Story of Mouni by Padmabhushana
Dr. U.R.Anantha Murthy

One of the most significant stories of Dr. U.R. Ananthamurthy, arguably the most important writer in post-independence India, “Mouni” juxtaposes through two protagonists the irreconcilable conflict between the historical – pragmatic and the intransigent – elemental dimensions of human nature.  While the former upholds the capacity of human   beings to adapt hemselves to changing socio - historical conditions to ensure their survival, the latter reveals the obstinate refusal on the part of some individuals to surrender their intrinsic being even in the face of several crises shaped by historical forces, whatever the consequence.  More crucially, the story also projects how when such intransigent individuals attempt to modify their essential nature at a critical point of a particular crisis, the consequences become terribly tragic.  In this sense the profound vision of human experience of the story is at the same time both historical and ontological.  The historical perspective worked out in this story is so deep that it accommodates within its framework diverse aspects such as the instinct of survival that is common to humankind and the indomitable spirit  that one comes across in some exceptional individuals.

Appanna Bhatta and Kuppanna Bhatta personify the two opposing dimensions of human nature.  Appanna Bhatta exemplifies the spirit of resilience that enables human beings to come to terms with changing circumstances whereas Kuppanna Bhatta symbolizes the utterly uncompromising spirit that transcends the pulls and pressures of historical forces, especially of the manipulative kind.  The extraordinary dimension of this story lies in the image that it throws up of the human spirit that obdurately refuses to bend low before the manipulations of socio-economic forces that foster cheap self-interest.  In a particular sense U.R. Ananthamurthy’s  story could also be read as a dramatization of the Nietzschean kind of individual who transcends the crudities of an acquisitive society.  At a particular level.  “Mouni” is the   metaphysical strength of those individuals who would much rather be destroyed than be defeated by the crude and vulgar economism of a capitalist society. “Mouni”, the silent one, is that individual who goes beyond the worthless transactions and negotiations of a consumerist society.  The crucial significance of this  story cannot be overlooked in these times of globalization and consumerism when economism has acquired the power to destroy the human spirit by reducing human beings to the status of dehumanized consumers ever ready to annihilate their spirit by their greed to posses whatever the markets offer.