Ananthamurthy had used a prose passage which appeared in Deccan Herald, while teaching practical criticism to students pursuing postgraduation in English at the University of Mysore way back in 1976-78.
Recalling it, noted critic T P Ashok, who was a student of Ananthamurthy at Mysore University, said, “We were given a prose passage during the class. We were not given any information about the content such as source, writer, etc.
Later, we were asked to express our views and analyse it. At the end of the day, we were told that the passage was taken from Deccan Herald. In this way, Ananthmurthy made use of English dailies to teach criticism classes.”
Ashok said Ananthamurthy was a ‘perfect democrat’. He had learnt the art of living with differences happily. He did it throughout his life.
“We learnt the art of responding to situations, incidents from him. He had a childlike innocence. The great thing about Ananthamurthy was that he would make you feel you are also important to him in a group.”
“His death is a huge loss to the Kannada literary field. But his writings will remain relevant for decades together,” he added.
