Profiles

My Thread Ceremony

Sri Venkatarama Bhatta urged my grandfather and my younger grandfather to perform my Thread Ceremony as early as possible.

Sri Shivashankara Sastri

M Venkatakrishnaiah, M S Puttanna, C Subbarao, and other language enthusiasts in Mysore decided to publish a monthly magazine called Hitabodhini. They decided it would have topics and discussions useful to the general readers that would encompass literature, science, history, and social welfare. After having finalized the size and the design, they decided to print a poem on the cover page that would convey their purpose. How to obtain such a poem? They requested many people. Those scholars composed their poems and handed it to them.

Nivrutti Tippa Bhatta

If there’s anything good in my life, Sri Vedamurti Venkatarama Bhatta is one of the people responsible for it. He is akin to my grandfather.

Once my craze for English came under control, the craze for Kannada began. During those days [i.e. the early 20^th century], for people of my age, a prominent name amongst living legends was Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856–1920). “Tilak is singularly brave; everyone else falls short in comparison with him; Tilak is the only man-lion!” – these were our thoughts during that time. It appears those words were true.

A Tragic Episode

We know that in December 1919, the Mysore People’s Convention, a citizens’ initiative, met in Bangalore. Among the members who came to attend the meeting, around seven or eight of them stayed in the house of sub-judge Lakshminarayanappa, who lived on Hardinge Road, Shankarapuram. This crowd included M Venkatakrishnayya from Mysore, Srinivasaraya, Vasudevaraya, and Narasingaraya from Chikkamagalur, along with a few others.

In and around the period 1907–08, Advocate Sri. D. Venkataramaiah was among the foremost public personalities in Bangalore. A road in Malleswaram has been named after him, granting eternity to his memory. Before he built a house on that road, I’ve heard that he used to live in a residential building called ‘Ratnākara’ in one of the by-lanes of Balepet.

I vividly remember the opening ceremony of the abalāśrama[1]. It must have been in 1909 or 1910. That day of celebration started with the traditional nāgasvaram[2]. The weather was pleasant with sunshine; it was neither too warm nor too cold. Many important people of the city were present. The most prominent amongst them were – Retired Sub-Judge S.