Indirabai -- multilingual novel, bilingual pages ...

In the previous post I had written about the innovative use of language in Indirabai.  What Gulvadi Venkatarao had done in this novel was unusual or maybe even unprecedented.  Indirabai is a Kannada novel, but the plot is set in Dakshina Kannada district.  For those who are familiar with the district would know that it is a naturally trilingual place.  Tulu, Konkani, and Kannada being the three main languages and their various dialects based on communities or castes are spoken here.  Gulvadi Venkatarao belonged to the Chitrapur Saraswat Brahmin community (for easy reference – the Karnads, Benegals, Padukones, Gulvadis, Talageris, etc.), who spoke Konkani.  Now there are various dialects of Konkani spoken in the district.  Roman Catholics (the D’ Souzas, Fernandeses, Pintos, etc., of Mangalore) also speak Konkani and so do the Gowda Saraswat Brahmins (the Kamaths, Shenoys, Pais, etc.).  Then there are different Tulus – the rural Tulu, the urban Tulu, the Bunt Tulu, the Brahmin Tulu, among others). 

And then we have the recent entrant, English.  Freshly minted English-speaking graduates carrying the message of social change from Bombay and Madras form the English-spouting characters in the novel.  They are idealistic and excitable, and influenced a little bit by English (maybe also read as Western) ways.     

Gulvadi brings all their languages and dialects together in Indirabai and how!   As I mentioned in the earlier post, people speak in their own languages in the novel.  And Gulvadi translates Konkani and Tulu and English into Kannada for those Kannada readers who may not understand these languages.  So, there are pages in the novel where you have ‘side-by-side’ translation of Tulu and Konkani.  It also helps that Konkani and Tulu are actually written in the Kannada script in Dakshina Kannada.  Instead of just saying, I thought why not show them to you … here they are …

  

Here is a conversation in Konkani between two policemen – the Jamedar, Niklav Fernandes and Constable, Anthony Souza … the Kannada translation appears alongside …

This is a conversation in Tulu between Thimma, a servant in Vithalrao’s house and Triambakarao …

 And this is the English-suffused conversation among the graduates … note the Kannada translations in parentheses immediately after English words/phrases …

 

(All these pages are taken from the 2013 edition of Indirabai, published by Vasantha Prakashana, Bengaluru)

Indirabai -- innovative use of language

Most of the early Kannada realist novels dealt with issues of social change that were creating a storm in major cities and provinces in British India, and also among the orthodox sections of people within dominant communities and classes.  Issues like education for girls and women, widow marriage, child marriage, foreign travel, tonsuring of widows, superstitions, and many more found their way into the plots of early social-realist novels in almost all Indian languages.  Indirabai too was no exception to this and as the summary in the previous post shows, Indirabai seems to have ticked many of the ‘social change issues’ boxes like women’s education, widow marriage, foreign travel, and tonsuring of widows, among other issues.  But what stands out in Indirabai is the use of language. 

The variety of languages and dialects of Dakshina Kannada district used in Indirabai by Gulvadi Venkatarao heightens the authenticity of the milieu.  He uses Konkani, Tulu, the English mixed Kannada of the English-educated youth, the dialects of Brahmins, workers and servants, and the register of law courts to make this novel dialogic and polyphonic.

Social hierarchy is represented by the use of language.   In many cases the dialect or language given to specific characters is representative of their respective classes or castes.  Two Christian police constables speak a variety of Konkani, generally known in Dakshina Kannada as 'Christian Konkani,' and these two are the only people in the novel who speak Konkani.  Tulu is seen to be spoken by servants in the novel.   The rest of the people seem to speak Kannada. Konkani and Tulu are used as representational devices without any explicit comment by the author.  The author has also translated these conversations in Konkani and Tulu into Kannada in the same pages for the convenience of readers outside Dakshina Kannada district.

The portrayal of recently English educated young men speaking an English mixed Kannada is definitely an exercise in sarcasm.  Their speech and actions are shown as fanciful. The elaborate rituals of smoking cigarettes and cigars, and having ‘dessert’ after dinner, every gathering of graduates turning into impromptu meetings with motions being proposed and seconded, a formal vote of thanks, proposing toasts and the resultant 'hurrah'-s, newfound manners of saying 'goodbye' and 'goodnight'— these descriptions evoke laughter as the actions seem elaborate and imitative, and their language contrived.

