Dr.
U. R. Ananthamurthy: A Maze of Ambiguities
To say
that Dr. U. R. Ananthamurthy was a multi-faceted personality is to state the
obvious. He was a gifted writer of
fiction (35 short stories; 6 novels) and poetry (5 collections), a serious
socio-literary critic (10 collections of essays), a successful translator (5 works), and an Activist. He took many extreme positions, defended
them passionately, and courted
controversies. How do we approach and
understand such a baffling and dynamic writer?
One
possible framework is ‘the changing
interpretive patterns of Modernity and Tradition’. This binary opposition subsumes all other binaries such as
‘Individual and System’ and ‘Nativism and Western Thought’ ). Most importantly, he passionately explored
these patterns of negation and approbation
through a series of oppositions and symbolic representations. If we view all of his writings together, we find
in him an ideological shift in course of time; and, on the basis of such a
shift, we can categorise his writings into ‘ pre- Bhava’ and ‘post- Bhava’ phases ( his novel Bhava was published in 1994).
We can consider Samskara and Divya as the most representative works of these two phases.
Samskara, arguably the most successful novel of Ananthamurthy, equates ‘Tradition’
with obsolete set of beliefs and rituals
prevalent in Hindu society, as mirrored in the Brahmin community. This community, represented by
Praneshacharya, is ignorant of the Vedic lore, lusts for gold and sensual
pleasures, and mechanically observes
rites and rituals. The disease of
plague which devastates the village symbolizes the decaying society and its
life-thwarting values. Juxtaposed with
Praneshacharya, there is Naranappa, a
rationalist, an atheist and a hedonist.
In the end, Naranappa dies and Praneshacharya renounces his Brahminic legacy, and goes out in search of a new way of life. The novel is open-ended, suggesting that both Praneshacharya and Naranappa
are incomplete until they internalise each other, the Self absorbing its Shadow (in the Jungian
sense).
Divya, at the other end, interprets
Tradition as the sum total of all the intellectual achievements of ancient
India and its life-affirming values such
as love and compassion for all, and a
yearning for mystical experience. Gauri
represents such a Tradition. She
can experience intense wonder and joy about creation and she can enter into a
dialogue with the setting sun. Owing to such mystical sensibility, she knows no
caste, no lineage, and nothing like ‘purity’ and ‘impurity.’ In contrast with such ‘liberated mind,’ there
is Ghanashyama representing Modernity; he is an educated and Westernised
Indian, who is arrogant and aggressive, championing total change and progress. In the end, Gauri and Ghanashyama marry,
symbolising as it were the meeting of the spiritual East and the materialist
West. However, whereas Samskara is open-ended and
dialogic, Divya, essentialist in tone, is completely monologic in its view
of Indian tradition and culture.
There are many other
novels and stories which posit an
ideological position in between these two extremes, the most brilliant being
“The Stallion of the Sun.” This story juxtaposes, very sensuously, the two ends
of the ‘Tradition-Modernity’ binary,
represented by Hade Venkata and
Ananthu. Venkata, a rustic, is lazy,
irresponsible and doesn’t worry about money; as contrasted with him, Ananthu is
highly educated, Westernised, and holds a high position in society. However, the story reveals, it is Venkata
and not Ananthu who is capable of mystic experience; Venkata can sight and
experience the stallion of the Sun, but Ananthu, a rationalist, can only envy
him. The story manages this juxtaposition
very objectively, privileging neither end.
Another
recurring theme in the works of Ananthamurthy is ‘the Individual and the
System.’ Ananthamurthy, a staunch
individualist, hates any System which destroys
the ‘essence’ of an individual; and he finds all modern Systems
authoritative and suffocating.
Jagannatha, a Westernised intellectual, is reduced to a laughing stock
by the orthodox religious system in Bharatipura. “Bara”
depicts Satish, an idealistic IAS
officer, who is forced by the
bureaucratic system to order
firing on an unarmed mob. The most
ambitious work in this category is Awasthe,
which examines many political systems and dramatises the way an idealist
politician, Krishnappa, is slowly sucked into the whirl of corruption by the
present political system, based on elections and majority rule.
One of
the most provocative essays, “ Why Not
Worship in the Nude?” can be considered a post-colonial re-assessment of popular concepts like modernization and rationality. Written in the aftermath of Savadatti incident
in 1986, it does not advocate nude worship but questions the intellectual
arrogance which designates such practices as primitive. He
bemoans that we, educated and
rational, have lost that “feeling of
religious awe.” In “ Tradition and Creativity,” he argues that “ whatever
tradition we could have had has been lost to us through a certain amnesia
because of our terrible attraction to the modern world system.”
“No, I
can’t be an absolutist,” declared Ananthamurhty in his essay on ‘Nude Worship’. We may quarrel with many of his ideological
positions; but it is this skepticism, I believe, which makes him highly
relevant today, in a world ridden with ‘Certainties and Absolute
Truths.’
****** C. N. Ramachandran
