Growing Up Karanth Quotes

“Tata's car trips, always with a driver at the wheel, typically lasted five or six days. Tata would visit different regions of Karnataka to give talks, preside over functions, participate in literary events and always drop in on his friends. If he was in southern Karnataka, he would invariably visit us at Mysore. Tata was incredibly punctual, following a schedule that he sent me well in advance. As Tata grew older, I kept telling him to avoid these longer trips.

One day in late 1987, when Tata did not reach our home from Tumakuru at 7 p.m. as he had promised, we were worried that the car may have broken down, or worse, met with an accident. In those pre-cellphone days, we could not check on him.

Finally, much to our relief, Tata turned up an hour late. Looking apologetic, he explained, 'Just as I finished my talk, a man approached me with the manuscript of a story he had written, seeking my comments. I could not refuse because he was so old (thumba mudukaru).' I asked Tata to guess how old the aspiring writer was. 'The poor man was at least seventy' came the reply. Prathibha and I both burst out laughing, looking at the expression on his face when I asked him his own age. Tata was so full of life force that he never realised that he was eighty-five.”
― Ullas K Karanth, Growing Up Karanth

“Karanth had a fine sense of humour, a dry kind of humour which is there in his novels. During the first World Kannada Conference, a few writers were discussing with Karanth about the glorious cultures of Karnataka. One writer offered to accompany Karanth to Shravanabelagola Hill to see the Digambara (naked) statue of Gommateshwara, a great figure with fine genitalia, a magnificent work of art. Karanth smiled and said, ‘Why should I climb the hill to see what I see every day in the bathroom?’.”
― Ullas K Karanth, Growing Up Karanth

“These were all stark reminders to us that, as far as people were concerned, Kota Shivarama Karanth was their property. We had an obligation to share our 'Tata' with all of them. However, 'growing up Karanth' was a uniquely personal experience to each one of us. No one else could claim that rare privilege.”
― Ullas K Karanth, Growing Up Karanth

“Tata, the lifelong atheist, had directed in his will that no religious obsequies be performed for him. Some of our cousins conducted a Brahminical shraddha for him. Although we did not participate, we did understand their compulsions of tradition.”
― Ullas K Karanth, Growing Up Karanth

“Tata's concept of nature being the child's best school was true in our case. Most things were not consciously taught to us. We were not sent to a school until we were about ten or eleven. We only had lessons taught in the evenings for two hours, in mathematics and Kannada. The rest of the time we were free to wander around.”
― Kshama Rau, Growing Up Karanth

“However, as Tata got older, he even tolerated some religious rituals around him to please his friends and admirers. On Tata's ninetieth birthday, I saw an amusing instance of this tolerance. Tata's good friend Mattur Krishnamurthy, a devout Brahminical theist and Sanskrit scholar, who had headed the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan in London, had come to Saligrama to greet him. He brought along two tall, plump Brahmin priests from his village near Shivamogga. In that hamlet steeped in Vedic traditions, many reportedly speak Sanskrit as a matter of routine.

The priests had brought jagates (musical instruments) and some vibhuti (sacred ashes). Krishnamurthy first sought Tata's permission. Thereafter, the priests smeared some vibhuti on Tata, and, loudly clanging the jagates, they bellowed Sanskrit slokas. While Krishnamurthy was beaming with happiness, the bored-looking priests performed by rote. Tata stood still with a bemused look on his face. At the end of it all, Tata said he was pleased that his friend was happy.”
― Ullas K Karanth, Growing Up Karanth

“Tata placed the values of ethics and personal integrity way above self-proclaimed piety. Tata's book Balveye Belaku (Living the Right Way is The Only True Enlightenment) presents a brilliant exposition of his ethical atheism.

