Samskara

Samskara was first published in 1965, and in 1970 it was made into a film. The narrative revolves around a Brahmin agrahara, Naranappa, situated in Konkan region. The themes explored by the novel are death, caste, religious values, culture, traditions and their relationship with the changing world. The central plot is devised around the issues and complications that arise when the anti-Brahmin Brahmin Naranappa’s dies and has to be buried.

Here’s an excerpt from a review of Samskara by Ratik Asokan, published in March 2017.

(https://www.thenation.com/article/samskara-ur-ananthamurthy-book-review/)

Ananthamurthy had captured a national zeitgeist: Samskara, he wrote, “takes us closer to the Indian idea of the self.”

… Samskara opens with a ritual of cleaning. “He bathed Bhagirathi’s body, a dried-up wasted pea-pod, and wrapped a fresh sari around it; then he offered food and flowers to the gods as he did every day, put flowers in her hair, and gave her holy water.”

“He” is Praneshacharya, the head priest of an agrahara, a Brahmin village. Bhagirathi is his wife. That first sentence, so devastating in its rejection of eros, would suggest that the couple is very aged; in fact, they haven’t reached 40. Bhagirathi was born physically disabled; their 20-year marriage has been more of a doctor-patient relationship than a pact between lovers.

… Indeed, modern readers will find it especially thrilling to encounter greedy women and craven men who inhabit a cyclical time untouched by the march of progress. Perhaps relatedly, one is struck by their tremendous lack of ambition. These villagers have almost no curiosity about the outside world, which for them is a source of impurity, not enlightenment…

Watch Ananthamurthy read an excerpt for Samskara at the 2013 Man Book International Prize readings, first in Kannada and then in English:

Purchase Samskara: A Rite for A Dead Man translated from the Kannada by A. K. Ramanujan.