Book Review #42: Nirakarana By Dr. S.L. Bhyrappa

This is a short book that captures the rollercoaster ride of a man that stuck between family life and renunciation. Dr. S.L. Bhyrappa has marveled once again in this book. He has gone inside a man’s mind and written this novel as if he is narrating the story of that man’s life. “Nirakarana” can be translated to English as “Denial”.

The story seems to be very simple at the beginning. The protagonist of the novel, Narahari a moderately educated man, married twice, but both of his wives are dead long ago. Along with 5 kids from 2 wives, Narahari seems to have lost the capability to lead his life. He was struggling every day to take care of his kids with his low paying and overworking job. He is a stenographer in the leading English daily in the town.

So, he decides to give away his kids for adoption. He publishes an ad in his newspaper with the help of his editor. He decides to give away his kids for adoption for well settled families. He also decides that, he gives each kid to a different family. At times, he felt that he is doing something wrong. But, he gets this strong feel of guilt whenever he looked at his kids. He is not able to provide them the proper childhood that they've rightfully owned. Therefore, he decides not to waste a minute or two. Within 6 months of his publishing ad, he was approached by various families from different cities across the country. Within 1 year, he gave away all his kids for adoption to different families.

What follows later is a true mastery of art work by the author. Having got ridden of his kids, he decides to renounce his working life and decides to become a hermit. He informs his editor about his decision and leaves his city forever. Initially he wanders around many holy places and meets many sages and saints. He somehow started to like his way of learning the life and its oddities. He starts to learn meditation, at the same time he decides to go to the Himalayas. There, he meets a sage who wore nothing, spoke nothing and ate nothing but a potato for a day. He was attracted initially in this way of renouncing the world. He tries to follow in the footsteps of this sage, but he failed miserably to cope up with the hard way. He was no longer able to continue living life that way. He decides to head back to the city and seeks a warden job in a local orphanage. There he befriends the accountant of that orphanage and narrates his whole life with him.

As the story further progresses, this accountant friend of Narahari informs him that he will go and see the conditions of kids that Narahari had gave away. Once this accountant was back, Narahari learnt that, his kids are not leading a happy life after all, except for 2 kids. Surprisingly, this accountant had brought a kid along with himself and informs Narahari that, this kid is his son. He had brought this kid only to save kid’s miserable life in the adopted house. Initially, Narahari was not happy to see his kid coming back to him. Later, he starts to get a liking for this boy.

As the story approached towards the end, a young girl would come to this orphanage and with an instant she identifies Narahari as her father. What follows after their long discussions gives a complete picture of the novel. I stop it at this point; this much would be enough for a review!!

What I liked about the novel is its immense detailed presentation of the renounced life of Narahari. It is just not about Narahari, this story reminds us of the hard times that may come up life and how one should approach it instead of renouncing and get rid of our responsibilities. Difficulties, hardships are all part of life. One should not get dejected by it; rather, one should face it with more energy and try to bring out the solution. There’s always a silver lining in everyone’s life. 

My Rating:
4/5