Kanthapura

Kanthapura - I wasn't quite sure what I was picking when I decided to read this book. I usually read books based on recommendations of a couple of my friends. But neither of them had any idea about this one. Nor have I heard of the author Mr Raja Rao before. [Later, I found out that he is one among the Indian trio of R K Narayan - Mulk Raj Anand - Raja Rao] But the synopsis and the excerpts from the reviews on the blurb, including one from The New York Times, were impressive. Having depended on the staple from Mr Sidney S, Sir Pelham Grenville W and Ms Jonathan Kathleen R, for long, I decided to move on to something more serious and more close to real life.

I was very easily able to relate to the characters and the story of Kanthapura which is about India's struggle for independence. The story is set in a small, sleepy and remote village of Kanthapura on the banks of river Himavathy, some where in the Western Ghats in Karnataka, around 1930s. The story, narrated by an old lady of Kanthapura, is about the change the India's fight for freedom led by Mahatma, brings into the lives of the people of Kanthapura. I remember reading Ms Pearl S Buck point out the rise of leaders from all walks of life and the important role they played in the struggle as one of the unique features of India's freedom struggle. The protagonist of this book is one such leader named Murthy.

The circumstances he faces and the odds he fights to unite and make people shed their indifference and overcome their differences to fight for freedom made me sit back and think. Even today, we think of our freedom struggle as just being a fight against the British alone and largely ignore the efforts put in by the champions of freedom struggle in fighting our own prejudices and the inequalities of our society. It is India's great misfortune that the social evils of casteism and communalism are just as prevalent today as they were back then. True, economic conditions have improved a little but our minds have so stubbornly refused to embrace the idea of equality of all men. We have so comfortably ignored the ideals they stood for people and fooled ourselves believing that the real tribute to all the martyrs is erecting their statues and issuing commemorative coins and stamps in their name.

While the characters of the protagonist Murthy, the rich widow Rangamma, the money lender, the village head, the police man, the teacher who tries to educate the workers of a nearby coffee plantation owned by an English man are all interesting, the character I found to be even more interesting is that of Mahatma himself. No, it's not the persona but the name itself. The way his name inspires and the way he is revered, despite the dissidence he faces from many, is really interesting. Reading the way he is deified as an incarnation of some God, I just couldn't help feeling that his crusade to make people accept and adopt his principles rather than revere and worship him was lost back then itself.

The language used in the book is yet another thing that really surprised me. Being a non-native English speaker and lacking extensive vocabulary and command over grammar, I always felt that I deprived myself the full pleasure of many books I read. But thankfully, that wasn't the case with this book. It was almost like reading a book in my mother tongue. I have never before read anything where the translated vernacular expressions mean the same as what they mean in the native tongue and yet don't sound strange in English.

Overall, this is one book I am going remember for a long time to come. In fact, even though I'm writing this only now, I read this book nearly an year ago. Do share what you felt about the book or this article.

Google Books : KANTHAPURA (Preview)
Wikipedia: Raja Rao