The Homecoming
Kondanda Shivanna Thimappa was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. A coffee-gilded silver spoon would be
a better way to put it. He was the only child of Kondanda Raghunatha Thimappa and Kaveri who owned 800 acres of
coffee and pepper plantations in Somwarpet, in the Coorg district of Karnataka. A little before the Land Ceiling Act was promulgated by the government, he had turned his holdings into a family-held private limited company and
named his estate Kaveri Estates after his wife.
The richer and more influential families of Coorg were proud of their martial origins and being tough warriors suited to the hill terrain of Coorg, they had helped the British soldiers fight the Muslim ruler of Mysore, Tipu Sultan.
From those days, the British categorized them as a ‘martial race’ and sent many of the young men to Sandhurst Military School to be trained as officers. One of Shivanna’s paternal uncles was a Sandhurst-trained officer who later on rose to be a general and commander-in-chief of the Indian Army.
The English also loved the Kodavas for their love of pork and whisky. The upper class among the Kodavas were completely anglicized except for their religion. They were staunch Hindus.
Shivanna, therefore, lived in a large English bungalow with an old Andaman teakwood ceiling and marble floors, in
the centre of a sprawling lush green coffee estate waited on by maids, cooks, butlers, drivers and other paraphernalia that belonged typically to old English country houses.
Shivanna, from his childhood, was a quiet, meditative boy and loved sitting under the big banyan tree, doing nothing in particular and spending time with the cows in the cowshed. He also loved to sit by the stream that flowed through their estate.
As he grew up into a young man, it was noticed that when he came home for vacations from Madras where he
studied in the Madras Christian College—a prestigious hundred-year-old college—he was reading the works of
Swami Vivekananda and other books on Yoga and Hindu philosophy. He became a vegetarian and unlike most young
men his age, didn’t frequent the bars that abound in Coorg. Some of his friends considered him a misfit, for the heart and soul of Coorg was pork and the endless flow of beer and whisky. Shivanna would sit in a corner sipping grape juice. Nevertheless, they appreciated the fact that he was very knowledgeable when it came to Hindu philosophy and ancient Indian culture and above all that he was a real friend in- need and would go out of his way if they needed help. They had playfully nicknamed him Saami, a term used for holy men.
His parents were a little worried that he wasn’t fitting into the stereotyped image of a young Coorgi boy butthen, they were happy that he was very good at academics, extremely respectful towards elders and was always pleasantly
mannered.
Then one day, just as he turned twenty, their happiness was suddenly shattered by a rude shock. Shivanna suddenly
disappeared. He had gone for a walk and didn’t return.
The security guard at the main gate said that he had gone out of the estate at around 6 p.m. He said he was going for a walk.
At 10 p.m., he hadn’t returned. His parents telephoned his friends. No one knew his whereabouts. Raghunath
Thimappa stayed awake till midnight. ‘Perhaps he is with your sister in Napoklu, who he is very fond of. She doesn’t have a telephone. He’ll come in the morning,’ he tried to reassure himself and went to sleep.
His mother Kaveri couldn’t sleep till four in the morning. When they woke up at dawn, he still hadn’t come back.
There were no cell phones those days. Raghunath took out his car and drove to Madikeri, where he lodged a complaint with the superintendent of police, who was his good friend. Then he met all the people who he thought might have some information. Sadly, no one knew. He returned to the estate disheartened.
Kaveri was weeping uncontrollably. Her sister was with her, consoling her. Unable to bear the situation, Raghunath
made himself a planter’s punch, a strong rum-based cocktail, sat in an easy chair on the porch and sipped his drink, lost in thought.
The large estate and the bungalow looked kind of blank to him. His mind wandered in all sorts of directions, questions running through his mind. Who would inherit all this? His only hope had just disappeared. Was he alive? Did he die of a snakebite? Or some fatal accident? As he downed the second glass, a thought occurred to him that perhaps he had gone to some ashram and might eventually come back. Raghunath had lost his apetite and fell asleep in the easy chair without eating a meal.
Kaveri woke him up. ‘Shall I give you some food?’ ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not hungry. Did you eat?
No, I am not hungry either. Let’s go and sleep. I’m very tired. Have vowed to offer 1 lakh rupees and 100 coconuts to Igguthappa. Shiva will surely come back,’ she said hopefully and they went to sleep.
Two days passed and they continued to wait for Shivanna. On the morning of the third day, the postman
delivered a letter addressed to Kaveri and Raghunath. It was in Shivanna’s handwriting.
‘Dear Mummy and Dad, I’m leaving to be on my own in search of the spiritual Truth which our ancient scriptures
describe. You have been wonderful parents to me and I am grateful to you. Please forgive me for this. No need to search for me. God will protect me.’
It was indeed a terrible shock to his parents. Kaveri couldn’t stop crying for many days and needed medication
to sleep. Raghunath, shocked but not surprised, for the first time in his life wept loudly as he was going through the family album. The only thought that helped to restore them to near normalcy in about a year was that Shiva was alive. Perhaps he would come back.
(‘Excerpted’ with permission from Penguin Random House India)
