A Kuvempu magnum opus for the English reader

The Hindu

01-08-2025

Celebrated Kannada writer K.V. Puttappa (1904-94), known by his pen name Kuvempu, continues to remain a great literary figure akin to Rabindranath Tagore in the Kannada cultural imagination. His monumental novel Malegalalli Madumagalu (1967) re-enters the world via the hands of veteran translator Vanamala Viswanatha as Bride in the Hills. It was preceded by an earlier attempt as Bride in the Rainy Mountains (2020) by K.M. Srinivasa Gowda and G.K. Srikanta Murthy.
In the Afterword to this new translation, prominent Kannada writer Devanoora Mahadeva hails it as the novel of the century. Mahadeva's observation not only testifies this work's influence on his sensibilities as a writer but also its achievement as a literary classic. Like a steady masterpiece, this work with frequent reprints goes on earning more readership. It has been successful as a play on stage and has been made into a TV series, besides readers revisiting it as pilgrimage.
Before completing the novel in 1967, Kuvempu's prolific output across genres — including another great novel Kanuru Heggadati (1936), later translated into English by B.C. Ramachandra Sharma and Padma Sharma as The House of Kanooru (2000), and the epic Shri Ramayana Darshanam (1949) — must have sharpened his literary ambitions.
Struggles of young people
Set in the late 19th-century Western Ghats, a region of dense forests teeming with animals, birds, and diverse communities, Bride in the Hills explores the lives of ordinary folks 'far away from the grand mainstream of the historical flow of civilisation'. However, colonial modernity later enters this lifeworld with a bicycle, Christian missionaries and schools.
Gutthi, an untouchable bonded servant, sets forth to bring his lady-love, Thimmi, who was supposed to marry the man her zamindar ordered. Refusing to be mere pawns in the hands of social power structures, Gutthi and Thimmi elope. The story, much like a stream on the Sahyadri, is joined by different lives brimming with desires and despairs.
While the orthodox mindset refuses to see Gutthi and Thimmi as human beings, let alone consider their love, the Vokkaliga young man, Mukundayya, too must swim against a different set of social currents to wed Chinnamma, whose marriage is arranged with an ailing Heggade, much against her will. Of course, there are no qualms about a zamindar getting on with a concubine, as happens in the case of Devayya and Kaveri, but the courtship of young people is a struggle.
In the spirit of the original
This novel without a hero is an exemplary work of social realism. The narrator not only provides a solid description of objects, people and their customs with an anthropologist's eye for detail but also comments on social practices. The novel's ability to immerse readers in its cultural world, more than its exploration of a society's moral fabric, makes it a unique work of art. The extraordinary literary talent of Kuvempu turns documentary realism into rasanubhava, an aesthetic experience. The tempo of the narrative transfers the Joycean movement of most characters, especially Gutthi's rhythmic errands with his dog Huliya, to readers.
Of all the portraits in the novel, it is the subaltern characters — Gutthi, Aita, Pinchalu, Akkani and Pijina — who win our hearts in tune with the novel's epigraph: 'No one is unimportant/ Nothing is insignificant'. The title of the novel, which opens a perspective for eco-feminist readings, connotes the complex play of passion and desire in a man-woman relationship, explored against the backdrop of jungle life more than the social function of a bride. Read in a particular way, even a widow occupies the subject position of a bride, thus making it 'brides in the hills'.
While a large part of Kuvempu's works awaits translation, early English renderings of his two novels — The House of Kanooru and Bride in the Rainy Mountains — do not seem to have made him reach a wider audience. One has to wait and see how Vanamala Viswanatha's deservingly excellent translation fares in the literary sphere.
Most of all, Viswanatha needs to be congratulated on this colossal work, shaped by her creative choices in transferring the Kannada ethos to English readers. Indeed, it is difficult to do complete justice to a work that breathes the spirit of regional nuances. Though classics invite multiple translations, Viswanatha's confidence in choosing an already translated work should not be underestimated.
The reviewer teaches English literature at Tumkur University. His translation of D.R. Nagaraj's Allamaprabhu and the Shaiva Imagination will soon be published.