JNANA BHARATHI:Dr Vasu M V (1967-2015), known as Vasu Malali in Kannada literary circles, represented a post-modern school of historians who brought people’s history to the fore. Besides being a champion of oral history, Vasu was a keen observer of the contemporary social and cultural scene, which she analysed in her fortnightly column in Prajavani. She had a raw intellectual energy that most sophisticated academics lacked.
With this and her Leftist approach, she would have blossomed into a fine historian in the years to come. She succumbed to cancer on February 3.
Vasu was a natural leader. She had contested college elections during her student days and was the captain of the Mysore University kho-kho team. Teaching history over two decades in colleges and at Bangalore University, Vasu gradually felt the need to expand her horizons, which led her to Kannada literature and later to films. She went to Hollywood for a short-term course to learn the art of film making and later studied seminal books on films while she continued to follow the celluloid world seriously.
For a year, she worked on a script to present Indian history through animation, but the project did not take off. She was a serious researcher and an inspiring teacher who tried to relate history to her times. She argued that the Dasara celebrations in Mysuru amounted to glorification of the royal family, and was against the very principles of democracy. When the communalists misinterpreted Tipu Sultan, Vasu countered them with sound academic research.
As her colleague at Bangalore University, I always found her to be an intellectual activist, bubbling with rare energy. Incidentally, when she wanted to direct a feature film, she chose my Kannada short story Nettaru Mattu Gulabi for her pilot project. As she realised the possibilities of presenting the contemporary history of people’s movements through the story, she developed a different script and started shooting her first feature film Shastra (Arms) in and around the dense forests of Malnad.
As she was shooting the film, she was diagnosed with cancer. She fought back valiantly and seemed to recover fast, or at least that’s the impression her friends got. Just a few months ago, she even resumed shooting and longed to complete the film soon.
Simultaneously, she was to edit books for children, and was invited all over Karnataka to address women’s, human rights and literary groups as her approach was inter-disciplinary.
She had a fairly good knowledge of Kannada literature and brought a historical perspective to it: she had studied the two Kannada folk epics Male Madeshwara Kavya and Manteswamy Kavya closely and was keenly following the living traditions of the folk heroes of these epics. She did this not merely from an academic point of view but tried to connect them with people’s movements in Karnataka, unlike her fellow historians.
Vasu had published three books and several essays. Her books Moukhika Itihasa and Kannadadol Bhavisida Janapadam (ed) are significant. On her desktop and in the leaves of her notebooks, one finds many writings -- finished and unfinished -- which could run into several volumes if published. She has left behind her unfinished debut film Shastra.
As I watched her, of late, I felt she was struggling to cope with that sinking feeling caused by the deteriorating condition of her body. And yet, she kept on at one or the other project, connected with film, music, research. She was all set to edit a little magazine too.
To me, Vasu continues to represent a fine model of a truly modern woman with an excellent fighting spirit against the body’s ravages, dull academia and conservative surroundings.