<p>Two years ago, when Mogalli Ganesh learnt he had to be hospitalised, he turned to his friends near him in desperation: “Get me 2,000 sheets of paper!” The sixty-year-old Kannada writer had already published extensively across several genres – short stories, novels, cultural criticism, poetry, and street plays – and had edited multiple volumes of both fiction and non-fiction. He went on to publish two novels, a long prose poem, and an autobiography, and to bring out a collection of his previously uncollected essays, Dalit Janapada (folklore), through his newly launched publishing venture, shortly before he passed away last month. A collection of his short short stories – born of his experiment with a new form – remains unpublished.</p>.<p>Written in his late twenties, Mogalli’s early stories drew instant attention for the distinctive power and the style of their prose. I doubt any other Kannada short fiction anthology since has stirred as much excitement as his debut anthology, Buguri (1992), that P Lankesh published with an utterly improbable yet oddly effective cover featuring a photo of the torso of a semi-nude woman in slim underwear. Mostly set in the linguistic idiom of Channapatna taluk, where he spent his childhood, his debut stories – some of which are available in English translation, including The Top, A Pair of Old Shorts, My Grandfather Had a Wish, and The Paddy Harvest – blend raw and comic elements in high-energy prose while sustaining a tragic undertone.</p>.<p>Mogalli was born into a Dalit family, and his stories often take place in Dalit communities, but it is impossible to call him a Dalit writer. His fictional probes are open and take unexpected turns, and seek to fathom experiential depths in ways that make prefixing a social identity to him limiting as well as distorting. His stories do not subordinate experience to ideological aims. Conversations with the soft-spoken Mogalli were always refreshing, for he regarded literature – and the world at large – as deserving of our fullest curiosity and empathy.</p>.<p>After completing his higher studies in economics and folklore in Mysore, Mogalli joined Kannada University, Hampi, as a faculty member, where he remained until his retirement two years ago. His capacious humanism and deep commitment to literature kept him away from literary and political factions – a distance that, in the end, proved costly, inviting indifference to his work from those gatekeeping camps. His free criticisms of fellow writers and scholars added to this unfortunate situation. Insufficient intellectual engagement with his works, especially his scholarly writings, also did not help. Surely, the Kannada academic world could have yielded at least a scholar or two attentive to Mogalli’s writings. Amid everything, he drew quiet solace from the loving care of his wife and three daughters.</p>.<p>Mogalli hoped to find newer audiences for his stories through English translations. A couple of translators whom I had helped identify for this task gave up soon enough. His prose style indeed is very hard to translate into English. We were trying to narrow in on a third one a few days before he died. But we had found someone to translate his autobiography, Naanembudu Kinchittu (I, the least, 2023), a stunning literary achievement.</p>.<p>Reminiscent of the prose style seen in his debut anthology, this consciousness-expanding narrative though proves a novel achievement through its effortless weaving of the real and surreal elements. His lived experiences are laid down as a succession of episodes more through vivid images and metaphors and evocations of mood than facts. Dedicated to “his mother’s sigh,” Mogalli’s life-account retains a mystery and wonder about the world even while reliving the sorrow of his brutalised childhood, in particular, the cruelty of his father and grandmother.</p>.<p>His memories of his loving mother and stately grandfather, his adventures in a burial ground, and the exhilarating rides on his “donkey-moped,” among other inspired episodes, are rendered with virtuoso skill and mark a special achievement in the art of memoir. There is nothing quite like it in Kannada, or perhaps in any other Indian language. Mogalli is gone, but he has left behind a lot, a hell of a lot.</p>.<p><em>The writer is the Vidyashilp Professor looks for new ways of looking.</em></p>
<p>Two years ago, when Mogalli Ganesh learnt he had to be hospitalised, he turned to his friends near him in desperation: “Get me 2,000 sheets of paper!” The sixty-year-old Kannada writer had already published extensively across several genres – short stories, novels, cultural criticism, poetry, and street plays – and had edited multiple volumes of both fiction and non-fiction. He went on to publish two novels, a long prose poem, and an autobiography, and to bring out a collection of his previously uncollected essays, Dalit Janapada (folklore), through his newly launched publishing venture, shortly before he passed away last month. A collection of his short short stories – born of his experiment with a new form – remains unpublished.</p>.<p>Written in his late twenties, Mogalli’s early stories drew instant attention for the distinctive power and the style of their prose. I doubt any other Kannada short fiction anthology since has stirred as much excitement as his debut anthology, Buguri (1992), that P Lankesh published with an utterly improbable yet oddly effective cover featuring a photo of the torso of a semi-nude woman in slim underwear. Mostly set in the linguistic idiom of Channapatna taluk, where he spent his childhood, his debut stories – some of which are available in English translation, including The Top, A Pair of Old Shorts, My Grandfather Had a Wish, and The Paddy Harvest – blend raw and comic elements in high-energy prose while sustaining a tragic undertone.</p>.<p>Mogalli was born into a Dalit family, and his stories often take place in Dalit communities, but it is impossible to call him a Dalit writer. His fictional probes are open and take unexpected turns, and seek to fathom experiential depths in ways that make prefixing a social identity to him limiting as well as distorting. His stories do not subordinate experience to ideological aims. Conversations with the soft-spoken Mogalli were always refreshing, for he regarded literature – and the world at large – as deserving of our fullest curiosity and empathy.</p>.<p>After completing his higher studies in economics and folklore in Mysore, Mogalli joined Kannada University, Hampi, as a faculty member, where he remained until his retirement two years ago. His capacious humanism and deep commitment to literature kept him away from literary and political factions – a distance that, in the end, proved costly, inviting indifference to his work from those gatekeeping camps. His free criticisms of fellow writers and scholars added to this unfortunate situation. Insufficient intellectual engagement with his works, especially his scholarly writings, also did not help. Surely, the Kannada academic world could have yielded at least a scholar or two attentive to Mogalli’s writings. Amid everything, he drew quiet solace from the loving care of his wife and three daughters.</p>.<p>Mogalli hoped to find newer audiences for his stories through English translations. A couple of translators whom I had helped identify for this task gave up soon enough. His prose style indeed is very hard to translate into English. We were trying to narrow in on a third one a few days before he died. But we had found someone to translate his autobiography, Naanembudu Kinchittu (I, the least, 2023), a stunning literary achievement.</p>.<p>Reminiscent of the prose style seen in his debut anthology, this consciousness-expanding narrative though proves a novel achievement through its effortless weaving of the real and surreal elements. His lived experiences are laid down as a succession of episodes more through vivid images and metaphors and evocations of mood than facts. Dedicated to “his mother’s sigh,” Mogalli’s life-account retains a mystery and wonder about the world even while reliving the sorrow of his brutalised childhood, in particular, the cruelty of his father and grandmother.</p>.<p>His memories of his loving mother and stately grandfather, his adventures in a burial ground, and the exhilarating rides on his “donkey-moped,” among other inspired episodes, are rendered with virtuoso skill and mark a special achievement in the art of memoir. There is nothing quite like it in Kannada, or perhaps in any other Indian language. Mogalli is gone, but he has left behind a lot, a hell of a lot.</p>.<p><em>The writer is the Vidyashilp Professor looks for new ways of looking.</em></p>
