IN MY TRIBUTE to the late S.L. Bhyrappa, I had remarked that the “real honour to S.L. Bhyrappa’s legacy involves an honest study of his body of work and to manifest its nuances in our inner lives and pass on the light gleaned therefrom to the next generation.”
In that spirit, I begin a detailed analysis of his 1968 classic novel, Tabbaliyu Neenaade Magane (literally, O My Son, you have been Orphaned). By way of a disclaimer, I must mention that I have translated this work into English as Orphaned.
Without further ado, let’s begin!
WITHOUT OUR KNOWLEDGE, let alone consent, we’ve all become slaves to technology, changing at the speed of light. Information overload and digital distraction have rewired and distorted our psyches in ways that we’re yet to fathom. This dictatorship of technology has spared no corner of the earth.
In spite of this, the primacy and reverence for Gau-Maata, the cow, endures as one of the sacred pillars of Bharatavarsha’s unbroken civilizational and cultural ethos. It is also the main reason for including the protection, nurturing and preservation of the cow in the Constitution of India. This reverence for the cow in the Hindu ethos also comes in direct conflict with and has given rise to endless and fierce debates and physical battles over cow slaughter by those who merely regard it as food.
In general, this is the core theme of Dr S.L. Bhyrappa’s 1968 novel, Tabbaliyu Neenaade Magane. The context for the novel is set by the celebrated Kannada folk song titled Govina Haadu or ‘Song of the Cow.’ Using this song as a backdrop and undercurrent, Tabbali explores the roots and complex facets of India’s society and culture. The song belongs to unknown antiquity and became popular from the fifteenth century onwards – a period historically known as Naḍugannaḍa, or “Middle” Kannada. It is composed in an easy, versified form employing simple language, and remains an immortal cultural and literary heritage of Karnataka. Until a few decades ago, it was compulsory for primary and middle school children in the state to memorize this song. It has also found expression in painting, theatre and cinema, and is the subject of several learned treatises and commentaries.
The gist of the Song of the Cow is rather straightforward. A cow named Punyakoti belongs to a large herd of cattle owned by a cowherd named Kalinga Gowda or Kalinga Golla (cowherd).
Punyakoti abides by the lasting values of truth, non-violence, compassion and Dharma. One day as she goes grazing on the Arunadri Hill, she’s accosted by a hungry tiger who wants to eat her. She is unafraid because she knows that the tiger’s Dharma is to hunt and kill living beings as the only way to survive.
Punyakoti pleads with him saying her infant is hungry and that she will feed him one last time and return. After much persuasion, the tiger is convinced by her fidelity to truth and lets her go.
After she returns to the cowshed and feeds her infant calf, she informs him that she has to go back to the tiger. When the infant tries to dissuade her, she tells him it’s wrong to break the word that one has given and tells him the value of pursuing truth for its own sake. As she bids him her final goodbye, she utters the memorable line, tabbaliyu neenaade magane.
This line is the title of Dr S.L. Bhyrappa’s novel.
Punyakoti returns to the tiger’s den and addresses him as follows: ‘Here, take my muscles, flesh, and the warm blood of my heart. Consume them all and be happy and live well on this earth.’
The tiger is not only astonished at her steadfastness to truth but is overcome with remorse. He tells Punyakoti that he will incur a great sin if he eats someone as noble as her. He says in repentance that she is akin to his elder sister. He bids her his final goodbye and leaps to his death from the summit of the Arunadri Hill.
Although this backdrop is not mandatory to follow the novel, it provides the essential cultural context to the densely rustic and raw physical setting in which the plot unfolds as well as the period in which it is set.
It is said a great work of literature emerges from an intense depth of feeling evoked typically by some internal stimulus or external impetus. We have the world-renowned precedent of Maharshi Valmiki composing the immortal Ramayana as a result of witnessing the tragic murder of a Krauncha bird mating with its partner.
A similar case can be made for the origins of Tabbaliyu nīnāde magane. During his stint as a lecturer in Gujarat, Dr. S.L. Bhyrappa visited the Amul milk factory at Anand. Back then, Amul was hailed as one of India’s greatest economic achievements that also made a tremendous, positive social impact.
When S.L. Bhyrappa was given a guided tour of the full process of how milk on such an industrial scale was produced, the experience disturbed and deeply moved him.
He writes in his autobiography, Bhitti, that the cows out there had not only lost all sense of their own natural selves but were permanently alienated from it; they were cows merely by appearance; in reality, they were milk-producing machines. They were artificially inseminated and thus deprived of any scope for enjoying the warmth, intimacy and the deep bond that only a mother can share with her infant. Even worse, they were milked not by human hands but by machines strapped to their udders.
This “scientific” process of milking cows left Dr. Bhyrappa aghast and saddened. He vowed not to buy packaged milk ever again.
This experience also planted the seed for Tabbaliyu nīnāde magane.
That said, Tabbali is not just a fictional outpouring of the author’s anguished experience at Anand. Instead, like all his acclaimed novels, this too, is a work of art and properly belongs to the category of his major works such as Vamsha Vruksha, Parva, Dāṭu, Sākshi, Tantu and Mandra.
To be continued
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