Giridhar Khasnis.
Credit: Special Arrangement
Bengaluru: Renowned artist and columnist Giridhar Khasnis has published his first short and flash fiction book in Kannada 'Ellindalo Hari Bandu' — a collection of 85 short stories, short-short stories, and prose poems.
The book contains several micro stories told in a few lines, while the longest stretches up to two pages.
A banker turned professional artist, Khasnis is making his foray into Kannada literature after four-and-a-half decades. Mostly known for his English columns and articles, he started to work on the current project during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Having lost touch with Kannada, Khasnis said the first challenge was to write a page. "Though experimenting unwittingly, I consciously stuck to minimalism and brevity," he said.
All the stories in the book are inspired by real-life events, though a few are purely imaginative.
One prose poem portrays the death of a girl next door from the houseowners' and servant maid’s perspective, revealing the futility of most middle-class people’s mundane lives.
"I am not well-acquainted with recent trends in Kannada literature. My reading is restricted to the classics of Kuvempu, Da Ra Bendre, Shivarama Karanth, Poorna Chandra Tejaswi and others. This could be helpful since I have escaped from categorisation," Khasnis said.
Published by Navakarnataka Prakashana, Giridhar Khasnis' book 'Ellindalo Hari Bandu' (160 pages/ Rs. 195) is available online@ https://navakarnataka.com/ellindalo-haari-bandu