Tata, however, did not impose his atheism on others. In his early writings like Devadootharu and Gnana, he had lampooned Hindu gods. However, later he became more tolerant of people who sought relief through a belief in god. Tata seemed to feel that if such beliefs helped them cope with their real-world problems, it was allright.”
― Ullas K Karanth, Growing Up Karanth

“Tata remained a lifelong atheist. Among Tata's generation of Kannada writers, only A.N. Murthy Rao, Gowreesha Kaikini and Rayasam Bheemasena Rao (Ballari Beechi) were self-proclaimed atheists. Tata never reached out to god as a crutch even when facing extreme adversities in life. Amma used to read Bertrand Russell and sound like a rationalist when I was young. However, after her illnesses and Harshanna's death, she too reached out for that crutch to steady herself.”
― Ullas K Karanth, Growing Up Karanth

“Among Karnataka politicians he had two lifelong admirers. One was Ramakrishna Hegde whom he had known from student days. Somewhat oddly, the other one was from the Congress--Marpadi Veerappa Moily who was inspired by Tata's emancipatory politics captured in Chomana Dudi. As a young lawyer, Moily had fought the landlords on behalf of sharecroppers when the land reform laws were implemented in South Kanara during the early 1970s. Both Hedge and Moily consistently supported Tata's literary and cultural efforts during their tenures as chief ministers of Karnataka.”
― Ullas K Karanth, Growing Up Karanth

“Indira Gandhi imposed her dictatorial national emergency in 1975. Tata was one of the few among his generation of literary intellectuals in Karnataka who boldly proclaimed his opposition. He publicly protested when many were muted by fear. Tata returned the Padma Bhushan he had received in 1968, stating that as a writer he could not tolerate a government depriving citizens of their hard-won liberties.

That was the first step in Tata's risky public stance against the Emergency. Thereafter, he became a hero to many opposition leaders like George Fernandes, Atal Behari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani, who were all either on the run or in jail during those dark days.

Tata attended anti-emergency conclaves organised by the RSS which led the fight in Karnataka, as well as similar events in Kerala organised by the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM). Tata would simply say, loudly and publicly, that he would vote for 'anything else, even an electric pole' if it contested against Indira Gandhi.”
― Ullas K Karanth, Growing Up Karanth

“In the mid-1950s, Tata endorsed the political philosophy of C. Rajagopalachari (Rajaji) who had quit the Congress party to establish the Swatantra party. The new party espoused the model of economic growth that some Southeast Asian countries were rapidly adopting. When Rajaji campaigned for the Swatantra party in South Kanara during the 1960s, Tata travelled with him, interpreting his speeches in Kannada for the voters.

When Tata was campaigning for the Swatantra party in the 1962 general elections, Amma was canvassing votes for the Jan Sangh, mainly because many of her good friends supported that party.

Tata's attitude towards the Jan Sangh, which also endorsed the free enterprise-based economy, was more lukewarm. Tata liked the dedication and discipline of its RSS cadres and the personal honesty and integrity of its early leaders. But being an atheist, Tata could never be wholly enthusiastic about Jan Sangh's version of god's own truth.”
― Ullas K Karanth, Growing Up Karanth

“In electoral politics, Tata was generally aligned with his eldest brother, K.R. Karanth, who had resigned as a cabinet minister in 1948 to protest the emerging corruption in the Congress party. K.R. Karanth then got involved with the Praja Socialist Party (PSP), with stalwarts like Acharya Kripalani, Ashoka Mehta and H.V. Kamath, at one point becoming the vice president of that party. Supporting his brother, Tata contested as a PSP candidate from the Puttur Assembly segment in 1952.

Amma told me a story about how, when Kripalani was addressing local voters in Hindi, which practically no one understood, the audience became restless and inattentive. Angered by this, Kripalani roared in Hindi, 'Tum Sabh Gadhe Ho!' (You are all donkeys!) There was a moment of silence until the local interpreter caught up to sheepishly announce: 'Naavellaroo Katthegalanthe!' (This man thinks we are all donkeys!)”
― Ullas K Karanth, Growing Up Karanth

“Tata took a keen interest in national politics from his late teens. His autobiographies delve into the matter in some detail.

