Bhitti

“Bhitti” is SL Bhairappa’s autobiography.  Bhitti in Kannada means wall.  SLB’s official website refers to it as canvas. Bhitti also means a mural. “Bhitti” is a masterpiece and is said to be a lesson in the art of writing an autobiography. 

 

Writing an autobiography is both cathartic as well as a squeamish business. Cathartic because you are bringing up all kinds of things including unresolved, long buried issues and settling them one way or another even if it means only in your mind.In the end it is always between you and your conscience. After all each one has to live with himself. No man is an island. Our life is intertwined with so many others. So we are privy to some parts of other’s life. And the squeamishness is in how much of yourself and other’s behavior and personal details you reveal. You have to be honest but discreet. Bhairappa strikes a fine balance here especially in his interactions with other litterateurs. 

 

Bhairappa looks back at his life from the summit of 70 years and takes us through his childhood, difficult student days, his career, his passion for writing and travels. He tells a riveting story. Bhairappa has a great memory and is able to recall a lot of details including his emotions at the time of occurrence of an event and the sartorial details of the people around him. Mired in poverty his childhood and student days are a constant struggle to stay afloat. It is a hand to mouth existence for long. His earliest memories are of a 2/3 year boy. Slowly he takes us through his boyhood, his tantrums, and the physical and emotional abuse he suffers at his uncle’s place where his mother sends him to stay and study.  At eleven he loses a brother and a sister on the same day to plague followed by his mother a few days later. By the time he is fifteen and carries his dead younger brother’s body on his shoulder for cremation the reader is struggling to hold his emotions in check. Bhairappa writes dispassionately, detachedly with minimum details, does not elaborate and become emotional but you read an event and sit back you are shaken, you are moved and pained.

 

Bhairappa’s student life has been so difficult, it is a miracle he manages to pay fees and eat a full meal. He raises funds by singing, story-telling, working as a gate keeper in a cinema, washing vessels in a hotel, giving tuitions and so on. You name it and he has done that job. He lives by “Varanna” - a very magnanimous system that existed in those days.  In this system usually a poor student, a boy eats one meal on a particular day of a week at a house. This system would sustain so many poor students in those days. Bhairappa struggles to keep body and soul together with a “vagabond” father   alive but with absolutely no responsibility towards his children. Bhairappa himself calls his father a “vagabond”. Despite such hardships his insatiable urge to read and gain knowledge is undiminished. By the time he is doing his MA (Hons)  he is reading beyond the prescribed textbooks and this voracious appetite for books causes physical fatigue in a guy accustomed to walking 10/20 kms a day effortlessly. 

 

And so Bhairappa grows up avoiding the pitfalls and distractions of youth. He is constantly duped by his kith and kin. But his talent is recognized and nurtured by kind hearted neighbours, friends   and distant relatives in early days, teachers in his schools and finally his fans. Throughout the book Bhairappa acknowledges the contributions of all the people who have nurtured him. As events unfold we see the making of Bhairappa the person and Bhairappa the litterateur. Very early in life he realizes the correctness of defeating an opposing view by logical and knowledgeable argument rather that brow beating it by raising the voice. This comes through in his books which are very well researched. We see his views on religion and rituals evolving, his philosophy of life taking root and the awakening and evolution of his creative genius. Tips for new writers are strewn throughout the book . 

  

A person planning to write historical fiction is advised to read the literature of that period to get the nuances and finer details right. History is not just about kings and queens and their wars, it is also our story, the common man’s story. And the arts are a snapshot of a time. “Varanna” is a case in point. It doesn’t exist anymore, our generation has heard about it from our parents but the next will never get to hear or see about it except through literature. In that respect "Bhithi" is a store house of information on the social mores of a bygone era. 

  

Bhairappa has seen life from very close quarters and is very well travelled. He has travelled all across the globe not to mention large swathes of India. Bhairappa writes as he preaches with a detached air but is forthright. He never hesitates in calling a spade a spade; we see this in him even as a young boy.  He has always stood up for truth and justice and is a fighter and a survivor. A survivor because all the bitterness,  the pain and betrayal he has seen  would have broken the spirit of an ordinary human being but it has not made Bhairappa cynical. He has internalized it all to reach great heights. The success and heights that Bhairappa has attained is testimony to the triumph of the human spirit. The autobiography is written in a linear chronological manner. The language is succinct and the book gripping and unputdownable. 

  

I strongly feel that the childhood and student day sections of this novel be made mandatory reading for growing kids. Not only will they get a sense of perspective,  spoilt rich kids will recalibrate their definition of denied and deprived.

 

“Varanna ”  needs to be revived ? a thought .

 

For a book lover to meet his favourite author is a dream come true. So it was when I met Bhairappa a few months ago and mustered enough courage to go talk to him. It is a cherished moment and my day was made :). Pictures attached in the blog post SL Bhairappa.

Another long post :) but I had to pay tribute to Bhairappa :)