Kannada Literature: Modern Trends

KANNADA LITERATURE: MODERN TRENDS ¹

By Prof. P. Ramanand M.A.

KANNADA LITERATURE had flowed in an unbroken stream from the 9th century A.D. down to the 19th century, passing successively through various epochs–the Jaina, the Veerasaiva, and the Romantic. During the entire 19th century, however, the springs of Kannada literature seem to have dried up, excepting for a little trickling here and there. The cause for this is not far to seek. British power in India had been well and truly consolidated in that century, and the intelligentsia of our land had begun to look to English, not as a language of thought and culture, which could be used to enrich our own languages, but as a means of securing our daily bread. Our languages, including Sanskrit, fell into disfavour, and those learned in them slid into unblissful quietude. Kannada was probably the hardest hit in this manner, because in addition to this general demoralising effect, the Kannada country itself was broken up into more than a dozen fragments and put under as many different administrations–a state of affairs existing even to this day. But it is darkest before dawn, and the dawn of the 20th century saw a new burgeoning of the spirit of Kannada literature.

This was mainly due to two forces at work. One was the vision of few far-sighted the first decade of this century, who with a missionary zeal, sought to bring about re-unification of Karnataka at least in the domain of Art, Literature, and Culture. This vision took tangible shape in the establishment of the Kannada Sahitya Parishat in 1915 with its headquarters at Bangalore. This All Karnataka Institution has been, ever since then, the rallying point for the literary, artistic, and cultural pursuits of all Kannadigas, be they of Mangalore or Mysore, of Karwar or Dharwar.

The second force–a, much greater force–responsible for the new spirit in Kannada, was, of course, the impact of English thought and culture on the educated youth of Karnataka, the very impact under which Kannada had reeled only in the previous century. Down the ages, Sanskrit and its thought and literature had been the sole fountain-head of inspiration for all our poets and writers, who had drawn upon it freely with never ending variations. But, as we have just seen, this inspiration had burnt itself out in the 19th century as far as Kannada was concerned. Only the life-giving waters of a new stream of thought, as great and sweeping in its scope as Sanskrit had been till then, could give life to the drooping spirit of Kannada literature. And this new life-giving stream came with full force from English literature and thought in our present century.

And that is why we find that all the makers of our Kannada literature during the past four decades have been precisely those who have drunk deep at the springs of Western thought and culture, either through our Universities or otherwise.

And that is why, also, all the modern trends in Kannada literature are precisely those trends with which we are familiar in the literatures of the West today. The short story, the lyrical poem, free verse, the social play, the essay, the novel, the satire, biography, humour, criticism etc., are the predominant forms in which our creative artists have expressed themselves. Their writing has been less and less objective, and more and more subjective. Their themes have been mainly concerned with the life of the common man and the interplay of his emotions. Even if the great names or incidents in classic literature or of the past are utilised, it is more with the intention of giving them a new orientation in the light of the present, or of stressing an emotion which is still predominantly playing its part in our lives today. Their form of expression, whether it be in poetry or in prose, has been shorn of all traditional conceits and incrustations, and has been simple and direct, pellucid yet forceful. The literature that has been produced in Kannada during the last four decades is in fact, the literature of Realism–a natural successor to the Romantic literature of the previous age.

The harbinger of the new mood was Muddana’s Ramashwamedha, a magnificent work, which appeared in the dawn of this century. The author was unknown, and Muddana was obviously his pseudonym. This work, garbed as it was in old style Kannada prose, appeared to be an ancient classic, and got published as such. But it bore a refreshing originality and modernity of treatment, possible only for a 20th century author. The bold and telling imagery, the glowing spirit of love and romance, and the rollicking humour in its interludes made this work a masterpiece and a classic in no time. It was only after the death of one Nandalike Lakshminarnappayya, an inconspicuous drill-master in a High School at Udipi, that the public came to know that it was he who was the author of this magnificent work, which critics had been feverishly, and with much argument, trying to place somewhere in the 14th or 15th century A.D.!

The fact that even in this century an outstanding work of the stature of the Ramashwamedha could be written made a great impression on the young educated men of the time. It quickened their creative literary impulses and inspired them with an irresistible desire to create a new era in Kannada literature, an era, greater and more glorious, if possible, than all the previous ones.

The output, however, came in a shy and halting manner at first. No doubt, mediocre translations of novels from Bengali and Marathi came in with unabashed frequency. But the short story, the lyric, and the personal essay began to appear only slowly and hesitatingly. The output for a time was hardly of a quantity or a quality to sustain the dream of a new era in Kannada literature.

But all at once the flowering came. It came with the intensity and, the suddenness of a cloud-burst. Authors and poets arose, almost in unison, from all parts of Karnataka, and bore with them a rich harvest of song and poetry, drama and fiction, to be laid at the altar of Kannada literature.

The short story and the lyrical poem were the first to take the field. Masti Venkatesa Iyengar became famous overnight with his charming and impeccable Rangappana Dipavali and other stories. Although he had soon a large number of followers and imitators, he remains to this day the supreme master of the short story in Kannada. The output of short stories during the last forty years has been naturally prodigious. While most of them are of necessity of the ‘boy-meets-girl’ type, a great many are marked by a rare artistry, sincerity, and imagination.