Initially, the radical, socialist fighter in Tata appears to have held sway. His novel Chomana Dudi perhaps best captures Tata's emancipatory politics. It cemented Tata's reputation as a novelist, telling the story of an 'untouchable' bonded labourer whose lifetime ambition was to merely elevate his status to that of a sharecropper on leased land. Even this limited aspiration is ultimately crushed by the forces of tradition and economics that overwhelmed Choma, the main character. The last paragraph
in Chomana Dudi is one of the most powerful, beautifully crafted pieces of prose in modern Kannada literature. Reading it sixty years later, I still find it hard to hold back my tears.

However, Tata did not remain a leftist for long. Joseph Stalin and his brutal social experiments in Soviet Russia alienated Tata from socialism in general forever.”
― Ullas K Karanth, Growing Up Karanth

“It is my eternal regret that Tata did not preserve any of his correspondences with historical figures like Mahatma Gandhi, Rajaji and others. Tata had visited Gandhiji's Sabarmati Ashram in his youth and consulted him on the dilemmas he faced trying to follow up on Gandhi's prescriptions for social reform. But no original correspondence exists about these milestones. Tata's routine practice was to tear up the letters he received everyday, soon after he replied to them. Years later, I realised what a treasure I had lost when my colleague in WCS, Josh Ginsberg, showed me a letter from Albert Einstein he had inherited from his grandmother.”
― Ullas K Karanth, Growing Up Karanth

“Using family connections to advance one's career is the norm in India, whether it is in politics, industry or entertainment. At the outset of my career, I had noted how Tata had made a name for himself without seeking patronage from his family. I was determined not to use Tata's name to promote my own career. I think he appreciated this attitude.

I did, however, seek his help in some public conservation causes, and he readily obliged. In 1980, a small band of us wildlife conservationists in Mysore were protesting the construction of a luxury wildlife lodge that would have disrupted elephant movements in the Kabini river area of Nagarhole. The project was actively promoted by the then chief minister, R. Gundu Rao, who was an acolyte of Indira Gandhi's all-powerful son, Sanjay. When all else failed, I decided to use Tata as a weapon. I wrote up a carefully crafted appeal against the project addressed to Indira Gandhi and convinced Tata to sign it. I then got the writer R.K. Narayan also to sign it. Narayan was genuinely interested in wildlife and had borrowed my tiger books for reference when he wrote his novel A Tiger for Malgudi. Next, I persuaded writer U.R. Anathamurthy to endorse the appeal. Thereafter, I mailed their joint appeal to Tata's friend, H.Y. Sharada Prasad, following this up with a long-distance phone call. This strategy worked: Indira Gandhi ordered Gundu Rao to review the project. Eventually, the Kabini lodge was moved out from the Masthigudi corridor to its present location in Karapura village.”
― Ullas K Karanth, Growing Up Karanth

“It took me two more decades of persistent effort to switch my professional career entirely to wildlife biology: first graduating from the University of Florida, and then being hired to work in India for the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). Tata was truly happy at this outcome.

Tata had originally seeded this interest in natural history in my heart. In 1963, he had given me George Schaller's book on gorillas, saying, 'Read about this remarkable man and his dedication to wildlife.' Once again, it was in Tata's collection of LIFE magazines in 1965 that I read Schaller's article titled 'My Year With Tigers', which made me set my heart on becoming a tiger biologist. This chain of events came full circle when George Schaller recruited me off the University of Florida campus to join WCS in 1988 at the ripe old age of forty.”
― Ullas K Karanth, Growing Up Karanth

“When I graduated from engineering college in 1971, T.A. Pai of Manipal suggested to Tata that I should join as a management trainee in a new company in Bombay that a friend of his had launched. When Tata asked me, I politely declined the offer because I desired to be based not too far from the jungles I loved. In hindsight, often wonder where my career would have taken me had I accepted Pai's offer: the aforementioned friend was the entrepreneur Dhirubhai Ambani who was just beginning his meteoric rise, perhaps with some help from Pai. I am glad I did, because my life would not have been the wild and wonderful one I have enjoyed in the five decades since.”
― Ullas K Karanth, Growing Up Karanth

