S.L. Bhyrappa: End of an Era

THE TITAN HEAVED his last sigh last week, marking the end of an era in Indian literature. 

Santeshivara Lingannaiah Bhyrappa (20 August 1931 - 24 September 2025) was a pan-Indian litterateur who chanced to write in Kannada. He belongs to the rarefied palatinate of litterateurs who embody their oeuvre. In his case, this translates to philosophical depth, emotional intensity, mastery over the interplay of human impulses and above all, an epic quality that is intrinsic to almost all his works. “Epic” defines S.L. Bhyrappa.

Till the end, S.L. Bhyrappa remained fiercely independent in life and writing. He walked a path that he had carved with the chisel of his convictions. None have dared to even attempt treading upon it. Blessed are those who have savoured his work; doubly blessed are those who have savoured his work and known him personally; those who have done neither are suffering the curse of some medieval witch. In that order.

The Triumph of a Phenomenon

THIS IS NOT strictly a literary or an adulatory, personal tribute to S.L. Bhyrappa but an honest assessment of a phenomenon that spanned four generations. To a lesser extent, it is also an exploration of the recent history of India of which his life and work are primary sources. 

S.L. Bhyrappa’s extensive life is a saga of the triumph of Himalayan willpower sublimated as a lifelong philosophical quest, whose vehicle was literature. 

But for S.L. Bhyrappa, few people in Karnataka would’ve even heard the name of an obscure village named Santeshivara near Hassan; the village gained national fame solely due to this illustrious son. He discharged his debt to it by establishing a public library there and more recently, by rejuvenating its lake. This reminds us of what the citizens of Muddenahalli had remarked of Sir M. Visvesvarayya when he became the Diwan of Mysore: the soil of this village has been sanctified by your birth. 

S.L. Bhyrappa’s childhood and adolescence is the stuff of multiple Shakespearean tragedies, which he has graphically described in his autobiography Bhitti (Foundation). His early novel, Gruhabhanga (Broken Home) is a fictional rendering of these formative experiences. 

Indeed, experience — among others — is one of the hallmarks of Bhyrappa’s works. Even after he became a renowned novelist, he never halted his quest for experience. The odyssey was both personal and artistic. A good chunk of his ceaseless travel was purposeful — to get a personal sense and feel of space, time and local flavour, all of which found their way into his novels. But the brilliance of his artistry lay in the impersonal and non-judgmental manner in which he deployed these experiences. His Gruhabhanga, Matadaana, Daatu, Jalapaata, Tabbaliyu Neenaade Magane and Saakshi emanate this petrichor virtuosity like a physical quality.   

This is arguably the singlemost reason why four generations of Kannadigas personally identified with his characters as though they were family members, acquaintances, colleagues — others like Manjayya (Saakshi), Harishankar Prasad (Tantu) and Mohanlal (Mandra) were universally reviled. 

Epic Quality

In reality, his characters are idioms, symbols and metaphors. This is the very definition of epic quality; just as how Rama, Sita, Lakshmana, Vali, Ravana, Krishna, Kamsa, Jarasandha, Duryodhana, Shakuni are inseparable idioms and symbols of Bharatavarsha’s cultural, social and familial milieu. 

An epic is how a civilisation and culture pays artistic homage to its Gods, beliefs, fears, hopes and joys; its authors merely give words, voice and euphony to these. Only that civilisation is alive in which its epics are living traditions.  Epic civilisations were first annihilated by Christianity and later by Islam, both of which are innately incapable of creating epics because the notion of true beauty is forbidden in them. In the long term, the industrial revolution actually undid whatever little good had been achieved during Renaissance, which had revived the classical Greek and Roman epic traditions. The post industrial period and our own technological world are innately incapable of creating epics because materialism and the pursuit of hedonism have clipped the wings of our Atman. 

This is why a deeper pursuit of S.L. Bhyrappa’s body of work is the more urgent today. He was able to this imbue epic quality in his novels because he was anchored in the Sanatana cultural ethos. He had ingested the spirit of the Ramayana, Mahabharata, Puranas and Vedanta. His life experience, scholarship in philosophy and Aesthetics plus his love for Hindustani music, endowed him with the equipment that elevated his novels to the status of classical literature. Indeed, few Bharatiya litterateurs since the colonial period up to the present have employed our epic elements in their work with such devastating effect as S.L. Bhyrappa.

Two samples will suffice to illustrate this. 

The first is the haunting scene in Tantu (1993), set on the steps of Kashi’s famous cemetery, Harishchandra Ghat. One of the protagonists, Hemant Honnatti, sits there watching the blazing corpses and begins to contemplate on his illicit affair with his close friend’s wife. Out of nowhere, the immortal climax of Satya Harishchandra strikes him. 

Harishchandra’s long-separated wife, Chandramati, arrives holding the corpse of their son. He doesn’t recognise her. She pleads with him to allow the boy’s cremation for free because she has no money. And then, Harishchandra spots her Mangalasutra and demands it as the cremation fee. Chandramati, known for her fidelity is shocked because she had received a boon whereby her Mangalasutra would be visible only to her husband. 

It is at this precise point that Hemant Honnati makes an irrevocable decision to end his affair. This scene in Tantu easily ranks as one of the most intense moments in world literature.  

The second is a meditative description of an Alaap sung by an accomplished Hindustani classical musician in Mandra (2002). The following is a loose English translation: 

This exceptional felicity for employing Puranic metaphors transcends the highest power of human intellect; its source is located on a more exalted plane accessible only to contemplative artists like S.L. Bhyrappa. His lifelong attachment to the Himalayas, his immersion in Hindustani Classical music and his reverence for scholars of P.V. Kane’s mettle perhaps holds a key to the secret of his creative powers and the durability of his literature. He actively shunned the petty, the mediocre and the ephemeral in any human endeavour; on many occasions, S.L. Bhyrappa has admitted his inability to write short stories for precisely these reasons.  

