There is a sad lull in the air since the 11th of June, the Friday that Dr. Siddalingaiah, a renowned Kannada poet, Dalit activist, professor, and writer, breathed his last. I just re-read Ooru Keri and was still basking in the beauty of his stories when the news of his passing reached me. I wonder what words I must use to describe a man like Dr. Siddalingaiah, a man who made time for people. I had met him on many occasions as my father was his friend. But life got in the way, and they lost touch. Now, I pick up the pen to pay him a tribute as one must, especially if he lit up their world with his stories.
More than 10 years ago, my father and sister visited Dr. Siddalingaiah at his house. Before ringing the doorbell, my father reminded my sister to greet him when she saw him. My sister was excited to meet him, and she reminded herself repeatedly, to not forget to greet him in her enthusiasm. Almost immediately after the doorbell rang, a short man opened the door. He was dressed in plain shorts and a white banian. With a towel on his shoulder, he greeted them warmly. He asked them to sit as he made place on the table to bring them some refreshments. My sister waited quietly. The man brought in tea and snacks, sat down comfortably, and started speaking to my father. He enquired of my mother’s PhD with him. My sister was waiting patiently for the great Dr. Siddalingaiah to make a grand entrance. She kept glancing at the doorway, but nobody turned up. Irritated, she interrupted my father mid-sentence- “Where is he? How long do we have to wait for him?” My father took a few seconds longer than sir to understand my sister’s frustration. Humbly, he smiled at her and said, “Namaskara ma. Naane Siddalingaiah.” (Hello. I am Siddalingaiah)
In my eighth standard, we had a poem by him in our Kannada textbook. It was titled ‘Agnishamakaru’ (Firefighters) and Mr. Bhatt, our Kannada teacher, who could go on and on about the beauty of classical literature, was challenged by a simple poem that appreciated the firefighters. For every writer in the textbook, he would give us interesting stories about their childhood, their inspirations, things that could interest us. For Dr. Siddalingaiah, he told us nothing. He knew nothing of him. So, as part of the compulsory trivia he had to bring to class, he declared that Dr. Siddalingaiah had passed away recently. It shocked me as my parents had only met him a week before, so I forced Mr. Bhatt to go back and check again. It amuses me to this day that a man who could rattle off the most difficult verses in Sanskrit and Kannada could not understand the simple hard work of a firefighter. Not even enough to teach students the same text, year after year. How embarrassing to know so much about everything but not understand a word of the everyday language of a poet like Dr. Siddalingaiah? I learnt another important lesson that day. When you are Dalit and vocal, they’ll try to kill you before they even get to know you.
My parents met Dr. Siddalingaiah the first time because my mother wanted to pursue her PhD. He was known for helping Dalit people study at the university level. Nobody in my parents’ friends or family knew how to go about it. A friend of my father suggested that he meet Dr. Siddalingaiah, and my father did so. From that first meet, till the day he published my mother’s book with an afterword in his own words, Dr. Siddalingaiah was there for her, every step of the way. My father remembers him for his small gestures of love that always warmed our hearts. While my mother was in her PhD viva, Dr. Siddalingaiah was prancing up and down the corridors of the building. He couldn’t wait to hear how it went. He couldn’t eat or drink anything till he had heard she did well. For him, love came easy. He always had enough of it to give to everyone he met.
For many years, we met Dr. Siddalingaiah at his house, at the halls where he delivered his speeches, his workplace and book fairs. At a book fair we went to, he introduced us to his friend TN Seetharam, a Kannada filmmaker. During lunch, they shared stories of how Dr. Siddalingaiah had fallen in love, eloped, and married his lovely wife from another caste. TN Seetharam even hosted the newly married couple for a few days to shelter the activist from the police. After lunch, I asked my parents to buy me a book. Dr. Siddalingaiah was with us. He picked up his book Ooru Keri translated into English and gave it to me, when I said I couldn’t read Kannada as quickly as I could English. That was him, always unassuming. It occurred to me only much later that this is the kindest gesture anyone from the community can do for a young Dalit person. To root them in our history without allowing for their language to be a barrier.
Reading his words as a child rebuilt my history for me. They helped me recreate the stories my mother and grandmother told me, of their villages. When I read about his stories from the graveyard, I found peace in my father’s visits to the graveyard as a child too. In ways I couldn’t fully understand then, Ooru Keri gave me a ground to stand on. It showed me that there is another world where my Aayi’s jokes are not vulgar and my father’s village life is not shameful. To know that a man shared such stories with us and made it to the list of great writers, reassured me that while I was pushed into a world very different from mine, our world was still securely mine. With Ooru Keri, Dr. Siddalingaiah provides a world for us. A world that drinks a lot and makes merry. A world where happiness exists, and the worries and sorrows are always secondary. In this world, one never forgets that laughter is a riot.
He always made people laugh when he delivered speeches. If one were to have even a minute-long conversation with him, he was sure to ease them with a joke or two. I have securely saved two jokes from his speeches to remind me to laugh at myself. In one, he said he never understood why people complained about the crowds in trains. He loved trains because he never had to experience the hustle and bustle of the crowds like everyone else. “You see, I was so short and light that I never really had to climb the train at the station. If I simply jumped up, people would push each other and carry me forward without me even trying,” he would say. In another, he proudly boasted of fooling the police that came looking for him when he was a student activist. When they demanded to see Siddalingaiah, the police was escorted to different classrooms by the man himself. The police never suspected that the thin, short boy running around taking them to different classes was Dr. Siddalingaiah himself. That this thin, short boy could deliver groundbreaking speeches and mobilise hundreds to protest social injustices was beyond them. For every joke he made of himself, the crowd laughed with him. The power of revolutionary laughter reverberated in every room that witnessed his speeches. He loved joking about how short and thin he was. It was almost as if nobody had any room left, to make fun of him because he had exhausted it all. His jokes were a big “What now?” to anyone who tried to get him. In Dr. Siddalingaiah, one could always see the full power of a man who knew the impact of his every word and breath. A man who, ultimately, learned to love himself to fight and thrive.
I have always wondered how the busy writer and activist found time to fall in love with his wife. Nobody that met them, could forget how he was always so smitten by her. He loved his daughter dearly and often joked about how he would never really be able to have her move away from him. His love was as much a part of his protest as was his laughter. He never let those he cared for, forget that he cared for them dearly. My father once hosted a party to celebrate the completion of my mother’s PhD. As the party neared an end, my father asked for the final bill and it amounted to twenty-five thousand rupees. Everyone continued making merry and my father opened his wallet to pay when Dr. Siddalingaiah, who had quietly noted that the party was too expensive, leaned forward to tell him, “It is a little too much, Ashok. Shall I pay too?” Even in his merriest and most intoxicated state, he noticed the smallest of things to show his kindest gestures. This is how he brought people from all walks of life together, for a cause.
It also amazes me to remember that the man who rocked scores of people with his jokes and witty statements, hardly ever laughed uncontrollably. His laughter was always a contented smile. I think his happiness didn’t so much come from his laughter as much as it did from the laughter of his people. His love fueled their laughter, and their laughter fueled his protest. One story, one laugh, one loving gesture at a time, Dr. Siddalingaiah has forever changed our worlds of literature and protest.
Divya Malhari is a writer who documents her experiences here.