Gubbihallada Sakshiyalli

Gubbihallada Sakshiyalli

By L. C. Sumithra

Ankita Pustaka, Rs. 70


L.C. Sumithra’s “Gubbihallada Sakshiyalli” is a collection of short stories written over several years. It brings Sumithra’s creativity to the fore, while we have known her more for her critical essays and her award-winning Ka nnada translation of Amrita Pritam’s “Pinjar”, till now.

The eleven stories in this collection are mostly set in Malnad and are inseparable from its geographical and cultural uniqueness. Sumithra’s commitment towards capturing cultural experiences is indeed unique and rare-to-find in an increasingly idea-centric age and time. Her craft consists in the flexibility, she achieves, in language, in order to present experiences. The earthy characters we meet in this collection are all set in changing times and places and, struggle their way through the new parameters that are being set for relationships. Malnad’s changing culture is captured here in a matter-of-fact way, sans anxiety or contempt. Sumithra creates a language to speak of experiences and at the same time, fulfils the de-familiarising function of literature. The collection offers an engaging variety of themes to the reader.

“Gudiyolage” is a story that paints the world of a widow, Sanni, who is left behind, while her son steadily progresses upwards in the village’s class-caste hierarchies. Although driven by a political consciousness, it captures the feelings of the characters successfully. In “Kallina Koli”, it seems that modernity and its myriad avatars are changing even before we can manage to track it. The writer’s own ideological engagements and experiences could be available here for us to see. Like in all other stories, the dilemmas are necessarily of the here and the now. When Sunila decides not to eat another ice cream, because of the irreparable changes that vanilla plantations have brought about, we see an endearing everydayness of characters as well as their ideology-proneness, which is perhaps how modernity incessantly marks us. “Suliyolagina Benki” maintains an uncertainty over Sundaratte’s accident that makes her a ‘vegetable’ and thus keeps the story alive till the very end. Sumithra does tell us right at the beginning that Vaidehi is an inspiration, and this story is one that is bound to remind readers of Vaidehi’s “Akku”.

“U Cut”, possibly the best story in this collection, recollects the fantasies of young Kamala, who is obsessed with maintaining her long hair, but later in life ends up with a very short ‘U cut’. The language in this story with its usage of English words is contemporary in significant ways. But the best part is the non-judgmental narrator’s voice that neither analyses nor psychologises the characters. This story defies feminist expectations that worry over, ‘terms of representations’ or worse ‘correct representations’, when the story ends with, “Kamala only reveals a part of all of us”. The fine pieces of writing in this collection do not just bank on descriptive power; they are well-informed and thought-provoking. Sumithra’s homely themes are woven in descriptions that readers will find gratifying. “Gubbihallada…” is definitely a promising contribution to Kannada Literature.

SUSHUMNA KANNAN

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