Also a prolific writer, Veerappa Moily has completed his work on Draupadi, the wife of five Pandavas, who are central to Mahabharata. He was speaking after releasing a book ‘Janapada Mahasamputa’ authored by former vice-chancellor Prof De Jawaregowda popular as ‘Dejagow’.

Delineating on research in literature, Moily dismissed most of the historical works as devoid of in depth research. However, he provided some crucial pointers for research aimed at Ph D, where there are some exceptions. He suggested Kannada Sahitya Parishat (KSP) and University of Mysore to intervene to improve the research ability in literary field.

Citing his own example, Moily said he came across a word while writing ‘Draupadi’ and it took nearly a week for him to understand and use the same. He owed it to abundant time he spends on reading and writing, that has grown within since his nascent days. “Though my parents were illiterates, my mother was waking me up early in the morning, asking me to either read something or write something. It helped enriching the knowledge”, said Moily.

On Dejagow’s recent work, Moily said folklore is the lifeline of many activities. Dakshina Kannada is famous for ‘Yakshagana’ a popular form of art, that originated from folk, he added. MLC and Janata Dal (Secular) spokesperson Y S V Datta read out the speech of the party supremo H D Deve Gowda who couldn’t make it to the programme due to some unavoidable circumstances.

Dejagow and others were present.