G. A. Kulkarni

Who was G. A. Kulkarni?

G. A. Kulkarni or simply "GA", was a legendary Marathi writer of short stories.

GA grew up in Belgaum. After earning his masters degree, he taught English at JSS College in Dharwad for about 30 years. He had very strong liking for Dharwad and Belgaum. For medical treatment of his eyes, he reluctantly moved to Pune in 1985. A major road in the Kothrud area of Pune, where GA lived for couple of years before his death, has been named after him.

GA, who bought new strength and vitality to the Marathi short story, is admittedly the most distinguished exponent of that genre. A contemporary of Gangadhar Gadgil, Arvind Gokhale and Vyankatesh Madgulkar, he did not subscribe to the cause of modernism in literature. He charted his own separate course and cultivated new acuity and taste for a class of faithful readers.

GA created a world of his own in his short stories where his characters are in pursuit of the unknowable destiny. A dark mode reflects the inscrutable ways in which destiny shadows his characters. His use of symbolism, allegory and irony provides his stories a unique texture and ethos. His world encompasses a wide diversity of locales, situations, characters and experiences; yet, in his earlier stories, it is demarcated by the region bordering Maharashtra and Karnataka. The mythic, allegorical experiences make it difficult to sort out the realities from the dreams, themes, and meditations. Yet, it is possible for the reader to identify with is characters, places, and experiences because of his keen observation of human, animal, and social worlds in their beauty and deformity.