In the 1970s, while Bangalore’s anglicised elite was still producing Restoration comedies in stilted English accents, creativity in Kannada was becoming stronger, more contemporary and more authentic.

The English Theatre movement sustained by the BADS and the BLT was not without it’s relevance to this ‘movement’.

Many of the emerging Kannada novelists, playwrights and directors were students and lecturers in English literature courses, who learnt their craft from the study of old European and English literary classics and membership of English theatre groups.

As an MA Literature student, I had my chance to mingle on the fringes of this emerging cultural movement. There was a general resurgence of linguistic identity and, in 1972, when the Mysore State was renamed Karnataka, the Director of Information decided to bring out two new books for the occasion.

ASP (Advertising & Sales Promotion Co.) where I was working as a copy writer, was assigned one of them. What I didn’t know about Kannada literature could have filled a volume, but as Copy Chief I was put on the job.

Jayadev, my colleague and collaborator on the book was an encylopaedic resource on the subject, which made the task feasible.

While researching the book, I discovered the  greats who had created the modern classics of Kannada – D V Gundappa, Masti Venkatesha Iyengar, Daa Raa Bendre,  K V Puttappa (Kuvempu). Sriranga and T P Kailasam, the dramatists who made Kannada drama topical and Shivram Karanth, a dedicated activist, who worked on projects as diverse as novels, a children’s encyclopaedia and the revival of the dying folk-ballet  form, ‘yakshagana’.

Jayadev, made me aware of the ‘new constellation of talents and genius’ who were making things happen in the 70s. Gopalkrishna Adiga, U R Anantmurthy, Girish Karnad, S L Byrappa, P Lankesh and Gopalkrishna Adiga, among others.

(Meanwhile, Jayadev and I had moved to the newly created MC&A , an advertising agency subsidiary of the state owned MSIL. This gave us access to much of what was happening in Karnataka.)

While organising a promotional colouring contest for Mysore Sandal Soap, we got to meet the up and coming sculptor S G Vasudev and the well known cartoonist Abu (Abraham) who acted as judges.

Early in the 70s, the Telugu poet Pattabhi Rama Reddy and his wife moved to Bangalore to a picturesque cottage behind India Garage. They created a salon which attracted the usual cross section of artists and artistes.

But more than this Sneha was a friend to “people from all walks of life; socialist leaders and intellectuals, theatre artists from India and abroad, writers, painters, musicians; and above all, many young people still searching for a meaning and a purpose in life. Our paths all crossed her bright and simple drawing room.”

Kannada films were trying new experiments. Now, Pattabhi got together a team to make a Kannada film out of Anantmurthy's novel ‘Samskara’.

It’s cast included Girish Karnad, Lankesh and Snehalatha Reddy herself. With a powerful screenplay, good direction and acting, it caused a sensation, inviting comparison with Satyajit Ray and became the first of a series of alternate Kannada cinema which won awards in India and abroad.

While working on the Karnataka book we had no opportunity, or time, to meet any of the people we were writing about.  Jay had managed to get black & white portraits of the established laureates of Kannada, taken by the photographer, K G Somashekar – who had made this his life's mission.

He had not yet done portraits of all the new generation, including Girish Karnad. So we were happy to get a picture of him from some other source. It showed a passionate, angry young man, with a full beard. Never having seen him face to face I though it was a nice evocative picture of the revolution that was transforming Kannada. We used the `portrait'.

My first face-to-face  encounter with Girish Karnad, shortly after the ‘Karnataka’ book had been released was a trifle embarrassing. A common friend took us to meet him at City Railway Station. The tall man in a kurta who came down the platform to meet us was  (unlike the snarling bearded turbaned character of our book)  suave, smiling and clean shaven.

He had seen the book and spoke quite well about it. “Only I don't think I look anything like the picture you used. It was a still of me playing Oedipus (or Tughlak?) in Lankesh’s play.”  Quite a major gaffe! But fortunately he didn't make an issue of it.

The picture of Girish was sandwiched between a portrait of  the poet-philosopher, Gopalkrishna Adiga  (his quiet, unobtrusively smiling self)  and a photo of a very young P Lankesh with shining eyes and a look of naive, gentle idealism. Both the naivete and the gentleness later gave way to anger, in the face of Lankesh’s experience of the corrupt political world, when he turned to journalism and started the outspoken ‘Lankesh Patrike’.

