Famed artist, art critic, photographer and writer Giridhar Khasnis debuts in Kannada literature with Ellindalo Haari Bandu (which in English translates to came flying from somewhere), his inaugural collection of 85 short tales, micro stories, and prose poems. Ranging from micro stories spanning a few lines to the longest ones extending to two pages, the book showcases his transition from banking to artistry and now to literary creation. Giridhar, primarily recognized for his English writings, embarked on this venture into Kannada literature after more than four decades, initiated during the challenging period of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

From banker to writer

Speaking to The Hindu, 66-year-old Giridhar says writing has been a passion since childhood, but writing a book in Kannada after many years was a challenge, “Writing has been a passion since childhood. I used to write in Kannada in my school and college days, I wrote many poems, prose, and plays back then. However, I turned into a banker and was in the industry for 35 years.”

“In 2004 I voluntarily retired from my job as a general manager at a bank, and took up visual arts, through which I started writing art critics and columns in English. I had lost track of writing in Kannada completely. But when the pandemic happened, things changed, the world changed. It was a very creative period for me. So, I challenged myself to see if I could get back to writing in Kannada after four decades. My goal when I started the book was to see if I could write at least a single page in a day, and then it just happened easily”.  

Talking about the style of writing followed in this book, Giridhar says he did not have a format at all, “For people who have read my book, some call it Haiku style poem, some call it prose poems, but I never bothered about which category it would fall into while writing the book. I just let myself, my experiences and let my memory do the job. I believe that life is just not a single straight line, there is realism, surrealism, or unrealism, that makes our personalities, and that is what reflects through this book“. 

Touch of minimalism

“As I was writing, what amazed me or what I stumbled upon was that in very few lines you could transcend narratives. It is very similar to visual arts, for example in line drawing, in a single line you express what you can not express in a six-foot-tall wide canvas. I am driven to brevity and minimalism, so I believe in short spaces you can create intense narratives. If I have to give an example of how short stories or poems originate, there was an instance when I was at an airport in Nepal, there was this tall lamppost and a tiny little bird on it, and suddenly what came to my mind was Tall lamppost, tiny bird, what are you seeing, whom are you waiting for?, the first two lines talk about a photographic image, but there is imagination, poetry and question in the next few lines, this does not stem from just what I am seeing, but reflects more from what I am within“, Giridhar added.   

The bookis a bouquet of stories inspired by instances from Giridhar’s real life with a sprinkle of fiction and imagination. “For me I do not know if these are stories or poems, but this is a process where people and instances around me played a huge role. My housemaid appears very strongly in my stories, she has been a great inspiration and helped me write stories, she is a great bridge between what happens outside and inside my house. As writers, we always get information second-hand, but through her, I always get information in real time. Similarly, my father was a huge part of my life, and his death created this vacuum which was hard to come out of. So, there might be reflections of my father in my stories too, but in different forms. I believe all works of art are autobiographies of some kind, so instances from my personal life are reflected in my writing in some form or the other“, Giridhar said.  

Homage to the birds

The title Ellindalo Haari Bandu, takes inspiration from the birds on his apartment terrace and is an homage to them says Giridhar, “The title is very much centered to my collection. When the pandemic happened, we were all isolated, and we were not allowed to get out. I have been living in this apartment in Sanjay Nagar for two decades, and the only place I could go to at that time was the terrace. In the first fifteen years of my life in this apartment hardly went to the terrace five times, but during the pandemic, it became an everyday routine. It was a new universe that opened to me, there were so many birds. Initially, the birds were angry or scared, but gradually we became friends, I would talk to the birds, and they would just sit a few meters away from me. They inspired me to write many stories. With these birds, there was a bond which I had never felt in my life before. So, I had to pay homage to my little friends, which is why I called the book Ellindalo Haari Bandu“.     

Published by Navakarnataka Prakashana, the book Ellindalo Haari Bandu (160 pages/ Rs. 195) is available online at https://navakarnataka.com/ellindalo-haari-bandu