ON THE PHYSICAL PLANE, the plot of Tabaali unfolds on three enmeshed tracks as it were: the downward destiny of Kalenahalli, the declining fate of the cow, and the generational degradation of Kalinga Gowda’s family thanks to the spread of Western technology.
Both Kalenahalli and the cow are helpless victims of invasive forces beyond them; they are unaware as to why they are suddenly subject to suffering and misery for no fault of theirs. From this bird’s eye perspective, Tabbali appears to us as a novel of profound tragedy.
In a limited sense, we can draw a parallel between Tabbaliyu nīnāde magane and Vamshavruksha. In both novels, the story is set in a Sandhikāla or a generational junction: the grandfather’s generation giving way to that of the grandson.
In both novels, customs, traditions, and lifestyles have continued unbroken since time immemorial. In Vamshavruksha, this continuity is broken with the protagonist Srinivasa Srotri taking Samnyāsa; in Tabbali, with the death of Kalinga Gowda, the grandfather. In both cases, an entire cultural inheritance is irretrievably lost.
Likewise, in both Vamshavruksha and Tabbali, the intervening generation — i.e., the father’s generation — is cruelly snuffed out. In the former, Srinivasa Srotri’s son meets a watery grave and in Tabbali, a hyena kills Kalinga Gowda’s son.
Srinivasa Srotri embodies a great pillar of Sanatana Dharma: the life of a Grihasta (householder). He has unshakeable, an almost supernatural conviction in this traditional institution of the Hindu society. He unfailingly performs all the prescribed rites, rituals, and charities as a devout Brahmana householder.
In Tabbali, the elder Kalinga Gowda is a replica. As a proud Golla Gowda (cowherd), his conviction in the sanctity of the cow as the very manifestation of Dharma and the Devas matches that of Srinivasa Srotri. This unlettered Gowda at the level of his soul, intuitively grasps the essence of any speech or occurrence and is able to accurately tell whether or not it adheres to Dharma.
As Dr. Bhyrappa makes it explicit in the novel, the Govina Haadu is not merely a poem, it is the Veda of Kalinga Gowda’s lineage; the Punyakoti cow in this song is his lineage’s Veda Mata.
The scholarly Srotriya and the unsophisticated Gowda are united in the sanctum sanctorum of the spirit of Santana Dharma.
Although their respective grandsons, the junior Srinivasa and the junior Kalinga Gowda share a similar fate, there are two major differences.
In Vamshavruksha, the grandson loses the aforementioned cultural inheritance, which was the very breath of his grandfather. However, he maintains a hazy respect and devotion towards it.
However, in Tabbali, the gut-wrenchingly painful details of this generational loss are narrated in a lifelike fashion. Here, the grandson, Kalinga Gowda has imbibed within himself an attitude of casual and entitled slaughter of the cow; this is the outcome of his higher education in America. Thus, the Gau-Mata, one of the central elements inseparable from the Sanatana Dharmic tradition becomes an element of consumption for him. The spiritual becomes a slaughtered delicacy on the human platter.
The parallels stop here. Among other things, they offer a profound vista into the dimensions that Dr. Bhyrappa offers to examine the same cultural problems not at the superficial level but at the level of nuance and philosophy.
At no point in either Vamshavruksha or Tabbali does the author deliver a “final judgement” of sorts. As an insightful observer of life, his novels mirror life and are punctuated with commas; as a literary sculptor par excellence, these parallels also afford a wealth of tools for both the serious student and the aspiring writer of enduring literature.
To be continued
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