The recent runaway success of Kantara truly swelled most hearts of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi with pride. It felt nice to see the languages and cultures which surround us to be propelled to both national and international fame. Good art often does that. With regard to Tulu and the coastal part of Karnataka, this was particularly significant given that certain prior depictions of the region were at times done in jest, if not altogether improperly.

As such, this book too gave me a similarly delightful taste of Tulunadu and it felt refreshing to see the names of the towns around me given a strong historical perspective. As a novel, the tale was certainly of epic proportions, spanning the rise and fall and rise again of a guttu or a landlord’s domain. But in its scope, it resembled Kantara in another way which was perhaps a bit unsettling.