Masuku Bettada Haadi
A novel by M.R. Dattathri
The book, Masuku Bettada Haadi by M.R. Dattathri can be deemed as one of the distinct novels in Kannada in recent times not just because of its unusual theme but also for its deft handling. The story is of a growing motherless child, named Niranjana who is afflicted by a strange mental illness called Hyperthymestic Syndrome, into adulthood. Niranjana is found to have an extraordinary memory to recall all the details of the past without any error. In the beginning, the mental illness appears to be god-given gift to the motherless child. The child, to the admiration of the people around, which includes his empathetic father, But slowly, but surely, the memory becomes a big burden. He does not know how to handle such enormous emotionally charged information in his mind. Eventually memory becomes a hindrance to face his present life. He does not perform well at school, his interaction with his peers, father and relatives get more and more sensitive. The child’s active reception to the past leads to depression and loneliness.
The present life slowly becomes cumbersome. Rajeeva tries everything under the sun to get his son out of this problem, right from many irrational supernatural remedies to the most rational ameliorative efforts including consulting the best doctors in NIMHANS, but unfortunately the nature of the disease is such that it has no remedy. The child grows into an adult with the same syndrome. His confrontation with realities of the world around him (which demand certain minimum ‘smartness’ in him to manage his life) is long, harsh and cruel. After the death of Rajeeva and the suicide of his dear friend, Raghurama, he realizes in his lonely ‘unwordly’ life, his liberation lies in living in the memory of the mysterious past in its relationship with the present. He marries Raghurama’s wife, Pallavi, and becomes a father to his daughter, Surabhi.
The narrative is not unidirectional. In the four parts of the novel, there are many parallel stories which serve as contrasts which ultimately get tied to the life of Niranjana. The spatiotemporal details of both the main story and the parallels are delicately narrated. The novel is extremely readable not just because of the simplicity of language. The story itself offers a compelling force for the reader not to stop its reading without completing it. What starts as a psychological novel (like Triveni’s Bekkina Kannu ), takes the reader to the social and ethical ethos of our society. The pace of the narrative is slow, but it is never evident during the course its reading. The characters in the novel, good, not so good, not so bad, empathetic, confused, and ambitious without being unscrupulous, are authentic representation of people around us. Seemingly disconnected or minor characters like the painter, Manohara, have a role to play in the novel either to recognise or to corroborate the strong motivations generated in the novel.
However, it is obvious that the narrator is extremely compassionate to his characters, particularly to Niranjana. Such compassion, however well meant, curtails the possibility of multiple readings. Also, there cannot be any scope for irony in this kind of narrative. There is a tendency to prejudice the reader’s responses too. To cite just an example, the reader feels emotionally relieved when Pallavi rejects Manohara and accepts Niranjana – the narrative is so emotionally loaded that any other choice would seem impossible. Perhaps that is the only way left for the novelist to end the turmoil of Niranjana. What seems realistically correct might fail to be a good piece art. To this extent, the complexity of the novel is lost. All the same, that the book offers a good reading experience is beyond any doubt.
