A Raging Kurukshetra, A Flute Playing in Brindavana

Is it the fate of my generation merely to spill blood, fight in the name of religion, and to become nameless corpses on the streets?

Fathima Raliya Translated by Manohar S. Rao

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A Raging Kurukshetra, A Flute Playing in Brindavana — Illustration by Poojana Prasanna

Brushing aside the fog that’s gathered without shedding a drop, Gowri would walk in, like sunlight emerging in the rain. Swishing the pleats of her zari lehenga, made from her mother’s sari, she came carrying a little tray filled with sesame seeds, jaggery and sugarcane. This marked the official start of our household’s Uttaraayana festival season. Her eyes were full of festive joy. I’d get the feeling that even Bhishma Pitamaha would hold on to his fading breath on his bed of arrows just so he could get an eyeful of her joy.

At the moment, Gowri’s excitement is about a wedding. Yesterday, in the morning, she came over with somebody’s sari and badgered me: “Akka, teach me how to wear a sari.” Forget about knowing how to wear a sari; even if someone helped me wear one, I’d be one of those dunces who would have trouble walking in it without stumbling. Searching all over the Internet and Youtube, I somehow figured out how to get the pleats right, but the sun had already set by then.

Gowri is the granddaughter of Chennappajja, a close friend of my grandfather. Theirs was a friendship spanning decades. Chennappajja seldom made…

Pause here for now.

Fathima Raliya

Fathima Raliya is a young Kannada writer who has produced many acclaimed works of nonfiction, fiction and poetry. She first gained attention when she won first place in an essay contest, the Sudha Yugadhi Prabandha Spardhe 2020. Her collection of essays, “Kadalu Nodalu Hodavalu” won many prestigious awards including the Lankesh Award and the Avva Award. Her works also hold a place of importance in the academic realm, being selected as prescribed texts at five universities in Karnataka. She’s a native of Dakshina Kannada in coastal Karnataka.

Translator

Manohar S. Rao

Manohar S. Rao is a retired software engineer whose interest in reading and writing started early in his childhood in his hometown of Bengaluru. He’s been an avid reader of translated works ever since he discovered the works of the Russian masters on his mother’s bookshelf in his teen years. More recently, desirous of contributing to sharing its rich and diverse literature with the wider world, he has embarked on translating works from his beloved Kannada.