Karya

• At the heart of Karya is the death of Bangaravva and the funeral rites performed by her community. When the ritual fire touches the ground—something forbidden by custom—the ceremony is disrupted. The seemingly simple accident sets off a chain of events that reveals conflicts between caste, community, religious tradition and individual interests.

  Rich in symbolism drawn from nature and mythology, the novel presents multiple perspectives while questioning rigid customs and the structures of power within a marginalized community. It is both a literary narrative and a critique of caste-based social practices.

• Aravind Mallagatti is an eminent Kannada poet, writer and literary scholar. He has published more than fifty books spanning poetry, fiction and literary criticism. He received the Ambedkar Fellowship Award from the Government of Karnataka. His autobiography, Government Brahmana, is regarded as the first Dalit autobiography in Kannada and received the Karnataka Sahitya Akademi Award.

  Susheela Punitha, the translator, has translated important works from Kannada into English, including Samboli!, Vasudeva's Family and Bharathipura. She received the Sahitya Akademi Translation Award in 2015 for her translation of Bharathipura.

The novel opens after the death of Bangaravva, when members of her community begin the traditional funeral procession. During the ceremony, a sudden gust of wind causes the embers of the ritual fire to flare up and the fire falls to the ground. Since tradition requires the sacred fire to be carried by hand and never placed on the ground, the funeral rites are thrown into confusion.

As the community tries to determine who is responsible and how the ritual can be corrected, the local panchayat becomes the centre of a larger struggle. Questions of caste, religious custom, social authority and justice emerge, revealing the complex relationships and power structures within the community.

Through its symbolic narrative and multiple viewpoints, Karya challenges casteist customs and examines the pain, dignity and struggles associated with belonging to a Dalit community.