The sarcasm is heightened by the author giving Kannada equivalents to their English usage in brackets.  Apart from the noble purpose of helping English ignorant Kannada readers, the author also seems to suggest that Kannada has the vocabulary to say the same things that are being said in English and that their effort is artificial tending more towards display.  When almost every minor character has a name, these English-educated graduates have no names.  The author refers to them as 'a BA said,' 'another FA said,' 'another BA countered'— their degrees have become their identities.     

As the realistic novel also marks the advent of the particular in literature, a number of language features help in giving a local and contemporary flavour to the novel.

Gulvadi Venkatarao's Indirabai - a brief summary

The first realist novel set in contemporary times in Kannada, Indirabai, was published in 1899.  Written by Gulvadi Venkatarao, Indirabai became the first of a series of social-realist Kannada novels written at the beginning of the 20^th century that fictionalized the changes taking place in Kannada society inspired by ‘social-reform movements’ in Bengal and Maharashtra.  In Indirabai, Venkatarao rewrites the problems of his Chitrapur Saraswat community in Dakshina Kannada at the turn of the 19^th century and the clamour for reforms from the educated progressive members of the community. 

There are a number of exciting and interesting issues and facts in and about Indirabai.  I want to keep each post brief and readable and therefore these would appear in subsequent posts on the novel.  And since this is the first, I would like to give you a ‘story-summary’ as I had written it.  

This is the cover of the 1985 edition of Indirabai published (very carelessly and shoddily I must say) by The Directorate of Kannada and Culture to commemorate the World Kannada Conference held in that year

Indirabai is born to an ambitious mother, Ambabai, and her acquiescent husband, Bhimarao.  Bhimarao‘s is a rags-to-riches story.  He firmly believes that his success is only due to his wife‘s good luck, and unhesitatingly plots the murder of his apprentice, Sundararao, on the basis of a concocted complaint from his wife.  Indirabai is married off to Vithalrao a year before she reaches puberty.  The only son of wealthy, indulgent parents, Vithalrao is unable to control his sexual ardour and cannot wait till his wife, Indirabai, comes of age. With the tacit approval of his parents and Indirabai’s parents, he arranges to live in a bungalow on the outskirts of the city with two concubines.  His insatiable sexual appetite and debauched lifestyle ultimately lands him in bed with a high fever and he dies leaving Indirabai a virgin widow.  

Indirabai's mother wants her to get her head tonsured and lead the life of a widow.  Her father, however, disapproves of tonsure and brushes aside suggestions of sati made by the priest.  She is made to wear white saree-s, asked not to comb her hair or even apply oil to it, and not to wear blouses too. She rebels and disregards her mother‘s injunctions, except for wearing a white saree.  Her mother conspires to send her off with a group of dubious ‘swami-s‘, who go around conducting rituals and collecting unwanted widows for their various services.  One night, when these swamis are camping in her house, and when one of them tries to molest her, she locks him up in her room and manages to escape.  She takes refuge in the house of Amritarao, a lawyer in the town.  

Amritarao had earlier adopted Bhaskararao, the son of Sundararao, and had supported his education. Bhaskararao is in England for his ICS studies.  On hearing Indirabai‘s plight, Amritarao allows her to stay in his house.  His wife, Jalajakshi, concurs with her husband. Bhimrao and Ambabai ask Indirabai to comeback and threaten Amritarao, but as Indirabai had decided to stay on at Amritarao‘s house on her own volition, her parents cannot do anything further. 

Amritarao learns that Indirabai is keen on studies and sends her to a widow‘s home-cum-school in Satara run by Pandita Anandibai.  She returns on passing her exams and Bhaskararao too returns from England having qualified for the ICS. Amritarao broaches the subject of marriage to both Indirabai and Bhaskararao separately. Both develop a liking for each other and disregarding the fact that Indirabai is a widow, Bhaskararao decides to marry her, thus ending the novel.