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Book Review
Kannada novel
IGARJI SUTTALINA HATTU MANEGALU: N.D' Souza; Manohara Grantha Mala, Laxmi Bhavan, Subhas Road, Dharwad-580001. Rs. 180.
THIS INSIGHTFUL novel is a long but not so gratifying a tale of the state of religious fervour of a Christian community in a small town and the career of a cluster of early settler households.
From the point of a virtual zero upwards, it fluctuates depending upon the character and personality of the vicar of the initial ramshackle of a chapel to which, he, however, saw later as a landmark of faith.
The small habitat is Shivasagara, tucked away in the heart of the Malnad region of the Kannada land. Until the first officially designated Padri arrived, the connection of the tiny Christian households with faith was tenuous, because of the overwhelming dominance of the Hindu environment. The pace set for the faith-building process has been its rise and decline and even decay has been graphically described by the author with his intimate knowledge of the several layers of life of the community.
The central figure of the story is Father Gonsalves, a Portugese priest who had been deputed to Shivasagara by the Goa diocese to salvage the faith of the Christian households. He is presented as a very strict disciplinarian who would resort to cruelty, wielding his lean and deadly "Nagarabettha" (a rattan whip), to discipline those he found violating the regimen he had enforced.
But, all the stern postures and cruelty were instruments of his assignment and his passion for it was genuine and unquestioned. His job in the initial years was a kind of a process of proselytisation in the reverse direction — drawing back his flock into the practise of the faith.
His successor, Fr. Mascarenhas, was totally different as he used his position to indulge in coercion and extortion of fees on the slightest pretext. It was not long before his flock became disillusioned with him. A long line of priests follows with doubtful commitment to their assignment. There was degeneration.
The story, which begins with the arrival of Fr. Gonsalves, ends with a shocked Gonsalves sending out exclamatory remarks as he boards the car, which had brought him from another post to officiate at the golden jubilee of the "Igarji", the prayer centre. He had watched the jubilee procession split into two at a certain point and taking different routes led by leaders of two rival factions in the manner of the pedigreed patricians and the underprivileged plebians. He was heartbroken and his vision of Shivasagara was in ruins.
C. M. RAMACHANDRA
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