Two young writers from Karnataka — Veeranna Madiwalara and Vikram Sampath — have won the Central Sahitya Akademi's Yuva Puraskar, introduced for the first time this year.
While 29-year-old Madiwalara won the award for his Kannada poetry collection, Nelada Karuneya Dani , Sampath won it for My Name is Gauhar Jaan! , a documentation of the life and times of the eponymous woman musician in the turbulent early 20 century India.
Honour for teacher
The two awards symbolise the diversity of the literary scene in Karnataka, and underline how different worlds of experiences have enriched it.
Madiwalara hails from the north-western border district of Belgaum and teaches in a government higher primary school in Gavadyanavadi village in Chikkodi taluk. Nelada Karuneya Dani is his first poetry collection, and most poems here reflect the trauma of living in a world marked by cruelty and inequalities.
The poet says that while he is happy to receive an award that is a “recognition for all writers who share my concerns”, he hopes that the pain and suffering that his poems reflect will also get due attention from society. “Let us not forget that we still live in a world where young people are killed for marrying out of caste and human sacrifice is still practised,” he says.
He has dedicated the award to two young Kannada poets who are no more — N.K. Hanumanthaiah and Vibha Tirakapadi — and students of Classes 1 to 3 of his school, whom he teaches.
On a musical trail
Sampath (32), who lives in Bangalore, holds a master's degree in Business Administration. A trained classical musician himself, his two recent books are on musicians, Gauhar Jaan and veena maestro S. Balachandar.
My Name is GauharJaan! , which has brought him the award, is a painstakingly researched documentation of the musician, who is hailed as the first Indian voice to be recorded in 1902. The richly nuanced book also brings to life a historical context of the colonial period, which saw morality laws ushered in by the British greatly altering the cultural landscape of Karnataka. This was the period that saw court musicians like Gauhar derided as women of “loose morals”; their art also became taboo.
“It is a humbling experience to be recognised by the highest literary body of the country,” says Sampath. “A lot of effort goes into writing a biography, especially of musical icons, be it Gauhar or Balachander, due to the total absence of documentation of any kind in the performing arts space.”