“Tata's handwriting in Kannada was almost illegible. Therefore, he began to 'dictate' his books to 'scribes' who took dictation in longhand. Tata then corrected the drafts in red ink, and the scribe would prepare a final clean copy for publication. That was it: within a week or ten days the novel would be ready for print.”
― Ullas K Karanth, Growing Up Karanth

“Following the revelations after De-Stalinisation in Russia, Tata had come to abhor communism.”
― Ullas K Karanth, Growing Up Karanth

“Although B.V. Karanth made a brilliant film based on Tata's famous novel Chomana Dudiu Tata had not liked the film. B.V. Karanth, a warm, good-hearted man and a true genius of Kannada theatre, in contrast to Tata, was somewhat undisciplined and often unpunctual. I suspect Tata's dislike of that outstanding movie had more to do with B.V. Karanth's disorganised persona. B.V. Karanth had once confessed to me that he was 'scared of' Tata.

Because Tata was a jack of all trades who dabbled in anything that took his fancy, some of his prolific intellectual output tended to be mediocre. Since Tata did not like B.V. Karanth's film, he set out to make a better movie based on another acclaimed novel of his, Kudiyara Koosu. Prathibha and I spent a couple of days on the sets when this movie, titled Maleya Makkalu, was filmed in a very scenic forested landscape in the Western Ghats. Although the scenery was grand and the movie starred the popular Kannada actress Kalpana, the movie was a rather amateurish effort compared to Chomana Dudi. Tata's flm failed the test of critical appreciation, and at the box office.”
― Ullas K Karanth, Growing Up Karanth

“Tata was also an inspiration to three other next-generation stars of Kannada literature, theatre and culture: U.R. Ananthamurthy, Girish Karnad and B.V. Karanth. It was only after I got to know them well later that I realised how profound Tata's influence had been on them during their formative years and how much they stood in genuine awe of Tata's pioneering intellectual and personal explorations despite their ideological differences with him.

Among the trio, Tata was personally very fond of Ananthamurthy (1932-2014). When Tata was in Mysore, he would always drop in for a cup of coffee with Murthy. Basking in Tata's reflected glory, Prathibha and I too have benefited much from Ananthamurthy's incredible affection and charming erudition.”
― Ullas K Karanth, Growing Up Karanth

“Manjanathiah and his outspoken but warm-hearted wife, Meenakshiamma (1909-94), were among Tata's closest friends. Some of Tata's early novels like Bettada Jeeva (Man from the Mountain) were written when he took time off to stay with them. At the end of each day, Tata read out his literary output to the couple.”
― Ullas K Karanth, Growing Up Karanth

“Tata grew quite fond of Prathibha, perhaps because of her calm, balanced personality, in contrast to my testy Karanth temperament. He opened up and talked to her about things that he simply could not discuss with me. She did not question him or judge his actions like I sometimes did.

Prathibha recounts a couple of instances of how Tata, beneath his tough exterior, was a sensitive, subtly observant man. When she came as a bride to his home in Saligrama, she was fascinated by the National Geographic magazines in his library and spent hours reading them. Soon after, he quietly started mailing them to Prathibha.

Always a sharp dresser, Prathibha wore only sarees to work and when we stayed with our parents. And when Tata stayed at our home, Prathibha was always in a saree. At other times she liked to wear western clothes. She was pleasantly surprised by a gift Tata brought for her from Russia: a beautifully tailored lady's shirt that fitted her perfectly.”
― Ullas K Karanth, Growing Up Karanth

“Tata had becomne a rationalist by choice in his early twenties. However, he remained a vegetarian and abhorred alcohol. Tata remained a vegetarian to avoid needless cruelty to animals, he said. He was also sure that alcohol inevitably led to one's ruination. This was based on his experience preaching temperance to ruralfolks at Mahatma Gandhi's urging. Tata had witnessed many rural poor families driven to misery because of alcoholism among the menfolk.”
― Ullas K Karanth, Growing Up Karanth

“However, Tata had to go through the formal ritual of personally inviting members of the Karanth clan to my wedding, the memory of which amuses me hugely to this day.