His stature as a radical Kannada writer was a surprise to me. While studying for an M A in literature at Central College, I had been in his first batch of students. It was a class of 15 students, 12 girls and only three boys.

Predictably, the girls sat in the front row and two boys sat towards the back  (the third was loitering on the lawns!). It was a very diffident and shaky Lankeshappa (as he was then called), who beseeched the two gentlement in the back rows not to abandon him to 12 young women. “We men must stick together,” he joked.

His hands shook and he actually dropped his book before going on with the lesson. By the 70s, of course, he was a well known, dramatist, actor and fiery journalist – a long way from the nervous English teacher of Central College days. 

One of the side shows of the constellation which produced the Kannada Renaissance of the 60s, 70s and 80s was the constellation of efficient (and idealistic) senior officers in the Karnataka Government  of the time and a rare phenomenon of the public sector – MSIL & MC&A. With full encouragement, MC&A took up many new projects to help the Renaissance.

One of them was ‘The MSIL-Lekhak – Student of the Year Contest’, which was an annual event for about a decade. It gave us a chance to get to know many more of these people as panelists on the three-day interview committee, which screened 100 semifinalists and then 20 finalists, to select the winners.

Meeting Dr U R Anantmurthy was always an entertaining exercise. Anantmurthy made the time to be on our interview panel for several years. And his approach revealed the creativity, powers of observation and social analysis which one could have expected from the author of his short stories and novels.

On one occasion the interviews were being held in our 9th floor board room overlooking Cunningham Road and the, then almost vacant, Millers Tank bed. As we made small talk while waiting for the interviews to commence, we stood at the windows and discussed the scene.

Coffee came and as we all sat down I put it out of my head and began to focus on the interviews. When his turn came Anantmurthy asked an unexpectedly brilliant question. “Please go to the window look out for a few minutes and then tell us what you see!”

All the bright kids were instantly suspicious of this trick question. But they couldn’t find the catch. It was one of the most fascinating  days of my life as we watched 20 young minds reveal themselves, their powers of observation and intelligence or lack of it; their fixed ideas and what our schools were doing to them. The children from mofussil towns fared better.

While producing a radio programme called ‘MSIL Geethegallu’ we got  to interview ‘Kuvempu (Dr K V Puttappa ) in his own home at Mysore. Since I could hardly join in the conversation (with my limited Kannada) I used the opportunity to photograph him. I got some good shots. Unfortunately, in those days colour film was a scarce and valuable commodity, so I used to sometimes unload a half exposed film, then later re-load, wind it forward and expose the rest of the film.

I must have miscounted frames, or the camera sprocket may have slipped at the beginning. When the pictures were processed there were about 10 pictures of Kuvempu superimposed on banks of colourful blooms at the flower show in the glass house!

When we went to interview the legendary Da Ra Bendre in Dharwar, for the same radio programme, I made sure that I put a new film in my camera. Bendre was talking with great animation about his composition ‘Naaku Tanti’.

It was a tough job but I weaved as energetically as him. My last close encounter with the Kannada world ended in tragedy, the tragedy of Snehalata Reddy. She had for many years been a fellow socialist and friend of union leader George Fernandes. Suddenly the Emergency descended upon us. Fernandes, now a political refugee, wanted under the MISA, asked her for help. As always Sneha helped a friend in trouble.

The consequences were quick. Overnight, the Reddy's beautiful dreamworld collapsed and a nightmare of fear and uncertainty began. Midnight knocks on the door were followed by her disappearance into police custody and later incarceration in the Bangalore jail. Treated as a common prisoner her health deteriorated and when it became clear that her chronic asthma had deteriorated into a serious heart condition, she was unceremoniously released and sent home a few days before she died.

It was a bizarre case of the blurred line between life and art. Pattabhi had been halfway through producing a film called ‘Chanda Marutha’ (Wild Wind) in which a woman, played by Sneha herself,  faces the consequences of her naive, idealism in the face of a repressive regime. But it was also a personal tragedy for herself, her family and friends.

What still amazes me, even in recollection, was the furious burst of energy that was being released by the interaction of these and many other people to create what could only be described as the Kannada Renaissance of the late 20th century.