The Possession of a Preoccupied Mind

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Hey, how you doin'?  No, I am not rewatching Friends for the zillionth time.  It's just that I hate to start traditionally.  I'm in a conflicting situation: some of my readers like my conversational tone, but apparently it isn't quite acceptable to the publication agencies. Two of my best-appreciated stories were rejected because of their tone. The rejection felt like a jolt that I could practically feel in my head, especially the second one.  Since that day, I've been caught up in a vicious loop of boredom because I stopped writing anything new.   I also called off a new transcription gig that promised me some good money, but the client was a tad bit of a scoundrel in his behaviour.  So here I am, having voluntarily stepped away from both writing and work, and somehow managing to be bored out of my mind. Pretty efficient, ain't I? I'm in that peculiar state where I don't want to do anything to kill time, yet somehow want the time to pass joyfully. I ...
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GANDHI'S THOUGHT AND IT'S IMPACT ON KANTHAPURA

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 THE BACKGROUND OF THE NOVEL

 

To understand the text of the novel Kanthapura it is important to have the knowledge about its background, the inspiration that the author took to write the novel. 

The novel “Kanthapura” is a social document, written in 1929 and published in 1938,  about a village in turmoil due to the sources from which it has shaped it’s form. That source is the social and political upheaval of a dependent India. Whatever was happening on the political scene of India in the 1930s finds its due reflection in the novel. 


GANDHI’S THOUGHT AND ITS IMPACT


The novel is set in the 1930s in an archetypical South Indian village named “Kanthapura” and is inspired by Gandhi’s ideology of “Ahimsa” and  “Satyagraha”. Gandhi doesn't feature in the novel as a character but the presence of Gandhi can be felt in every part of the novel and his philosophy of life and political struggle is reflected by the thought and action of many characters in the novel , chief among them is the protagonist of the novel Moorthy.


Moorthy comes under the influence of Gandhi at a very young age of his life and regards Gandhi as a role model and follows in every way, word and deed. 


Accordingly, he preaches tenets of Gandhian philosophy to his villagers and persuades them to make cotton yarn on the spinning wheel and to wear clothes spun and woven by their own hand. As Gandhi says :-


“Spinning is as purifying as praying.”


Instilled by Gandhian thoughts the villagers does so along with adhering to the Gandhian ideology of discarding British made foreign clothes into bonfires.


The villagers also exhorts themselves ,in the name Gandhi, not to drink toddy or liquor in any form and consequently picketed in the neighbourhood toddy shops to prevent the sale of the liquor. 


Proudly declaring themselves as Gandhi’s men the villagers also vowed to speak only the truth and observes the practice of singing Bhajans, taking out of Prabhat pheries, getting up at dawn, gathering at the temple and going through the streets in the twilight singing religious songs. 


However, if there is one thing the villagers did not understand even failed to adhere about Gandhian thoughts is Gandhi’s advice for the upper class Hindus such as the Brahmins to mingle with the lower class pariahs. They even consider this mindset of Gandhi as un-Mahatma like.


As Range Gowda best put it upon Moorthy’s assertion to plucking out hatred from their hearts and love even their enemies :-


“That’s for Mahatma and you Moorthappa – not for us poor folk !”


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