tree . Some of the stories retold in this book were collections of Hanur Krishnamurthy. Ramanujan’s brilliant retelling is like an aerial view of folktales whereas Hanur Krishnamurthy’s journey is more like the image of the sea of stories captured by an underwater camera.
The author is a poet and professor at JNU, New Delhi
