K V Tirumalesh: Erudite writer with a wide range of interests

Dr K V Tirumalesh, who died in Hyderabad on Monday, started writing modernist poetry in the late 1960s under the influence of Gopalakrishna Adiga.

In the 1980s, he deviated from the modernist style and began creating his own post-modernist style in Kannada. He later explored other styles, including a simple, playful one for works aimed at children.

Tirumalesh wrote scholarly literary criticism and essays on linguistics and at the same time, followed the footsteps of the stalwarts of 20th-century Kannada literature, such as Kuvempu, Shivaram Karanth and G P Rajarathnam, who believed their oeuvre had to cover writing for children.

His first poetry collection, ‘Mukhavaadagalu’ (Masks) came out in 1968. He subsequently published poetry, short stories, novels, and translations. He was prolific, publishing about 60 books in Kannada.

In addition, he also wrote books in English, mostly on language and linguistics. His ‘Derrida’s: Heel of Achilles and other Essays’ is well known. He published over 50 essays in English in various international journals.

Tirumalesh did his MA in English literature from Kerala University. He also studied in Hyderabad and the University of Reading in the United Kingdom. He taught at the Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages, Hyderabad, and retired as its dean. Subsequently, he taught for a while in the USA and the Middle East.

His newspaper columns are anthologised in the book Akshara Lokada Anchinalli (On the Edge of the World of Letters). ‘Aparupada Kathegalu’, a collection of short stories, was published in 2018. ‘Vaachana Shaale’, a book of literary criticism, also appeared the same year.

‘Aala-Niraala’, again a collection of his newspaper columns, shows his ease in communication as he grapples with science and Eastern and Western philosophy. His columns uphold reason, plurality and diversity of interests.

In ‘Akshaya Kaavya’ (2010), a philosophy of life is woven around the story of two lovers longing for privacy and finally finding it in a forest. It explores multiple levels of philosophical thought. It won him a Central Sahitya Akademi award.

In ‘Avyaya Kaavya’ (2019), apparently unconnected incidents are connected in the reader’s consciousness. Ideas in philosophy and literature from across the world appear in his poems, like pictures seen through the window of a fast-moving train.

In it, a philosopher renounces everything and wanders anonymously, working as a mason, carpenter, cook, farmer and healer. One day, he realises he is just greedy for experience and his search is unlikely to lead to anything meaningful. He concludes that the complex relationship between work and life can’t be understood through whimsical experiments.

Tirumalesh was born in Karadka, near Kasaragod, in 1940. He was suffering from age-related ailments and died in Hyderabad on Monday. In his passing, the world of Indian literature has lost an erudite voice.

(S R Vijayashankar is a writer and critic)