Alive in our memories

RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE

The dead are not dead. They are very much alive. Dr Prabhushankara headed the Prasaranga of Mysore University while H M Nayak was the director of the Kannada Institute. Their names had become synonymous with these institutions. While Nayak was known for his stiff upper lip, Prabhushankara saw humour in every situation like all ‘humour-mongers’ do.

The Prasaranga building needed urgent repair. He called the university executive engineer and took him round to show wherever immediate attention was required. He told the officer, “See, Prasaranga is full of cracks and the biggest crack is in this room!” There was a huge guffaw.

A N Murthy Rao, the doyen of Kannada letters, was nearing 100. He was born in 1900. Delivering the felicitation speech in the function arranged, Prabhushankara said, “Murthyrayare, you die in 2000, so that the critics would remember your DOB and DOD, without any confusion”. Murthy Rao was alert even at 98. Pat came to the repartee, “Prabhushankara asked me to die in 2000, to help the critics; but I will not oblige!” The audience was in splits. As he promised he lived up to 103.

The chief editor of the Mysore University English-Kannada dictionary was J R Lakshmana Rao. This was in the 1970s, an era of black-coloured phones. JRL had kept a red phone on his table. Looking at the red phone before Rao Prabhushankara said, “Lakshman Rao, you’re an armchair communist”. Rao would laugh heartily, though he was a card-holding communist.

Prabhushankara was a well-known platform speaker. After introducing him to the audience if the compere asked him to speak ‘two words’ (eradu mathu), Prabhushankara would pretend to take it literally and say, “If I have to speak ‘two words’, I will say ‘Thank you’; if ‘four’, then ‘Thank you very much’”. The regaled audience would sit attentively to listen to him further. Prabhushankara has two books on humour, one in Kannada and one in English, besides innumerable works of serious literature.

Murthy Rao, Lakshman Rao, H M Nayak and Prabhushankara – have all passed on. But the recollection of their times enlivens our day and sweetens the unpalatable draught of mortality.