I and S Usha, Shashikala Vastrada (later Veerayyaswamy), Hema Pattanashetty and others led the modern women’s poetry. I remember a conversation with a popular woman novelist when she declared she only had 88 novels to her credit whereas a rival novelist had already published 123.īut when it comes to poetry, we were a little delayed. In later days, Usha Navaratna Ram, Saisuthe, K Saroja Rao, Ashvini and others churned out a huge number of books. Triveni, MK Indira had their books going into 20-30 reprints.

Novels and short stories were strong forms for them to explore. With prose, women did move with the times. As the Kannada literary movements like the Romantic ( Ramya), modern (Navya), progressive (Pragathisheela), rebel (Bandaya) and then the post-modernist writing emerged, women’s writing saw a different kind of transformation. Very soon, there were revolutionary changes with poets abandoning the rhyming restrictions - Aadi Praasa, Anthya Praasa, second letter rhyming-the traditional metres were given up and free verse style was adopted. Modern Kannada literature evolved during the 1920s with BM Srikanthaiah publishing “English Geethegalu”. For the past 60 years, we have had critics running women’s writings through the “male gaze” and judging. However, in Kannada, we hardly have criticism that takes a fresh look at women’s writing. We always argued that literature has no gender. The time has come to identify gender differences in literature.

It is 50 years since they criticised women’s writing as kitchen writing-Adigemane Sahitya-and Bharathi’s book of kitchen poems is a fitting documentation of the different ways in which women write. With BV Bharathi’s Kitchen Poems, Kannada women’s writing has come full circle.

Kannada novels of saisuthe