Pot of Butter and Other Short Stories

Pot of Butter and other Short Stories is a collection of nine short stories, originally composed by Sunanda Belgaumkar in Kannada, hand-picked and translated from her collections - Kallaya and Koduvudenu Kombudenu. The bulk of her literary work including the stories in this book are inspired by the experiences in her early life, in the rustic and robust atmosphere of Dharwad. Her stories are predominantly semi-autobiographical, laced with a liberal dose of artistic freedom.

This collection weaves together her writings on the underprivileged and marginalized as seen from the comfort of her palatial home, but rendered with compassion and empathy. Often, we find her narrative infused with self-directed questions such as, 'What if I was in her shoes?" or 'Could that have been me?" These stories are reflections on human nature, suffering, and destiny. There. is hope, there is despair. There is love, there is longing. There is defeat, and there is triumph. In her stories, an oft-recurring metaphor for picking up one's life after loss is a scorching summer followed by a torrential downpour and subsequently a plant springing to life.

As a translation, this book attempts to introduce Sunanda Belgaumkar's literary and artistic creations to the non-Kannada reader, retaining as much of the indigenous elements of the original writings as possible. In doing so, it seeks .to preserve the cultural climate of North Karnataka as it was around fifty years ago.

Born in Dharwad, Karnataka, Sunanda Belgaumkar's tryst with writing began when she shifted to Zambia with her husband. As an enthusiastic member of Kannada Sangha, Zambia, her stories were published in the Kannada monthly magazine, Sudha and were later compiled into her most renowned work titled Kajga. Once her family shifted to Sudan, she used the solitude to compose poems and novels. In the unknown wilderness of Africa, her mind recreated the Dharwad of her childhood and youth. The place, the sounds, the tastes, the people, and their myriad experiences of life came alive. In her novel, Jhavadi, she deftly weaves the story of a married, but separated man from Dharwad, comparing his life with the life of a pride of lions. It was born out of Sunanda's safari trips in Zambia and East Africa. At this time, one of her short stories, Halina Runa, was televised in a Doordarshan series called Kashmakash. She passed away in 2017, but lives on in the affectionate memories of her children - Harish and Vaijayanti.

Sunanda Belgaumkar's writings are essentially a reconstruction of memories of her childhood and youth, taking us back in time to Dharwad, which another writer, hailing from the same place has described as a "small city or a big village". The Kannada-speaking group is made up of a number of regional and cultural eco-systems, each with a unique dialect, way of life and history. Despite the unification of Karnataka and its establishment as a modern linguistic state of the Indian nationhood, these ecosystems have survived and flourished making Karnataka a loose federation of distinctive local cultures. Among them, Dharwad, shaped by history as a multi-lingual, multi-cultural space, has a unique identity. Sunanda Belgaumkar's writings are charming, authentic chronicles of Dharwad as it was about six decades ago.

Interestingly, it was in Lusaka, Zambia where she lived with her husband that she took to writing. Not surprisingly, the writings are imbued with nostalgia, sometimes self-consciously so. There is also a sub-structure of sentimentality which at times obtrudes on the narratives. Though she called them Prabhanda' or essays, in Kannada those writings are categorized as Lalita Prabhandha (personal essay). The world she reconstructs from memory is 'innocent' and uncomplicated. I use the word 'innocent' because the writer as a child does not 'see' the hierarchies of the feudal world. It is a world where everyone in her family is portrayed as compassionate, humane and loving towards those who live on the margins of an unequal society. The writer as a child is unselfconscious about the possibility of her people being patronizing, while also being very humane.