Kumta: An Evening with Dr Girish Karnad in Gokarna

Pics by Vitori Karkal and Austin Pinto
By H M Pernal

(H M Pernal is a Konkani critic and poet. Presently he edits his Konkani website www.kittall.com)

Kumta, Mar 19: It was Saturday March 19. Scorching heat outside. We - poet Melvyn Rodrigues, Averyl Rodrigues, Victor Mathias and I - started to Gokarna around noon from Mangalore. Gokarna is a place of temples, beaches and to us its native place of our dear friend Jayant Kaikini. The occasion was celebration of Dr Gourish Kaikini's birth centenary. Jayant had invited us much in advance, saying Dr Girish Karnad will be attending the same and all of us were excited to listen to Dr Girish.

We reached Dr Gourish Kaikini's beachside house around 5 in the evening. We met Dr Girish and Shantha Kaikini, Jayant's mother. She is 82 now and as Jayant said in the programme, perhaps the only surviving wife of a writer who has turned 100 years. Due to illness she was unable to climb the terrace where the meet was held.

The meet was organized by Parnakuti Balaga of Gokarna. V N Mallanagaudar welcomed the gathering and soon there were Gumte Fangs by Venkate Gowda and troupe. They sang Dr Gourish Kaikini and Dinakara Desai songs. Jayant introduced the guests to the audience. Dr Girish Karnad, Ramakanth Joshi of Manohara Granthmaala and great thinker and critic Dr Rahmat Tarikere.

Sun was shining still in Gokarna when Dr Girish Karnad started reading selected chapters from his autobiography 'Adadatha Ayushya'. Soon the atmosphere on the terrace filled with an aura. Dr Girish Karnad started with Oxford, the vessel travel from Mumbai Ballard pier to England, his college days, parties, love and sex life of students in Oxford. Then he read Pune Film and Television Institute chapter with references to Om Puri, crisis in the selection of Dilip Dhawan and Raj Kapoor's surprise visit to Film and Television Institute, Pune.

Then Dr Girish read an unpublished chapter from his forthcoming book 'Noda Nodatha Dinamana', the second part of his autobiography. He recollected his encounters with the late prime minister P V Narasimha Rao and the latter's inefficiency in handling Ayodhya crisis. He also mentioned an open offer from the latter for documentary favoring Congress during election. He recalled that P V N was ready to pay any amount either to him or to Shyam Benegal.

On Jayant's requests, Dr Girish Karnad read 'Arpane' (Dedication Page) of 'Adadatha Ayushya'. Then Dr Rahmat Tarikere took over the stage.

Opening the debate Dr Rahmat Tarikere raised the questions: What is 'Atma kathe?' and what is 'Atma Charitre?'. Dr Tarikere said, 'all autobiographies address and deal with present time issues in the guise of recording past of one's life. They recreate present based on past experience. History is just an excuse to tell stories of present times. (Later in his concluding remarks Jayant Kaikini echoed this observation of Dr Tarikere saying, 'memory belongs to today. There is nothing called old memories. Memories are always new).

“It seems to me celebrated writers take up writing of autobiography only after almost all writing forms get exhausted with them. There are instances that some even wrote autobiographies while lying on the death bed. Even Girish Karnad wrote his autobiography at the age of 74. But nowadays lots of women and dalits have started writing autobiographies at a very young age. Recent autobiography “Kicchillada Bege“ by Shailaja, wife of the late dalit poet N K Hanumanthayya, is an example for that. Shailaja is an upper caste girl who married dalit poet N K Hanumanthayya against the wishes of her parents. N K committed suicide owing to marital problems. So we can say, the earlier equation of autobiographies, Past - Old Age and Death is changed now.”

Based on his vast readings and indepth studies of Indian and as well as international autobiographies Dr Tarikere observed 'It seems to me Indian writers as well as individuals from other walks of life draw inspiration from Gandhiji's autobiography 'My Experiments with Truth'.

Dr Tarikere went a step further and candidly said, "Gandhiji's autobiography misled Indians." To substantiate his claim he elaborated further saying, "Almost all autobiograhies written today in Indian languages and in Kannada too give a picture that the person who has written the book is in search of truth and only he is a gentleman. They always try to portrait that only they are gentlemen (Sajjanaru)”. Here he gave theexample of celebrated writer S L Bhyrappa. Dr Tarikere categorically said, “The very attempt to portray themselves gentlemen is embarrassing. Telling the truth honestly is also very difficult. Men can easily write about their love affairs, sex life and extra marital affairs but women can't. Still we find some writers like Amritha Preetham, Kamala Das, Protima Bedi etc. There too they are compelled to use metaphors while writing.”

Drawing a clear line between simple truth and secret truth Dr Tarikere cited example of Dr Aravinda Malagitti's work 'Government Brahmin', where Dr Malagitti says, Writing all the things after he joined government service not easy.

Furher Dr Tarikere said that he deeply loves reading autobiographies because they appeal to him like great stories of human interest. "Of all the autobiographies I have read so far in Kannada I rate Shri Navarathnaram's autobiography the best." He also referred to K P Swamy's (Paranjyothi) autobiography Manjinadiya Chitragalu.

Dr Tarikere cooly objected to the rampant self projection in autobiographies and suggested writers to practice self criticism while writing autobiographies. Here he gave example of P Lankesh's Huli Mavina Mara. He candidly said, the title Huli Mavina Mara itself is a kind of self criticism. Here he lauded the efforts of Indira Lankesh, where she puts Lankesh in new dimension. Dr Tarikere drew a fine contrast between K P Poorna Chandra Tejashwis 'Annana Nenapu' and Tarini's 'Kuvempu Kandda Magalu'.

Dr Tarikere observed, "Perhaps Gandhiji drew inspiration from Tolstoy to name his book 'My Experiments with Truth' and all followed Gandhi. But the irony is : Struggle itself is missing in the autobiographies titled as 'Horatada Baduku'. Today we find many IAS, IPS officers and businessmen writing autobiographies but literature is a not a competition. So writers should be very cautious when they write their autobiographies."

He further said, "Novels and autobiographies are interrelated and works like 'Carvalho' by Tejaswi sounds like autobiography. If we read Bhairappa's 'Bitti' and 'Grahabanga' they too are just like autobiographies."

Every human being is an extention of the society where he lives and autobiographies are not mere narratives of an individual experience but also social analysis of times. Some writers use diary formats to write their autobiographies which some times look very boring he opined. Here he cited example of B V Karanth's autobiography and Kaka Kalelkars 'Jeevan Leela'."

Dr Rahmat Tarikere took critics to task saying, there is negligence on their part that they ignore and keep aside works of autobiographers saying it is not creative.

A short discussion followed, after which Ganapathi Hosamane proposed the vote of thanks.

After the discussion Melvyn, Vitori and I chatted with Dr Tarikere nearly for half an hour. Rahmat sir is my Facebook friend and when I informed Rahmat sir about poet Melvyn and recent Sahitya Akademi award for his book he was very happy.

With an invitation to Dr Tarikere to visit Mangalore, we left Gokarna.

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