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The Making of Modern Karnataka
A History of Culture, Society and Politics
Speaker
Karnataka is one of India’s most diverse states, as rich in literary and cultural traditions as it is in democratic struggles and political churns. The 20th century witnessed the birth of a modern Kannada renaissance, accompanied by the emergence of a powerful social conscience. Against this backdrop, one young man’s quest to explore his vibrant historical roots leads to an ambitious attempt to unpack the region’s social and cultural histories.
Rama Bhima Soma is an enterprise of translation and rediscovery, packed with stories and conversations. The book explores a dizzyingly wide sweep of Karnataka’s contemporary history—the life and times of legends like Kuvempu and Shivaram Karanth; the fall of Socialism and the rise of the Hindu Right; the intellectual ruminations of U.R. Ananthamurthy, D.R. Nagaraj and M.M. Kalburgi; the wildly popular television serials of T.N. Seetharam and the community-centred one-woman theatre shows of Du Saraswathi; a brief history of Naxalism in Karnataka and glimpses of other complicated legacies of the 1970s’ Left.
Marshalling a diverse range of literary and scholarly resources, framed through biographical sketches and immersive reportage, this session will reanimate some pivotal moments in the making of modern Karnataka. A Q&A session with the audience will follow.
Presented by:
Speaker
Srikar Raghavan
Born in Bangalore and brought up in Mysore, Srikar wrote Rama Bhima Soma while living in a small village named Parkala in South Canara. Something of that inward trajectory has permeated the pages of his book, he believes. An inveterate bookworm, Srikar fancies himself more of a reader than a writer. He also loves to trek, travel and fiddle around on a guitar.
Anjum Hasan
Anjum Hasan’s latest novel is History’s Angel. She is the author of The Cosmopolitans, Neti, Neti: Not This, Not This, Lunatic in my Head, Difficult Pleasures, and a book of poems, Street on the Hill. She has been a Homi Bhabha Fellow, a Charles Wallace Writer-in-Residence and is currently a New India Foundation Fellow.
Vikhar Ahmed Sayeed
Vikhar Ahmed Sayeed is an award-winning journalist with Frontline newsmagazine and is based in Bengaluru.
