THE first time I saw and heard Ananthamurthy was on a vacation home to Bangalore from Boston where I was pursuing a PhD in Physics at the time. In the long years away from home, I had begun to dabble with writing in Kannada as a way of keeping alive a meaningful connection with my mother tongue, and to catch up on Kannada literature that I had not paid much attention to when I lived in Bangalore. This engagement with writing in Kannada had become quite a serious preoccupation in those days, and all things literary took priority over other engagements during the visit.

When M.S. Murthy, an artist in Bangalore who I had recently met, told me of a public discussion at Ravindra Kalakshetra with Ananthamurthy who was visiting town (he was vice chancellor of Mahatma Gandhi University in Kerala in those days), I eagerly tagged along. I don’t recall much of what was actually said, but do remember that it was an extended dialogue, with Ananthamurthy engaging his interlocutors with obvious relish and earnestness. It was an appealing vignette of an engagement that I was an outsider to, but for quite some time it would remain an isolated cultural experience, given my intellectual and geographic distance.

It was a pleasant coincidence that drew me back into contact with Ananthamurthy after returning to India. Owing to a shared profession and common friends, I met Sharath, his son, and we got to know each other well. Soon thereafter, there were frequent occasions for me to meet Ananthamurthy, and to have conversations that covered a vast cultural universe, which became, over time, a beacon for how I view myself, my work, society and culture.

What struck me the most about Ananthamurthy was his serious and incessant engagement with ideas and the world around him. This was a constant, enduring meditation of a man who never ceased to strive to comprehend, to synthesize, and to formulate a position on all that came his way, and was ever eager to share, to question, and be questioned. The process itself, rather than any purpose that lay beyond, was the ultimate, unremitting yajna, which was at the same time effortless as a natural part of his being, but with a fierceness of focus that could easily tire the less energetic ones around him.

The broad canvass of Ananthamurthy’s contemplations were his deep concerns about the directions of modern civilization, the fate of dominated cultures, ways of living and knowing, and what notions of development held in store for them. Many concerns revolved around globalization, cultural and economic, and its relation to civilizational trends.

 

A particular strand of his concerns revolved around the role of science in determining the nature of contemporary society. As a practicing scientist, I often found myself being a sounding board, and sometimes a punching bag, to his engagement with this theme. Ananthamurthy’s principal concerns revolved around what may be called the epistemic hegemony of science, the implications of scientific knowledge, past and present, on human affairs, and the nature of the public participation of scientists in these matters.

A common experience when I visited him at home would be for him to tell me about the latest matter that he was engaged in a public discussion about. At some point during this discussion, he would interject a comment – ‘and no scientist is talking about this’. He felt that scientists should actively participate in public discussion on matters of societal importance, and was generally disappointed at the level of such participation. This point is an interesting one to ponder over. Ananthamurthy, by virtue of a tradition in the Kannada literary world, and his own personality, took it upon himself to be a conscience of society, and a public voice of dissent. Many scientists who may well share these views either do not see themselves as obligated to speak out, or feel that they do not have a forum to speak. Indeed, during one such discussion about science where Ananthamurthy appeared to imply that scientists have significant influence over public policy, Roddam Narasimha, a prominent scientist with significant public involvement about the use of science and technology, remarked wryly that Ananthamurthy had much more influence over public policy given the visibility of his views than most scientists.

The setting was a workshop on the ideas of science held at Ninasam, Heggodu, a theatre institute, and venue of an annual workshop on culture that Ananthamurthy was director of till last year. In the same discussion, Ananthamurthy insisted that given the prominence of science as a knowledge system and its role in the economy, there was no room for scientists to maintain a position of innocence and neutrality. One response, articulated by Roddam Narasimha, is that expecting scientists to bear responsibility for societal problems that science may have a bearing on is just as misplaced as the presumption that science will have answers to all questions of social and human concern. Whether these expectations are to be viewed as applying to individuals, or the community, and whatever the origins of the present state of affairs, the nature of the involvement of active scientists in public discourse on matters of broad social concern that involve science in some form (and those that do not necessarily involve science in any direct way) deserves introspection.

 

A deeper set of misgivings Ananthamurthy had about the role of science revolved around concerns about the dangers to a democratic world view concerning cultures and knowledge systems under attack from the forces of market oriented globalization, and a certain perspective on what development entailed. Science as an instrument of bestowing legitimacy or otherwise to knowledge systems or social programmes bothered him and, in spirit, his misgivings echoed those of Gandhi. He was critical of the tendency to seek justification about other ways of knowing through science, expressed a stand against the notion of development, and was fond of describing himself as a Luddite.

