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Internationally acclaimed playwright Girish Karnad's autobiography Adaadata Ayushya stands tall in the Kannada literary world. The writer tells Deepa Ganesh that autobiographies are of little worth if they do not seek to speak the truth

“Nenapugalannu nevarisuvudu” is a beautiful, lyrical phrase meaning “caressing memories”; the dreaminess of this utterance can douse the past in a romantic haze. But for Girish Karnad this poetic phrase is used as a disclaimer in his recently-released autobiography “Adaadata Ayushya.” One of the most definitive works of Kannada literature, “Adaadata Ayushya” is not merely a chronicle of events; rather it is a facing up to one's self. This unusual piece of literature sparkles with the bluntness of truth.

“If Dr. Madhumalathi Gune had turned up at the hospital the day when my mother went for an abortion, I wouldn't have existed” Karnad writes in the very first pages, offering the book to the memory of the doctor. The moment of shock and how it quietly altered one's notion of life, in a way, sets the tone for how the “self” is unravelled in the rest of the narrative.

Full report here Hindu