Tata took me along through the lanes, gardens and rice paddies around Kota to distribute the wedding invitation to friends and relatives. We would walk into a home and Tata would hand over the invitation card. He would then loudly announce, 'Ullas is getting married in Mangalore. But you should not come.' With his elder brother K.L. Karanth, he used a more polite variant, saying, You should not bother about attending. He would then go on and tell the invitees that 'they should not lose sleepover' the wedding ceremony because he was arranging a wedding feast in Kota a couple of days later. 'Do attend the feast without fail!' he admonished.

We then walked off to the home of the next 'invitee', leaving the last one entirely befuddled. To Tata's many friends and admirers far away, he sent printed 'invitation cards', with a handwritten note, similarly disinviting them.

Tata did not like the crowds, pomp and pageantry associated with traditional weddings. He just wanted my wedding over and out of the way.”
― Ullas K Karanth, Growing Up Karanth

“However, Tata had to go through the formal ritual of personally inviting members of the Karanth clan to my wedding, the memory of which
amuses me hugely to this day.

Tata took me along through the lanes, gardens and rice paddies around Kota to distribute the wedding invitation to friends and relatives. We would walk into a home and Tata would hand over the invitation card. He would then loudly announce, 'Ullas is getting married in Mangalore.
But you should not come.' With his elder brother K.L. Karanth, he used a more polite variant, saying, You should not bother about attending.
He would then go on and tell the invitees that 'they should not lose sleepover' the wedding ceremony because he was arranging a wedding feast in Kota a couple of days later. 'Do attend
the feast without fail!' he admonished.

We then walked off to the home of the next 'invitee', leaving the last one entirely befuddled. To Tata's many friends and admirers far away, he
sent printed 'invitation cards', with a handwritten note, similarly disinviting them.

Tata did not like the crowds, pomp and pageantry associated with traditional weddings. He just wanted my wedding over and out of the way.”
― Ullas K Karanth, Growing Up Karanth

“As I absorbed natural history knowledge from specialised books and field visits, I started noticing this disconnect between Tata's broad interest in nature and his lack of awareness about the serious problem of wildlife around us being wiped out by hunters. When Tata published his science encyclopedia, Vijanana Prapancha, in the mid-1960s, I recall passionately arguing with him about his averment that wild tigers were so numerous in Malenad that local hunters could never extirpate them. I told him that if a famous writer like him said this in print, his many admirers among the local landed gentry would rush out to finish off the last wild tigers. Tata appeared nonplussed for once, but the book was already out in print.”
― Ullas K Karanth, Growing Up Karanth

“My uncle was a hardworking, muscular man whose daily exercise routine was to chop firewood. I once requested him to turn on the radio to listen to cricket commentary. He instantly retorted that a growing boy like me should be outdoors playing cricket, and not listening to rubbish on the radio. He compared the real joy of playing cricket to the pleasure of eating holiges, and the cricket commentary to listening to some stranger describing someone else eating holiges! What is the fun in that, he asked. He made me stumped!”
― Ullas K Karanth, Growing Up Karanth

“Tata had given up driving in the 1940s, soon after he learned to. I am sure it was a wise decision that saved many lives. For the long road trips, he hired a taxi until he could afford a car and a driver in 1960.”
― Ullas K Karanth, Growing Up Karanth

“However, following the South Kanara tradition, two kinds of rice were cooked at our home at mealtime. Amma, Harshanna and I ate the boiled brown rice that the non-Brahmins preferred, whereas Tata and my two sisters liked the polished white rice which the Brahmins ate.”
― Ullas K Karanth, Growing Up Karanth