#memory
Girish Karnad.
19 May is the birth anniversary of Karnad.
Girish Karnad ( 1938- 2019) was an actor, film director, writer, and playwright.
Karnad wrote his first play at an early age when he was studying abroad as a Rhodes scholar.
His rise as a playwright in the 1960s marked the coming of age of modern Indian playwriting in Kannada, just as Badal Sarkar did in Bengali, Vijay Tendulkar in Marathi, and Mohan Rakesh in Hindi.
He was a recipient of the 1998 Jnanpith Award.
Girish Karnad made his debut as an actor and writer in the Kannada movie, Samskara (1970), based on the novel by U.R. Ananthamurthy. The film, directed by Pattabhirama Reddy,
won the first President’s Golden Lotus Award for Kannada cinema.
He enacted the role of the father of the young hero Swami, in the TV series Malgudi Days (1986–1987), based on the novels of R. K. Narayan.
Karnad also hosted the science magazine Turning Point on Doordarshan, in the early 1990s.
He made his directorial debut with Vamsha Vriksha (1971), based on a Kannada novel by S. L. Bhyrappa. It won him the National Film Award for Best Direction along with B. V. Karanth, who co-directed the film. Karnad directed several movies in Kannada and Hindi, including Godhuli (1977) and Utsav (1984). Karnad has also made a number of documentaries, on the Kannada poet D. R. Bendre (1972), Kanaka-Purandara (English, 1988) on two medieval Bhakti poets of Karnataka, Kanaka Dasa and Purandara Dasa, and The Lamp in the Niche (English, 1989) on Sufism and the Bhakti movement.
Some of his famous Kannada movies include Tabbaliyu Neenade Magane, Ondanondu Kaladalli, Cheluvi, Kaadu, and Kanooru Heggaditi (1999), based on the novel by Kuvempu.
His Hindi movies include Nishaant (1975), Manthan (1976), Swami (1977) and Pukar (2000). He has acted in a number of Nagesh Kukunoor films, starting with Iqbal (2005).
Girish Karnad will be remembered as the pioneering great among the playwrights in Kannada.
– Joy Kallivayalil.