Side by side with the short story, lyrical poetry has held the field for long. But unlike the short story, whose quality has been rather uneven, excepting in the hands of a few master artists, the lyric has risen to unprecedented heights in the hands of quite a large number of our poets. Bendre of Dharwar, for instance, plays upon our heart-strings as on a harp, evoking whatever emotion he wants. Masti Venkatesa Iyengar’s poetry possesses a wealth of feeling and warmth of heart, of which only he is capable. V. Sitaramiah’s lyrics are delicately sensitive and exquisitely beautiful. Govinda Pai’s poems are in the grand manner and are characterised by great depth of thought and feeling. D. V. Gundappa’s poems are full of charm and impeccable beauty. K. V. Puttappa plucks the stars from the firmament and offers them to his Muse. Prof. Gokak’s poetry is earnest, sensitive, and thoughtful. G. P. Rajaratnam’s ‘Songs of the Drunkard Ratna’ are unique in any literature of the world, compelling our admiration and homage by the sheer boldness of their thought, expression, and structure. The late Panje Mangesh Rao’s lyrics, though few, have an immortal quality about them. And these are not all our poets; and, neither does our modern poetry consist of lyrics only: free verse and blank verse of great beauty and power has also been written. At this moment, a host of younger and newer poets like P. T. Narasimhachar, K. S. Narasimhaswamy and others are tugging at our heart-strings, enthralling us by the freshness of their imagery, expression, and execution.

In the field of the Drama, the name of the late T. P. Kailasam stands supreme. He revolutionised the Kannada drama of our times by taking up our everyday common life on to the stage and making us see for ourselves what we really are. His deep insight into the character of men and women, his irrepressible sense of humour, and withal a boundless sympathy outgoing to them from an overflowing heart, have made his plays bristle with men and women we meet in the home, in the office, in the club, or in the street. We are afraid to laugh at the characters or the situations in his plays, lest we should be laughing at ourselves. And too often, while our laughter is on our lips, a tear invariable glistens in our eyes. Such is the consummate artistry of this master dramatist, who has been rightly called the Father of the Modern Kannada Drama. Prof. R. V. Jahgirdar of Dharwar is another of our well-known dramatists. His plays are characterised by clever, quick-firing dialogues, trenchant humour and a keen analysis of human motives and action. K. Shivaram Karanth of Mangalore is still another of our great dramatists. His dramatic genius has-flowered in many ways. In a number of his One-Act plays he is a powerful realist, but in most of his full length plays he combines high idealism with a vein of satire. He is unique among our dramatists in that he has written a number of operatic plays–operatic, not in, the Indian sense, but in the Western one. And these
are not all our dramatists. The One-Act play, in both its prose and verse forms, has been a prominent and a supple instrument in the hands of quite a large number of our literary artists, too numerous to mention. Among the longer plays, the late B. M. Srikantia’s Ashwatthaman, modelled on the Greek tragic plays, was a landmark in our dramatic literature when it was first published. And so was C. K. Venkataramiah’s classic, Mandodari. Kannadised versions of English and French farces are also largely coming in now-a-days to serve our dramatic literature on its lower levels.

In the field of Fiction, the outlook was rather bleak in the beginning of this century, the works published being mainly translations of novels from other languages. However, Shivaram Karanth’s remarkable novel Chomana Dudi (The Drum of the Pariah) and another equally good one, although in the satiric vein, called Devadootaru (The Messengers of Gods), were early exceptions to this state of affairs. But the ground has been broken anew. K. V. Puttappa has given us his magnum opus, Kanur Subbamma Heggadthi, a novel with ‘Malenad’ life as its ground. A. N. Krishna Rao’s brilliant novels of the middle class social life are highly idealistic in outlook and deeply emotional in content. Shivaram Karanth himself has turned again to fiction, and has given us some superb novels of life in South Kanara. Novels dealing with our struggle for freedom as the main theme are also fast coming into vogue. But novels of deep psychological insight into affairs of men and things are yet to make their way into our literature.

The serious Essay has not yet taken root in Kannada literature, probably because the quick tempo of our 20th century life is hardly conducive to the growth of the leisurely essay. But light, humorous sketches have taken deep root, in the soil. Humour in our ancient classics, although scanty, has always been of a high order. But humour in the prolific manner is a distinctive product of the 20th century, and Kannada has not lagged behind. Dr. Shivaram, N. Kasturi, Gorur, and a host of younger writers are keeping us in our proper moods today by their sparkling perpetration’s in this field.

On the non-creative side, literary criticism of a high order has been largely fostered by our leading writers. C. K. Venkataramiah and G. P, Rajaratnam have given us historical biographies, and the latter also an autobiography, the first of its kind in Kannada. A. N. Krishna Rao has specialised in Veerasaiva literature, and G. P. Rajaratnam in Buddhistic literature, based on which he has given us some outstanding works in Kannada. Other religious and devotional literature also has largely come into existence. Folklore has been revived, and a large amount of a delightful ‘Literature for Children’ has been written, chiefly by the late Panje Mangesh Rao and by G. P. Rajaratnam and Hoysala Shivaram Karanth himself has given us single-handed a magnificent Encyclopedia for Children, called Bala Prapancha, probably the first of its kind in any Indian Language. Political literature also is fast making its way into Kannada. Popular books on Science are slowly trickling in, but we are still at the beginning in this field.

These, in brief, are the main trends in modern Kannada Literature trends which have been caused, as one of our writers has graphically put it, by the intermingling of the waters of the Kannada Kaveri and the Sanskrit Bhagirathi with those of the English Thames. The cry every where now is for ‘Progressive Literature’, but the term is a misnomer, for no literature deserves to be called literature unless it is progressive. And most of the literature produced in Kannada during the last forty years is definitely of a progressive kind. The river of literature flows on. Its course may be smooth or ruffled, wide or narrow, straight or meandering. Its water may be fed at various points by powerful tributaries, and the scenery on its banks may progressively change. But it is still the same literature coursing down the ages, changing and progressing according to the dictates of the Time Spirit.

¹ By courtesy of All India Radio.