Tantu: The Loom of Life

Description

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

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SANTESHIVARA LINGANNAIAH BHYRAPPA IS A BEST-SELLING KANNADA NOVELIST AND IS PERHAPS THE MOST TRANSLATED NOVELIST IN INDIA TODAY. BHYRAPPA’S LATEST NOVEL, AVARANA, CREATED A RECORD BY GOING FOR TWENTY-TWO REPRINTS IN JUST TWO YEARS. HIS TWENTY-ONE NOVELS AND A STUNNINGLY ABSORBING AUTOBIOGRAPHY, BHITTI, HAVE HAD THE SAME DISTINCTION. TWO OF HIS NOVELS HAVE BEEN TRANSLATED INTO ALL FOURTEEN OFFICIAL LANGUAGES OF INDIA, WHILE SEVERAL OTHERS HAVE BEEN TRANSLATED INTO MANY LANGUAGES, ESPECIALLY HINDI AND MARATHI. THREE OF HIS WORKS HAVE BEEN TRANSLATED INTO SANSKRIT, A RARE DISTINCTION. FIVE OF HIS NOVELS HAVE BEEN TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH: VAMSHAVRIKSHA (EAST-WEST BOOKS, MADRAS); DAATU (B.R. PUBLISHING CORPORATION, DELHI); PARVA (SAHITYA AKADEMI, DELHI); SAAKSHI (EAST-WEST BOOKS, MADRAS); AND SAARTHA (OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, DELHI).

S. Ramaswamy, a three-time Fullbright Scholar at the Universities of California, Texas and Yale, a two-time British Council Scholar at Oxford and London, a Shastri Indo-Canadian Fellow at McGill University, Montreal, is a Fellow of Silliman College, Yale University. He is also winner of the Phi Beta Kappa Award of Southern California and the Karnataka State Sahitya Akademi Award. Ramaswamy studied Sanskrit traditionally in a pathshala, and went on to become editor of Tattvaloka – A Journal of Vedanta. He has translated many books from Sanskrit and Kannada into English, among them S.L. Bhyrappa’s Saartha. Fifteen of his books (eight in English, seven in Kannada) have been published.

ABOUT THE BOOK:
In this epic novel, Bhyrappa examines the social, political, moral and psychological fibre of contemporary Indian life, spanning the decades between post-Independence and the declaration of the Emergency under Indira Gandhi. The range of characters is astonishingly comprehensive – the true Gandhian idealist who, despite all odds, holds on to his values; an honest, uncompromising journalist who remains steadfast to his professional ethics; the “liberated” career woman who gains favour in the business world due to her promiscuity; and the academic-politician with a carefully cultivated charm used to seduce impressionable young women.

Tantu is panoramic in scope, moving from Bangalore to Mysore, from Banaras to Delhi. Police brutality, goondaism at the village level, the superficial five-star hotel culture and the smuggling of art objects out of the country are all subjects the novel relentlessly examines. Corruption and nepotism in high and low places is portrayed with absolute candour, as is the steady erosion of traditional Indian values. Tantu is a fascinating survey of modern India, examined from many different angles.