 

It was a mixed bag. Just as Gandhi’s critique of modern civilization resonates with many who continue to hold deep convictions about a scientific approach to the acquisition and employment of knowledge about the world, Ananthamurthy’s views on science too were not, to me, acceptable in their totality. The concerns from which these views arose were beyond dispute. They were motivated by a deep desire for social justice, freedom of thought and ways of knowing, and opposition to all forms of oppression. Many of his portrayals of the consequences of a technocratic civilization were well placed. The ambiguity and the difficulties resided in how one might embed what was valuable in a scientific world view in a social and cultural matrix that was just and nourishing. The issues involved are complex, and at the same time all-important for the future of human civilization, and Ananthamurthy, characteristically and rightly, was vocal in drawing attention to them, albeit as a dissenter.

As a writer, and storyteller, it was perhaps natural that Ananthamurthy had reservations about scientific inquiry and conclusions serving as an oracle for all matters that pertain to human experience, and few would disagree. But on the other hand, his views that advocated a place for traditional knowledge, grown organically, based on accumulated experience, apparently to the exclusion of scientific investigation, did not seem consistent with a commonly held view of science as organized common sense. These views also seemed to assume a certain completeness and adequacy to such traditional knowledge and traditional ways of life, which are questionable.

More problematic for me were his sentiments against the use of scientific knowledge and technology for the betterment of human welfare. I recall asking him what choice he would have made, in the face of widespread starvation, regarding the improvisations of the green revolution. He did not respond, perhaps because he saw the point of it, but this was not a satisfactory choice. He spoke approvingly about F.R. Leavis’s position against the well known Two Cultures thesis of C.P. Snow (who placed his hopes for meeting mankind’s needs on scientists who had ‘the future in their bones’, and who pleaded for better communication between the two cultures of natural sciences and the humanities), and I suspect, would have taken issue with Nehru’s assertion that ‘the future belongs to science and those who make friends with science.’

 

But the public positions may have concealed what was privately an enthusiastic appreciation of the ideas of science and even the potential of technology as a liberating force. Ananthamurthy was fascinated by scientific ideas as he was by much else, and was equally interested in technology. One of his many nicknames from his children was in jest of his fascination of gadgetry, and he had a detailed appreciation of medical facts that concerned him. One of the stories he was fond of narrating was about Gandhi’s fascination for the Singer sewing machine, which he saw as a liberating device, freeing women of the tedium of sewing by hand. But it was technology a la mesure de l’homme, technology that was tailored to fit and satisfy human needs that was interesting, and not the monstrosities of industrial society run amuck. With the emergence of concerns about global climate, the environment and sustainable technology as overarching existential preoccupations today, even as many societies, including Indian society, rush headlong towards the dream of a consumerist paradise, such a vision of a humanized technological future is no longer esoteric and utopian, although it is as yet dim and at a distance.

 

The last conversation I had with Ananthamurthy was a few days before he passed away. On that day, in spite of the serious ups and downs in his condition in the days before, he was quite alert and lucid. Earlier that day, I had been reading news of a mathematician of Indian descent working in Princeton, Manjul Bhargava, receiving the Fields Medal in mathematics. Apparently, Ananthamurhty had also heard about it. At the mention of Manjul Bhargava in our conversation, he asked, with an eagerness in his voice so characteristic of him, ‘Can you tell me what he has done?’ I had to confess that I did not know enough to explain, but said I would learn about it well enough to explain it to him and promised do so soon. Sadly, that occasion was never to be.

So much has been written and said about Ananthamurthy’s outstanding qualities, especially since his passing away, that it is hard to say anything that has not already been said elsewhere. Nevertheless, I must record my own list of qualities that I found to be deeply appealing, in addition to what I have already described above, and aspects in which he was a role model par excellence.

He loved life. In addition to delighting in his intellectual pursuits, he enjoyed the sundry pleasures of life. And he loved being with people, and connected with those around him with a warmth that went beyond mere affability. One of my fond memories is seeing him join a crowd of youngsters dancing at a social gathering, with an exuberant smile on his face that proclaimed he wasn’t going to let the fun pass him by. He was generous with people to a fault, particularly those younger than him, and engaged with them as equals, without condescension. I can think of many occasions when he spoke warmly and enthusiastically about younger writers, and such encouragement no doubt meant a lot to them.

 

Ananthamurthy’s engagement with emerging writers in Kannada was perhaps part of a broader, and passionate, concern he had for the fate of Kannada as a living language, and that of other Indian languages. He had a strong and defiant sense of the autonomy and the intrinsic vitality of these languages, and wished to see their traditions live and flourish, resisting the homogenizing tendencies of dominant linguistic cultures. My own sentiments in this regard had drawn me to my first encounter with him. His attempts to see universal themes find a place in Kannada discourse, and to find a place for Kannada in the larger world were valuable guidance.

There is a curious symmetry to the two occasions that book-end my interactions with Ananthamurthy, which I treasure. On the first I, a student of science and a hobbyist in literature, went to listen to him as an iconic literary figure. On the last occasion, he had wanted me, as a scientist, to explain to him the work of a mathematician. As usual patterns of the division of the two cultures go, his is the more remarkable curiosity. But in spirit, he transcended such imaginary divisions.

That I did not have an occasion to explain that work will remain an emblem of many unfinished conversations with him, which I will one-sidedly try to get through in the years to come.