This, among others, is why it is impossible to box S.L. Bhyrappa’s literary canon into tight categories as social, historical, political, ideological, progressive, etc., or classify it as tragedies or comedies. An epic is an independent genre by itself.  The “ending” in his novels is deliberately left unexplained and inconclusive because in life, death is the only “ending.”   

The Sustained Assault of the Leftist Lobby

BECAUSE S.L. BHYRAPPA DEFIED categorisation, he invited the wrath of those who saw him not merely as their competitor but as an enemy to be eliminated at any cost. His abiding detractors were Leftists who wore many disguises — socialist, progressive, Lohiaites, liberals, etc. 

In the realm of Kannada literature, they called themselves Navya (New), which was often a code word for “Marxist” and “Communist” depending upon the season. They hounded S.L. Bhyrappa for more than half a century, and their assaults were multi-pronged — textual and verbal denunciations, sustained smear campaigns that branded him as a Brahminical supremacist, “Chaddi,” RSS agent, Hindutva fascist, regressive, superstitious and a mortal threat to that ultimate litmus test: secularism. 

When nothing unnerved him, they hired goons to pelt stones at his house at night. This heinous crusade was helmed by the late U.R. Anantamurthy, and a third-rate Leftist writer named Krishna Alanahalli. The fact that U.R. Anantamurthy harboured a personal grudge against Bhyrappa is now the stuff of legends in contemporary Kannada literary history.

The same history is also witness to the fact that these Navya writers became irrelevant in their own lifetimes. Till the end, this lobby worked overtime to ensure that S.L. Bhyrappa would never get the Jnanpith Award, if that award is any indicator of literary merit.  

This long-standing feud is punctuated by three underlying traits. 

At no point did S.L. Bhyrappa treat them as his adversaries. He had found his life’s calling in creative literature and pursued it like Tapas. Bharatavarsha’s civilisational history tells us that all Tapasvis have enlightened our society, ennobled our culture and caused not an iota of harm. 

S.L. Bhyrappa has pretty much done the same through his literary offerings. The attacks against him were wholly one-sided, unprovoked and motivated by an evil ideology that has caused nothing but damage and destruction. 

What added fuel to the fury of his detractors was the fact that Bhyrappa’s novels garnered critical acclaim, popular appeal and commercial success. No other writer in Kannada has commanded such handsome royalties in what is essentially a small market. In fact, Bhyrappa records his astonishment at the kind of reception that his breakthrough novel, Vamsa-Vruksha received in Karnataka. Not only was the book a commercial blockbuster but seminars and debates were held throughout Karnataka while he was stationed in Gujarat. 

A major factor underlying the success of Vamsa-Vruksha is the fact that it arrived at a transitory period in 20^th century India. A good slice of the Hindu society found it shameful to adhere to traditional practices and sought to intellectually “understand” its roots. Another slice of this society — the Leftists, had sworn to destroy these very roots. Which is why Vamsa-Vruksha hit this society like a storm. The former group found fresh light in it and the latter spotted an upstart that threatened to undo its pet project of breaking India by demeaning its culture and dismantling its society .  

At another level, the hounding of S.L. Bhyrappa occurred because those who saw him as an enemy simply didn’t know how to deal with him. Over the last ten or twelve years, a good chunk of his former traducers have transformed into his most vocal admirers who continue to milk his legacy for opportunistic reasons and wept copious crocodile tears at his exit from this mortal world. 

Quest for Truth

OTHER DIMENSIONS OF THIS LEGACY are evident in S.L. Bhyrappa’s literary and non-literary corpus. He chose the novel as his preferred form to undertake what in his words, was a “quest for truth.” Categories and genres were limiting. Using fiction to peddle ideology or solve social problems was not only fruitless but immature. A mediocre writer would choose the Babri Masjid demolition as the theme of his novel. A genius-level talent like S.L. Bhyrappa gifts an Aavarana to us. He had long ago realised the limitations and the futility of sticking to specific ideologies because he took his inspiration from the Bharatiya ethos and the Indian Rasa tradition. In an interview, he pointedly asked, “what social problem will you solve, what revolution will you usher through singing the Bhairavi or Todi Raag?” To spell it out, he has hinted that Rasa is the recipe for creating lasting works of art.

National recognition came to S.L. Bhyrappa belatedly, thanks to the selfsame Leftist lobby which has smothered even the names of many Bhyrappas. Yet, when it came, it came as a deluge and deservedly so. 

A Distinct Chapter

S.L. BHYRAPPA HAS CREATED a distinct and unique chapter for himself in the history of both Kannada and Indian literature. His berm is inimitable as is his prose style. It is an exhilarating concotion of life-experience, philosophical insight, intense emotion and a compelling swirl of clashing human impulses, all of which are woven with the quill of his creative talent. His prose style might perhaps be imitated but what about the rest? 

The misfortune of the last two decades is the near absence of people — even in Karnataka — who have the requisite mensch, erudition and insight for making objective and truthful analyses of S.L. Bhyrappa’s literary bequest. Apart from say, Dr. S.R. Ramaswamy, L.V. Shantakumari, Shatavadhani Dr. Ganesh, Arjun Bharadwaj and B.N. Shashi Kiran, the situation is dismal. The vaunted march of the exhibitionists who flaunted their selfies with S.L. Bhyrappa on social media was truly repulsive and painful to watch. There’s no greater insult to the hallowed memory of this titan. 

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. 

To my mind, only one word describes the man and his bequest: Ghana-Sattva. 

|| Om Tat Sat ||