Kannada literature has carved a niche for itself in the huge
repertoire of literary brilliance India has to offer in various languages. For
starters Kannada has won as many Jnanpith Awards as Hindi has, which is the
most commonly spoken language in India. This shows the prowess and the reach of
the literature of Karnataka.
A.N. Krishna Rao, Kuvempu and R.K. Narayan are some of the
English and Kannada writers who’ve put the state of Karnataka under the
spotlight at a national level. A.N. Krishna Rao was an activist and a writer
whose work was widely appreciated during his time.
The Early Life of Aa.Na.Kru
A.N. Krishna Rao, who was more popularly known as Aa.Na.Kru,
was born on May 9th, 1908 in Kolar, Karnataka. He hailed from the small town of
Arkalgud in the Hassan district. He started his career as an editor of
magazines in Kannada like Vishva Vani and Katha Manjari.
He also edited Kannada Nudi, which was published by the
Kannada Sahitya Parishath. Aa.Na.Kru was nominated as the President of the 43rd
Kannada Sahitya Sammelan.
He was so popular that Maasti Venkatesh Iyengar introduced
him by calling him a pure Kannada speaking person, or Kannadiga. This reflects
the literary fame and popularity that Krishna Rao had attained at a very early
age in his life.
His Work and Achievements
a-n-krishna-raoAa.Na.Kru was not only a writer but a social
activist as well. He fought hard for the unification of the scattered Kannada
speaking populace after India’s independence. He envisaged a movement to
popularize the Kannada language and he openly criticized those who neglected
the language and its literature.
Once he even spoke against R.R. Divakar, the first Governor
of Bihar and the then President of Kannada Sahitya Sammelan, in Kannada Nudi,
the magazine that he edited. He later resigned his post when he was asked to
apologize for this act.
Aa.Na.Kru’s writing career spanned over 40 years and he
completed more than 100 novels, with an output of more than 80,000 pages. Quite
like Kuvempu, Aa.Na.Kru was also a part of the modern literary movement in
Kannada literature, the Navodaya movement.
However he did not support this form of literature as
according to him, it did not reflect the stark and painful realities of life.
He went on to start his own literary movement called the Pragatshila or the
Progressive Movement.
The Writer’s Controversial Stance
a-n-krishna-raoAa.Na.Kru could very well be deemed as an
iconoclast of his age as he broke the moral restrictions of the time and wrote
on sensitive and taboo subjects like prostitution in his novels, Nagna Sathya,
Sanje Gaththalu and Shani Santaana.
He was charged for vulgarity, to which he famously said that
if unveiling a social truth suffered by certain people was vulgarity then he
would rather be called vulgar. He also wrote in the artist-novel model that
narrates the life of a born artist and his journey to success. He won the
Sahitya Academy Karnataka State Award.
Legacy
Aa.Na.Kru served as the President of the Kannada Sahitya
Sammelan for a brief period of time. He was also awarded an honorary doctorate
by Mysore University in the field of literature. His story Sandhyaraga, a
fiction, was adapted into a Kannada film of the same name, which was a major
hit. He breathed his last on the 8th of July, 1971, in the city of Bangalore in
Karnataka. His books remain popular till date, and his works are oft followed
and studied.
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