Hemareddy Mallammana
Katheyu
A
novel by Kum.Veerabhadrappa
Sapna Book House, Bangalore
Pages:
372 price: Rs. 225
Kum.Veerabhadrappa, more well known as ‘Kum.Vee.’, is one of the
most prolific fiction writers of our times. He has published fifteen
collections of short stories, thirteen novels, a couple of biographies and his
autobiography “Gandhi clasu”. He has also translated a number of Telugu stories
into Kannada. “Hemareddy Mallammana Katheyu” is his latest novel.
The major concern of
Kum.Vee’s fiction is to unravel the cosmos of the feudal system. Most of his
stories and novels are situated in the remote villages of Andhra Pradesh which
are characteristic for their class divide and
therefore prone to feudal
violence on the one hand and the radical activities on the other. The ‘real’ in
Kum.Vee.’s world is so macabre, grotesque and violent that it appears as ‘fantasy’. Kum.Vee. says
that bomb making is a home industry in most of these villages! Murderers with
their native ammunition knock at your
doors for refuge. Any peaceful activity devoid of violence appears rather
unnatural here. There is no wonder if comic exaggeration is the chief tool of
Kum.Vee.’s narratives. Kum.Vee.’s constant experimentation with diction, syntax
and narration is not an indulgent aesthetic activity but a creative need to
grapple with and to come to terms with the histrionics of his characters and
the unbelievable situations they are
placed in. He has also been exploring
new narrative strategies to transform his raw material, which is at once rich
but explosive, into creative structures.
In “Hemareddy
Mallammana Katheyu” Kum.Vee. has employed
multiple first person narrators. The first narrator happens to be the
friend of one Tanikella Parthasarathi a
Telugu writer. One day he receives a telephone call from Parthasarathi
requesting him to meet him at Karnool and browse through the manuscript of his
novel which is yet to be completed. The narrator obliges. Looking at the title
the narrator exclaims that it is a mythological novel. But Parthasarathi smiles
and clarifies that ‘it is not about that
Shivasharane Mallamma the Dharmapatni of that Hemareddy’ and implores the
narrator to see for himself what it is about. The narrator starts reading Parthasarathi’s novel which is in first
person narration. The first person narrator of Parthasarathi’s novel is a
primary school teacher in a remote village. This novel is a record of his experiences,
observations, interpretations and encounters with a very wide range of
personalities. In Parthasarathi’s novel this narrator is also a fiction
writer. He says that a story he
started a week ago is slowly transforming itself into a novel! This teacher
narrator cum novelist gets fascinated by
the fact that real life incidents and characters have begun to influence and actually
dictate his narrative.
This motif recurs in
the main narrative as well. Apart from uncovering the tapestry of the complex
fabric of feudalism Kum.Vee.’s novel reflects on the intricate relationship
between fact and fiction. One turning point in the life of the villagers is the
arrival of a drama company. They put up a number of performances in the village
and ultimately venture to take up the legend of Hemareddy Mallamma. This triggers off a flurry of activities in
which different faces of feudal culture show up in all their hues. Even the
novelist Parthasarathi finds it hard to
complete the last sentence of his manuscript! At this point Kum.Vee.’s novel
gets back to the first narrator. A small discussion takes place between Parthasarathi and the first narrator
regarding alternative possibilities of plot and characterization and now it is left to the first narrator to rewrite
and complete the manuscript. “Hemareddy Mallammana Katheyu” is a continuation of Kum.Vee.’s
relentless effort to make sense of the complexities of the feudal
system. However what makes this narrative a little different from the other
works of Kum.Vee.is the interplay between fact and fiction on the one hand and
fiction and metafiction on the other.
******
T.P.Ashoka
Dept of English
Lal Bahadur College
Sagara-577 401
Shimoga Dist
Karnataka
94482 54228
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