Rishab Shetty remembers Girish Karnad, the 'angry young man of literary world'

Girish Karnad, during his lifetime and thereafter, has meant different things to different people. For some, he is the Jnanapith Award-winning litterateur who submitted biting accounts of social stigmas and interpersonal behaviour as a proponent of the Navya movement. For others, he is the actor who essayed countless memorable roles and guided several kids of the 1980s & 1990s through his affableness on Doordarshan shows like Malgudi Days, Indradhanush, Khandaan and others; Karnad's filmography also includes a substantial number of acting roles in films across Kannada, Hindi, Telugu, Tamil & other film industries. 

Regardless of what he did at a given point in his illustrious career, Girish Karnad remained an unflinching voice of reason and rationality who made it a point to question every deterring factor to society. He did not mind pulling up the mighty and the powerful if needed, nor did he have qualms in stating the facts as they are when the context arrived; Karnad famously courted controversies when, on two completely isolated occasions, he criticized Nobel laureate V.S. Naipaul for an alleged 'anti-Muslim stance' and also appraised Rabindranath Tagore as a 'second-rate playwright'. Perhaps this is why fellow Kannadiga and actor Rishab Shetty thinks of Girish Karnad as the 'angry young man of the literary world'.

Remembering the legend on his 85th birth anniversary, the Kantara actor-director took to social media on May 19 to share an endearing post. Terming him an 'inspiration' to generations of filmmakers and a visionary on the stage, Rishab Shetty expressed his admiration for Girish Karnad through a tweet.

Although Rishab Shetty never got the opportunity to work with Karnad, the two are still spiritually united by the fact that they both admired and practised Yakshagaana. While Rishab used the theatre art form to hone his acting skills in the early days (his performance in Kantara is reflective of this), Girish Karnad is said to have used Yakshagaana to accentuate the vibrancy of the on-stage adaptation of his own play Hayavadana.