About the book
INDIRABAI (1889) is the first Kannada novel written by Mr.Gulvadi Venkata Rao. Like most of the first novels written in Indian Languages this novel also has a woman as the protagonist of the story to explore the effects of social changes that were taking place during the last decades of the nineteenth century.
Introduction
It was during my search for the English-translated Kannada novels for my Doctoral Thesis during the 90s' which later I abandoned due to my engrossing involvement in the Dalit RightsMovement, that I discovered indirabai as the first novel to be translated into fngti'h' tt would be unfair I thought to evaluate the novel tradition in rannada and present it especially to the.outside readers without the available works in tanslation. The exit-translation,' of Kannada novels begin s wrth Indirabai the first socialnovel,a neophyte inKannada literature with its translation into English. I had read tlre novel in Kannada and information about its translation into English was available but the book in fact was not. Though I was after it for a considerable time'of course in vain' I could obtain it only with the help of a senior scholar who located the decrepitude text at the Universrty ofBombay and procured a photocopy of it for me. '
Preface
Indira Bai is a description of life at the present day among the Saraswat Brahmans of Mangalore. The author, by whose kind permission this translation is published, himself is a Saraswat Brahman, although, belonging to the progressive school, he ridicules the caste prejudice of the rigidly orthodox among his caste-men. Apart from the considerable merits of the story itself, the book has a special interest as an authentic account of life in good Hindu society of the time, written by a Saraswat for his own caste-people. Moreover many of the incidents and personages of the story are taken from iife, and the trial of the poisoning case took place in the South Canara Sessions Court, very much as described in the book, some thirty or forty years ago. The police scenes, the rnost amusing parts of the book, derive interest and actuality from the fact that Mr. Gulvadi Venkata Rao served for thirty years in the Madras Police, and was for many years an Inspector in this district. Skillfully drawn, therefore, as is the picture of social life in Mangalore, which 'Indira Bai' presents, it is almost more interesting from its unconscious revelations of modern Hindu manners and ways of thought.
**Contents and Sample Pages**
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