THE RESORT

Indian Literature, bimonthly journal of Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi, has published English translation of my Kannada short story "The Resort"  in its Sept/Oct., 2010 issue--with a few mistakes, unfortunately. The translation is by me.

I should thank Dr. Janardana Bhat, an important Kannada critic and fiction writer,  for indirectly making me translate this  story into English. A few years ago he wrote an article on this short story, considering it one of the great short stories of the world. It was an article on four Kannada short stories which he considered  great. The other three stories are:  "Suryana Kudure" by U. R. Ananthamurthy, "Odalala" by Devanura Mahadeva, and "Laya" by Raghavendra Patila. Among these stories, "Suryana Kudure" is available in an English translation by Narayana Hegde. I do not know whether "Odalala" and "Laya" are translated into English. "Odalala" is a great short story. I wish I get the opportunity to translate it into English.

Janardana Bhat, in that article, says that there are considerable number of stories in Kannada which  he considers great. Of course, there are. Kannada literature is rich in short stories. Some of the finest minds have worked in this genre. My own favourite stroy, among others, is "Nanu Konda Hudugi" (=The Girl I Killed) by  Ajjampura Sitarama, whose pen name is Ananda. It was published in the 1950s. The story is about a temple, a Devadasi, and an educated narrator. This educated narrator goes to a village which has many temples of architectural value. He stays in the village-headman`s house who is a considerably well-off landowner. But, in the night, his daughter comes to the narrator`s room, and offers herself. She is a Devadasi. She is made Devadasi by her father with the consent of  other members of the family. The narrator, in that night, tells her that prostituting herself like this is wrong. She protests: she says she is not a prostitute, but God`s concubine; and offering herself like this is part of the ritual she should keep performing throughout her life. The narrator, educated man from the city, convinces her that it is prostitution in the name of God. She leaves his room: the narrator notices that she looks disturbed.  The next day morning family members and the villagers wake up to find out that she has committed suicide the previous night.

The story has many layers of meaning. The narrator, who was appreciating the beauty of the temple, discovers that there is a terrible ugliness hidden behind this beauty. The awakening of consciousness in that Devadasi brings death. She lives happily so long as she is ignorant of how she is viewed by the outsiders to the social system in which she lives. But, once she becomes aware of that, she finds it impossible  to continue to live.  It is like becoming aware of the absurdity of her life all of a sudden. The story also makes us aware of the absurdity of making him/her aware of his/her situation when he/she is not prepared to face the consequences.

 In the story, this Devadasi, a young beautiful girl, sits in the verandah, looks at the visitor, and smiles, invitingly. The visitor does not understand why this daughter of the headman of the village, his host,  is smiling like this. She does not understand why this man is  indifferent to her. This small detail shows the lack of communication between this illiterate young woman from the feudal village and the educated modern man from the city. This is also the way the story works: through small details, like all great stories.

Another of my favourite stories is "Cennappa Oded Murti" (=The Idol Smashed by Chennpa) by Yarmunja Ramachandra. This story is also about God in the society. An educated  peron, influenced by DMK ideology, decides to destroy God`s idols. To do that, he asks Chennappa, maker of clay-idols of Ganesha by profession, to prepare the idols. Chennappa is tempted to make the idols for the money he is promised to be paid for this task. He half prepares the idols. Then he feels he is doing a sinful act by preparing the idols to be destroyed by an atheist. Till then he prepared the idols for worship; now he is doing it for something opposite to that. Ultimately he feels he should not help an atheist by going against the god whom he worshipped till then, and destroys the half-prepared idol in the darkness of the night. 

I like the story because of its ambiguity. Chennappa had to destroy the idol in order to retain its holiness and his faith. The society is changing; faithlessness, disbelief, atheism are spreading; there are people who question the significance of worship, prayer, puja; this movement, this lack of faith in the old world, old values  is so strong that even a believer like Chennappa can not escape from that. He has no choice but to react to this movement in one way or another.

I have a childhood link with Yarmunja Ramachandra`s stories. His collection of stories, Cikitseya Huccu mattu itara Kategalu (1954) was published by Sangama Sahitya Male of Kalmadka, a village in which I spent my childhood and in which I am now living. There was a poet called K. Ramachandra in this village. He died of tuberculosis when he was in his early twenties. He was a student of B.A. English Honours at Maharaja`s College, Mysore, when he died. He was a student of Gopalakrishna Adiga and Prof. C. D. Narasimhiah, and a classmate of U. R. Ananthamurhty, Dr. N. Ratna, Ha. Ma. Nayak, and others. He, along with T. G. Mudoor, K. Sachidanandayya (he died in December 2010), and Kerekkodi Ganapathi Bhat founded an organization called Sangama Kala Sangha. Sangama Sahitya Male, which published Yarmunja Ramachandra`s book, is its publishing wing. Sangama Kala Sangha is still active as a Yakshagana Centre. It still conducts Yakshagana Talamaddale, Ata, and workshops. It is one of the old Yakshagana centres in Karnataka. Its publication wing was closed long long ago.

I was attracted to Cikitseya Huccu mainly because the name of my village was printed on the title page. It is one of the books which formed my sensibility. But, now, after reading so many stories, I still feel it is one of the finest collections of short stories in Kannada. It was published during Yarmunja`s lifetime. He was not even twenty years old when he wrote these stories. How he achieved such maturity at that young age is one of the mysteries of genius. But, these stories were not recognized when they were published. Gopalakrishna Adiga, who wrote an introduction to the collection of poems of Yarmunja, a posthumous publication, does not even mention it. Even after twenty years of its publication, most of the copies of this book were lying in the godown of Sangama Kala Sangha, unsold. But, among the first collections of short stories of  Ananthamurthy, Yashavanatha Chittala, Ramachandra Sharma, Rajalakshmi Rao, K. Sadashiva and others published in the 1950s, Yarmunja`s is the best. The first collections of these writers are significant because they achieved greatness in their subsequent works; Yarmunja`s book stands apart on its own merit.