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The facts of fiction
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What could have been preserved as fascinating stories from childhood, took Vikram Sampath on a historical quest. His book on the Mysore royalty is a non-historian’s objective telling, writes DEEPA GANESH
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Photo: Bhagya prakash k.
Tell tale Vikram Sampath: ‘History is a tussle between science and art, and it would have been unfair to gloss over it’
For those who have grown up in Mysore, the grand old city forms a significant component of the unconscious. The kings, queens, the palace, the grandeur, the festivity… the ever-so-many stories that we listened to in our growing up years, left u
s in awe as well as a sense of intrigue for the royalty of Mysore: the Wadiyars. It was not only a political capital (remember Gandhiji’s remarks about the Mysore State being so prosperous that it doesn’t need to worry about Independence), but also a cultural capital. Art and literature had never seen more patronage.
It takes perseverance of another kind to chase these fascinating stories and turn it into a well-researched document of the times. Vikram Sampath, a graduate from BITS Pilani, has realised this daunting task. “I must have been a boy of 12 when the ‘Mysore bug’ bit me for the first time. The provocation was the tele serial, ‘The Sword of Tipu Sultan’, aired on national television those days.” The protests that followed over the way the royalty was portrayed was something that led Vikram – already tanked up on many, many stories that his grandma had told him – to read up on Mysore history.
For Vikram, it did start of as “child-like” curiosity, but eventually developed into a serious pursuit. However, in this journey from curiosity to quest, the book was never on his mind. It came much later. But all along, what disturbed him immensely was the manner in which “the veil of time and the kind of historical documents that existed had slowly blurred the facts.” It’s a matter of great coincidence that history of Mysore has been at the centre of controversy even in the recent times. One can recall the extended, virulent debates in newspapers over Hyder and Tipu, with rightwing writers maligning them. Books with various ideological hues followed, but what came in the guise of a novel spewing hate for Islam, saw unprecedented sales in the Kannada publishing industry. “My task became even more daunting after this,” says Vikram.
He found that the historical records of the times were invariably biased towards the ruling party and berated the House of Haidar as a barbaric and dogmatic clan. The contemporary Muslim records, however, heaped encomiums on the father and son. And then there were historians who, seized with rabid hatred particularly for Tipu, portrayed him as the worst villain of mankind. “Where does a modern, unbiased commentator on history, such as me, go?,” asks the young author. With much deliberation, he did find his way out. “I have stated stories with the responsibility of a modern-day story teller. I have tried to rationalise my view point which I think is very important in story telling.”
The driving motive of the 700-odd-pages tome was a “non-historian perspective”. Vikram had no Left bias, nor was he fuelled by a Hindu nationalist slant. He feels it is unfair to judge people by the yardsticks of today. Vikram felt a pressing urgency to share with youngsters of his generation that the State was not the result of a magic wand wave of IT czars; it is the grand vision of Mysore royalty, and that it always was a knowledge and cultural centre. To recall C. Rajagopalachari’s words, the book is also one step in the direction of “who we are and what we are”.
Collective consciousness
For a rational mind, the many stories that are accepted as part of history go down with a big helping of scepticism. Vikram was not different. But during his many travels, he realised that these fables had become part of the collective consciousness, part of everyday life.
When he went to Talakkad for the panchalinga darshana, he heard wails of a woman emanating in his vicinity. Was he hallucinating? Was it the cries of Rani Alamellamma? He soon discovered a hawker selling CDs with the cries of the queen, even as historians debate the very existence of the queen and the episode. “I, with my radical questioning was willing to dismiss the story as hogwash. But what I realised was that popular belief was entrenched in story. History is a tussle between science and art, and it would have been unfair to gloss over it,” explains Vikram.
Taking it further, as Vikram puts is quite beautifully in his Preface: “If nothing else, it gives the historian a chance to turn novelist – a temptation that I have succumbed to as well!”
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