In the mid-20th century, a young man was deeply upset at himself after reading a particular book. Born in a very poor family, he had lost all his family members due to a deadly plague at the age of 10, and as a lone survivor, was taken away by his uncle to his village. His new life with his uncle was no less than hell, as he was tortured all the time, and was severely exploited into doing menial jobs while being fed only once a day.
Unable to bear such torture anymore, he escaped from his uncle’s village and went to a nearby city where he started working as a cleaner at a small hotel, which fed him twice a day but without any pay. Within a few days, he started working as a railway coolie and hawker to earn his livelihood. At the age of 14, he enrolled himself in a school, where he studied throughout the day to catch up with the education that he had missed all those years, and during the night, he worked as a watchman to earn his livelihood.
Despite all such adversities, he managed to pursue higher education, topped the MA degree course with a Gold Medal, and went on to obtain a Doctorate in Philosophy! However, due to his past experiences, he didn’t think highly of Indian culture and was gradually attracted to western values & lifestyle. But one day, when he came across books by Ananda Coomaraswamy on Indian culture, he was completely blown away. Those books had such a profound effect on his mind that he didn’t sleep for the next few days, and became deeply upset with himself for having underestimated Indian culture all those years.
That’s when he started traveling extensively to understand India better, and began writing down his observations & thoughts in the form of novels, which were hailed for their precise depiction of Indian values. Over the next 5 decades, he went on to write 25+ brilliant books (still counting) and became one of the few Indian authors with cult status, whose books always “sold out” within a day of launch, and his works (Kannada) translated into several Indian languages due to popular demand. That’s how a deeply upset young man who had overcome various obstacles, was finally inspired by Indian culture which opened up his mind to explore his full potential, which catapulted him to become one of the most popular Indian writers, with a huge fan-following.
That young man’s name was SL Bhyrappa.