A Personal Micro-History of Karnataka

Srikar Raghavan's weighty work, Rama Bhima Soma, examines the sociopolitical movements, literature, people, performers, activists and writers shaped by this state, even as it delves into the region's history and culture

- Charumathi Supraja

Srikar Raghavan's Rama Bhima Soma; Cultural Investigations into Modern Karnataka requires the reader to have vast reserves of reading stamina, an empathetic worldview and a willingness to travel deep into different geographies, perspectives, communities, stories and movements, even those whose politics the author may not agree with.

A self-professed "inveterate bookworm," "more of a reader than a writer" and "a Kannada-nut," Raghavan speaks to the English reader who may or may not be Kannada-literate as well as to the Kannada reader who has felicity with the English language. How this book unites two universes that have their own complicated history of separation is its strength and success.

Neither its extensive research nor its collation is as impressive as the fact that the author did not learn to read and write Kannada in school. He learnt it as a post-graduate student, using a Kannada-Kannada-English dictionary. In the prologue he writes that the first Kannada novel he read was Shivaram Karanth's Chomana Dudi. From there began his journey into Karnataka's history, culture, politics and socio-economic realities.

Raghavan dives into all of these, following various leads and threads, sometimes interviewing sources on their deathbed (though, admittedly, neither he nor the source knew this was the case).