A literary trail treading on the shadow play of white lattice work on white walls

Published in Varthaman,Edition III, February 2020

11.00 AM. Wistful.

A hundred storied years. Aisles and aisles of books. The humbug of honks and impatience, so typical of Sayyaji Rao road, evanescing into stillness. Playing hide and seek, with traces of your childhood still extant in sentences you cannot forget, as you bump into titles you once held in your hands and devoured. Guilt withering on covers of books on your to-be-read list, like a wilted leaf kept in between pages of a book long forgotten. Intimidation replacing nostalgia and guilt as a vast sea of knowledge towers over you in works you have not read on subjects you have not heard of. Honks and impatience return; but only until you find another familiar name, language.

Climbing the carpeted wooden steps of the Central Library of Mysore for the first time is, to say the least, an experience. There is anticipation. There is eagerness. As the door opens into the great hall of knowledge, white light flooding, you see books, you see people. You see realms open and leave minds as pages turn, and see different ones entirely as you turn dimly lit corners, and quietly watch modern monks on stools hunched, meditating on literature. Titles dizzy past you while you attempt to quickly scour thousands such in your periphery. There isn’t enough time to read them all. There probably will never be. However, you make a note to come back with enough time to actually pull one of those creaking wooden chairs or stools and dare to wade the waves of words. And as you climb down the stairs, noticing how this could also be one of the last remaining places in Mysuru you get to spot the cloth bag carrying books, you cannot help but wish this was a place you frequented!

12.30 PM. A bucolic oasis.

Birds chirping in the background, the occasional mongoose, clicks, clanks and chants of a theatre group practicing their latest. Dhvanyaloka Center for Indian Studies, Professor C.D. Narasimhaiah’s brain child, is one of the city’s greatest literary treasure troves- a library dedicated to criticism, resplendent with books and journals and magazines in floor to ceiling shelves, spread across three rooms. You tread softly from shelf to shelf, flipping through magazines, the back editions of the in-house publication- The Literary Criterion, get awed by some poetry, and smile when you see tomes of the Vanity Fair magazine from the past century, their advertisements on hats and umbrellas, making you yearn for an era you weren’t lucky enough to be a part of. Enter the heart of the establishment, and the air becomes grave, thoughts in your mind reduce to a whisper, as if the words, once spoken in the famed lecture hall, are still ricocheting off the walls.

And as you step back out into the verdant greenery, carrying scraps of poetry and literature you didn’t want to let go, you see the world more vividly. You realise the aesthetics in the books you just flipped through is still around you, if only you open your eyes and mind.

3.30 PM. Whitewashed Walls

How much can four white walls hold? At R.K. Narayan’s House, in Yadavgiri, they hold National Awards, Ph.Ds., photographs, a cardigan with holes, a success story and stories behind it, quotes and the silence of a quiet city’s best kept secret.

The simple life of a celebrated author plays in hues of facts and memories, the moment you enter, established in print on the walls and in the last few pieces of memorabilia- period furniture, glasses and clothes, as you twine your way through the red oxide floored rooms. You try to imagine characters such as Swami and Rajam taking shape as you find yourself recalling their distinct characteristics that defined an entire era of Indian English literature and the craft of a master storyteller. On the first floor lies the soul of the house. It is the kind of place you want to spend your lazy summer afternoons making hand shapes in the sunlight in, a plate of mangoes on your lap, a dog-eared book by your side. Maybe R.K. Narayan, did just that and that is why he still so strongly lives on in a place that would else echo hollow.

With little pockets of the writer’s spirit and wisdom cheering you on in every corner, the unwavering atmosphere, eyes wrapped in a gleam of nostalgia,  visiting the now restored house and museum is revisiting a time, frozen and framed in his books- just the kind of minibreak with enough power to satiate a wandering literary soul.

4.30 PM. Muted milieu. Open ears.

The cool of the floor, breeze and intermittent rustle of leaves, simplicity of décor- a stage, one mic. They say life happens in three acts- hearing stories, living stories, telling stories. This gruha ranga, comes alive every Saturday at 4.30, on the dot, to tell, live and hear a story; sometimes, multiple stories, blurring literary borders and cultures.

Suruchi Rangamane, a name synonymous with literary activities like plays, chavadis and poetry discussions, has for a while now been synonymous with their one-of-a-kind experience, Kathe Kelona Banni. Conceived in 2007 to almost save the art of storytelling, and now having carved a niche for itself in the Limca Book of World Records, Kathe Kelona Banni hosts a guest, from all and any walk of life and profession, to narrate a story; any story be it- experience, their favourite or even one they might have weaved together!

Though targeted at kids from ages 5-17, it is not uncommon to spot an adult in the audience, equally rapt, listening intently. Tucked away in the middle of the city, at the busy corner of Udayaravi Road and Chithrabhanu Road in Kuvempunagar, Suruchi Rangemane is its own little literary escape, a place you would want to spend rainy evenings in, and as you re-enter the city life you left behind, stories still hum in your ears and play on your mind, until a new one embraces it next week!

Beneath Mysuru’s much celebrated historic and cultural façades, overshadowed by popularity, kingdom and a list of must-visit places, lies a side that caves just for those who have turned a page or two in their lifetime, a literary gradient, replete with contrasts, of a period frozen in time, against the slowly reinventing landscape-book clubs, fests and talks dotting the year.  However, there is a coexistence, a sublimity, sans any jostling for space- a true testament to the dynamicity and acculturating nature of the city and literature.