S.L. Bhyrappa told the truth in times of adversity

Bhyrappa’s moral universe extended beyond literature. He saw himself not merely as a storyteller, but as a custodian of civilisational truth.

- SANTISHREE DHULIPUDI PANDIT

Few people defy time and influence lives with such conviction and clarity that they become a moral compass for generations to come. Santeshivara Lingannaiah Bhyrappa was one such life. His passing at ninety-four is not merely a literary loss but a moment of remembrance of a thinker who stood unbent when conformity was rewarded, who wrote of truth when truth had few friends.

A LIFE OF ADVERSITY

Bhyrappa’s story began far from the clamour of literary salons or intellectual circles. Born in 1931 in the quiet village of Santeshivara in Karnataka’s Hassan district, he tasted loss before he learnt language. The plague claimed his mother and brother; his father, erratic and indifferent, offered little refuge. Education became both refuge and rebellion. He went on to complete his philosophy degree at Mysore University with distinction. He later pursued a doctoral thesis on aesthetics, Satya Mattu Soundarya (Truth and Beauty), a pairing of ideas that defined his intellectual compass throughout his life. Before he became novelist, Bhyrappa was a teacher: Starting off in Karnataka, later with NCERT in Delhi, and finally at universities in Gujarat and Mysore. For him, teaching was not a profession but a sacred calling, as he believed the transmission of knowledge was a duty, an ethical act that illuminated the world. He combined this moral seriousness with the discipline of a philosopher and the imagination of a writer. This quality was later clearly manifested in his novels.

A PHILOSOPHER NOVELIST