Girish Karnad was an Indian actor, film director, Kannada writer, playwright and a Jnanpith awardee, who predominantly worked in South Indian cinema and Bollywood.
38 Facts About Girish Karnad
2.
Girish Karnad's rise as a playwright in the 1960s marked the coming of age of modern Indian playwriting in Kannada, just as Badal Sarkar did in Bengali, Vijay Tendulkar in Marathi, and Mohan Rakesh in Hindi.
3.
Girish Karnad was a recipient of the 1998 Jnanpith Award, the highest literary honour conferred in India.
4.
For four decades Karnad composed plays, often using history and mythology to tackle contemporary issues.
5.
Girish Karnad translated his plays into English and received acclaim.
6.
Girish Karnad was active in the world of Indian cinema working as an actor, director and screenwriter, in Hindi and Kannada cinema, and has earned awards.
7.
Girish Karnad was a presenter for a weekly science magazine programme called "Turning Point" that aired on Doordarshan in 1991.
8.
Girish Karnad was born in Chitrapur Saraswat Brahmin family of Matheran, in present-day Maharashtra, in 1938.
9.
Girish Karnad's mother Krishnabai was a young widow with a son who belonged to a poor family.
10.
Girish Karnad was from the Konkani speaking Chitrapur Saraswat Brahmin community.
11.
Some five years later, and while the first wife was still alive, Krishnabai and Dr Raghunath Girish Karnad were married in a private ceremony.
12.
Girish Karnad was the third of the four children born thereafter.
13.
Later, after his father was transferred to Sirsi in the Kannada-speaking regions of Bombay Presidency, Girish Karnad was exposed to travelling theatre groups and nataka mandalis, which were experiencing a period of efflorescence during the iconic Balgandharva era.
14.
Girish Karnad's family moved to Dharwad in Karnataka when he was fourteen, where he grew up with his two sisters and a niece.
15.
Girish Karnad earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics and statistics from Karnataka Arts College, Dharwad, in 1958.
16.
Girish Karnad served as director of the Film and Television Institute of India and chairman of the Sangeet Natak Akademi, the national academy of the performing arts.
17.
Girish Karnad served as director of the Nehru Centre and as Minister of Culture, in the Indian High Commission, London.
18.
Girish Karnad's plays, written in Kannada, have been translated into English and some Indian languages.
19.
When Girish Karnad started writing plays, Kannada literature was highly influenced by the renaissance in Western literature.
20.
Girish Karnad found a new approach of drawing historical and mythological sources to tackle contemporary themes and existentialist crisis of modern man through characters locked in psychological and philosophical conflicts.
21.
Girish Karnad's next was Tughlaq, about a rashly idealist 14th-century Sultan of Delhi, Muhammad bin Tughluq, and allegory on the Nehruvian era which started with ambitious idealism and ended up in disillusionment.
22.
Girish Karnad hosted the science magazine Turning Point on Doordarshan, in the early 1990s.
23.
Girish Karnad made his directorial debut with Vamsha Vriksha, based on a Kannada novel by S L Bhyrappa.
24.
Later, Girish Karnad directed several movies in Kannada and Hindi, including Godhuli and Utsav.
25.
Girish Karnad has acted in a number of Nagesh Kukunoor films, starting with Iqbal, where Karnad's role of the ruthless cricket coach got him critical acclaim.
26.
Girish Karnad played a key role in movies "Ek Tha Tiger" and its sequel "Tiger Zinda Hai" produced by Yash Raj Films.
27.
Girish Karnad has acted in the Kannada gangster movie Aa Dinagalu.
28.
At the Tata Literary Festival held in Mumbai in 2012, Girish Karnad was invited to speak about "his life in theater" in an hour-long session.
29.
The audience, which had gathered to hear Girish Karnad speak, had mixed reactions to the speech.
30.
Just a few weeks after this, Girish Karnad again created controversy by claiming that Rabindranath Tagore, who wrote India's national anthem, was a great poet but a second-rate playwright.
31.
In November 2015, during celebrations marking the anniversary of 18th-century Muslim ruler Tipu Sultan's birth, Girish Karnad stated that Bangalore International Airport should have been named after Tipu Sultan instead of Kempe Gowda.
32.
Girish Karnad was a proponent of multiculturalism and freedom of expression.
33.
Girish Karnad had publicly condemned the demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992 and later spoke against the attempts to create controversy about the Idgah Maidan in Hubli.
34.
Girish Karnad had opposed RSS, BJP and other organizations on several occasions.
35.
Girish Karnad opposed Narendra Modi for the Prime Minister's post in the 2014 parliament elections.
36.
Girish Karnad claimed that Tipu Sultan was the greatest king Karnataka had in 500 years, on a religious controversy about the king.
37.
Girish Karnad was a supporter of the Forum for Communal Harmony.
38.
Girish Karnad died on 10 June 2019 at Bengaluru at the age of 81 due to multiple organ failure following prolonged illness.