An ode to Girish Karnad

The city’s art fraternity came together to pay tribute to celebrated playwright, actor, director and author, Girish Karnad at an art gallery on Thursday.

The evening began with a screening of a few clips from Karnad’s National Award-winning film, Utsav. It was followed by a reading session where a panel of guests read out excerpts from a few of his critically acclaimed plays such as Hayavadana, Tughlaq and Crossing to Talikota, among others.

Addressing the gathering, Aparajita Sinha, daughter of master filmmaker Bimal Roy, said, “Apart from being a versatile actor and master playwright, Karnad was also a gifted mathematician. We were neighbours and shared a good rapport. He was also very active as a student leader during his days in Oxford and there is no doubt that his early plays marked the coming of age of modern Indian playwriting in Kannada.”

Another guest, bibliophile and actor, BS Prakash said that Karnad wanted to translate his last writings into Telugu. “He had approached actor and journalist Nag Bhushan Sharma for the translation but it didn’t work out due to his untimely demise,” said Prakash.

The evening ended with a screening of a few clips from Karnad’s first movie as an actor, the Kannada movie, Samskara.

— Sravan.Vanaparthy@timesgroup.com