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.
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