A few words ... onderadu maatugalu ...

A blog on Kannada Arunodaya literature has been on my agenda for some time now.  I have been reading, writing, researching, translating, collecting books, and so on, on Kannada Arunodaya literature since 1995.  1995 was when I started work on my PhD at CIEFL (now The EFL University), Hyderabad.  I wanted to translate the first Kannada ‘social-realist’ novel, Gulvadi Venkatarao’s Indirabai, into English.  This proposed translation, along with a ‘long and comprehensive’ introduction/preface/foreword would become my PhD thesis (that big fat black book!!).  I finished off the first five chapters in double quick time and then there was a twist in the tale (tail?).  I stumbled on to something exciting (or so I thought at that time) and decided to look into the whole enterprise of ‘translation’ in Kannada literature during the latter half of the 19^th century and early years of the 20^th century.  

I discovered some amazing facts for myself of that period, which ‘regular’ histories of Kannada literature either ignored or dispatched off in a couple of lines.  I wanted to know more and the chase was truly on.  Information and books were difficult to get.  Many books had gone out of print.  I had to rely on a photocopy of Srinivasa Havanur’s Hosagannadada Arunodaya, as the only source of information.  Since the book covered a lot of ground, information was available, but details were scarce.  I tapped all my friends and acquaintances living in Karnataka and wrote to researchers and booksellers and visited libraries.  Slowly, but surely, I gathered information and books, and started reading and making notes.  There were lots of dry months in between and also lots of other problems, but finally, after six years I managed to put together something credible which had a common theme and completed my ‘thesis.’ 

Fifteen years have gone by.  The Arunodaya period in Kannada literature continues to be a lifelong passion project for me.  This period of around seventy five years set the tone (or laid the foundation) for much of what happened later in Kannada literature.  The language of literature shifted from Halegannada to Hosagannada and prose gained ascendancy.  A number of new genres like the novel, lyric poetry, and the essay, came into Kannada literature.  This transition was helped by the printing press and the founding of Kannada newspapers and magazines.  I don’t want to say everything in the first post itself.  As I go on, I will touch upon issues that intrigued me and continue to interest me.  Except for a few researchers, not many Kannadigas know about the people who wrote or the books that were published during this period.  So, I thought I could post brief articles about books and litterateurs of the Arunodaya period.  

Most of the things I would say in these posts I have already published as long research articles, and there are some parts that couldn’t make it to my final ‘thesis’ for some reason or the other.  I would be doing a lot of re-writing to make these brief posts interesting for the general reader without inflicting a lot of ‘theory’ (not that I like ‘theory’ as such … I am more of a ‘practical’ person!!).  Let’s see how it goes. 

I intend to post one article every week.  The first post would be on Gulvadi Venkatrao’s Indirabai, my sentimental favourite, and a book many Kannadigas have heard about, and also a book that started my tryst with Kannada Arunodaya Saahitya.