HUBBALLI: Veteran journalist and Kannada activist Patil Puttappa has refused to apologise for lines in his book that allege Jnanpith awardee K Shivarama Karanth went through a gunshot wedding.
Naanu Patil Puttappa (I, Patil Puttappa), published in 2010 and reprinted in 2014, alleges K T Alva threatened the celebrated writer into marrying his daughter Leela. Karanth (1902-1997), an outspoken critic of caste orthodoxy, was a Brahmin and Leela a Bunt. Their marriage, in the 1930s, was widely hailed as revolutionary for those times. “What I have written in my autobiography is true and based on information provided by Yakshagana artiste Narayan Kille and former deputy speaker of the Legislature Council K K Shetty,” Puttappa told reporters here on Friday. “They were close to him.”
On Thursday, Malini Mallya, Karanth’s personal secretary, took objection to Puttappa’s account and sought an apology from him. She said Puttappa had no proof to support his charge, whereas a more respectful report about the marriage had appeared in Swadeshabhimani, a newspaper of the time. “It is in poor taste and has hurt Karanth’s admirers,” she said of Puttappa’s account.
Alleging Karanth’s autobiography had skipped how the wedding took place, Puttappa’s book states, “It was a gun-point wedding.”
Karanth used to go to K T Alva’s house to teach his daughter dance. A lapse took place. K T Alva picked up a gun and went after him. Without a word, Karanth married Leela.”
However, in an interview with a Kannada newspaper in 1978, Leela had said theirs was not a love marriage, and that she had proposed to Karanth and convinced him to marry her. Her father had a modern outlook, and had said she could marry anyone as long as she kept him informed.
But Puttappa offers a different version. “The truth is always bitter. We have to accept it. I am an admirer of Karanth and I knew him since college. But I can’t insult the truth for fear of offending someone,” Puttappa reacted. He also took a dig at her remark that she had entered Karanth’s life in his last days, and knew little about the past. “Malini Mallya used to write Shivaram Karanth’s copy. I don’t know what magic she performed. He gave the copyright for all his works to her, and not to his children,” Puttappa said.
Inspired by Japan’s kabuki theatre, Karanth recast the operatic form of the Yakshagana to appeal even to non-Kannadigas, shifting the focus from dialogue to the movements. Leela was a 17-year-old dance student when she married her guru Karanth, then 34. Puttappa refused to back down. “I used spend time with him because he was a unique writer,” Puttappa said. “But I am also an admirer of truth, and don’t have the powers to rewrite history.”