343. Kuvempu Turns 120

The text of Kuvempu’s epic Kannada novel, Malegalalli Madumagalu (1967), and the recent translation, Bride in the Hills by Vanamala Viswanatha (Penguin Random House, 2024), will be discussed by an eminent panel of scholars, writers and the translator.

Set in 1893 in the Malnad region of the Western Ghats with its majestic Sahyadri ranges, dense forests, and river Tunga, Kuvempu’s Malegalalli Madumagalu (Bride in the Hills) describes the saga of not one young woman but many, of varied hues, who aspire for love and fulfilment in marriage, in a self-serving, male feudal order. An organic network of interrelated stories, the well-known Kannada writer Devanoora Mahadeva locates the novel in the epic tradition of the Mahabharata and Tolstoy’s War and Peace. This woman-centric text weaves together the touching plight of young couples in love, such as Gutti and Timmi, from a Dalit community living on the ghats; Aita and Pinchalu, migrant labourers from below the ghats, and Mukundayya and Chinnamma from the land-owning Shudra caste. Fired from within by their love – the most powerful agent of change – these young people seek a life of freedom and dignity, leading to the transformation of the larger community. Their heartening stories are juxtaposed against the travails of hapless Nagakka and scheming Venkatanna, sickly Deyi and brute Chinkra, and gullible Kaveri and lecherous Devayya. All of them are, in different ways, up against the repressive regimes of the decadent landlords, who manipulate traditional feudal practices as well as the modern apparatus of a colonial state. 

True to its claim as an epic novel, Kuvempu’s text with its multiple narrative strands vividly enacts its mission statement in the epigraph: “Here, no one is important; no one is unimportant; nothing is insignificant!” Every sentient and insentient thing – the degenerate Chinkra, orphan Dharmu, Huliya the dog, Biri the cat, the evergreen forest, the Hulikal Peak – has a place and a purpose in this narrative. Imbued with an ecological consciousness, the novel offers a veritable biodiversity register of the Malnad region. Kuvempu presents a ‘view from below’, a subaltern perspective which also takes in the world of the wealthy and powerful.

Winner of the first Sahitya Akademi award in 1955 and the Jnanpith in 1967, Kuvempu (Kuppali Venkatappa Puttappa 1904-1994) inaugurated the non-brahmin era in modern Kannada writing. Kuvempu’s versatile oeuvre includes a vast body of poetry, plays, novels, children’s writing, essays and an autobiography. While his poetic epic ‘Shri Ramayana Darshanam’ is a radical rewriting of the Valmiki epic drawing from the Jaina tradition, the two novels, The Kanur House (made into a film by Girish Karnad) and Bride in the Hills, are modern novels set in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Inspired by Tolstoy’s expansive canvas and Tagore’s unique Indian ethos, this first significant Shudra writer and an iconic figure in Kannada culture, has sculpted an entirely regional epic novel in Bride in the Hills.

Image Credits
Book Cover: MS Murthy and Jay Gosney
Header: A Malnad Landscape, Photo courtesy Girish Kasaravalli
Photo of Amit Chaudhuri by Richard Lofthouse/University of Oxford

In collaboration with Rashtrakavi Kuvempu Pratishthana, Kuppali (Devangi, Thirthahalli, Shivamogga)

In this episode of BIC Talks, Vanamala Viswanathan, Rajendra Chenni, Amit Chaudhuri and Arvind Narrain will be in conversation. This is an excerpt from a conversation that took place in the BIC premises in November 2024.

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