The treasures of Karnataka

The treasures of Karnataka
Times of India

Bangalore: Be it Sir M. Visvesvaraya or Masti Venkatesh Iyengar, naturalised Kannadigas have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with those who speak Kannada by birth in the mission of building Karnataka as the ‘model’ state.

Indeed, some of the non-Kannada speaking locals are so well amalgamated with Kannadigas, that it is difficult to distinguish them. Jnanpith awardee Masti, for example, though Tamil-speaking by birth, was given the supreme accolade by his contemporaries and successors — he is called Kannadada aasti (Karnataka’s treasure).

The state’s birth, growth and progress has been studded with such treasures all along its path: if Kittel, a German by birth, learnt Kannada well enough to frame the first Kannada-English dictionary, the great diwans of Mysore who drew up blueprints for Karnataka and Silicon city Bangalore’s pivotal position in the country were Sir M. Visvesvaraya and K. Seshadri Iyer — Telugu and Tamil speaking respectively.

The arts, in particular, have benefited. Kannada music, dance, theatre and film have been enriched by people who became one with Kannada and its people — from historical figures like Patnam Subramanya Iyer, Muthaiah Baghavatar, Tiger Varadachar to modern legends like Veene Doraiswamy Iyengar, Narasimhalu Vadavatti and Rajiv Taranath. Dancers and dance teachers have been honoured by the state, as they carried and carry its flag high like Protima Gauri, Padmini Ramachandran, B. Bhanumathi, Padmini Ravi, Krishnamurthy, Usha Datar, Radha Sridhar, Lalitha Srinivasan.

The film industry was initially rooted in Chennai, so most producers, directors, heroines, character actors, even heroes belonged to other languages. Several legends of Kannada filmdom — actresses Jayanthi and Malasri, singers P.B. Srinivas and S.P. Balasubramanyam, heroes Ravichandran, Ramesh, Darshan, music director Hamsalekha, director G.V. Iyer — speak a different mother tongue, but are indispensably pillars of the Kannada industry.

Karnataka’s flag is indeed kept flying by many more — be it cricket icon Rahul Dravid, tennis ace Mahesh Bhupathi or youth icon Vasundhara Das.