Profiles

The revered Sheshappa and Subba Rao

Both Shri. Sheshappa and Shri. Subba Rao are older than me by a good number of years. Subba Rao also taught me during me school days. Both had cleared their Upādhyāya[1] exams and were preparing for Paṇḍita[2] exams.

Subbanna the Musician

Shri. Subbanna was the music teacher in the girls’ school. During those days, teachers were familiar with a bit of poetry. They were trained enough to at least recognise some of the features/attributes of poetry. When his prowess and enthusiasm was at its peak (1887 C.E.), the golden jubilee of the coronation of Queen Victoria was being celebrated. Probably during that or sometime later, to suit the situation, he composed the following song. He used to teach this for many more years to come.

ಕ್ವೀನ್ ವಿಕ್ಟೋರಿಯಾ

Meetings and Hospitality

Every evening about seven to eight of us met at Srinivasa Sastri's house in Bangalore. Dr. B K Narayana Rao, M S Ramachandra Rao, N N Iyengar, S G Shastri, Prof. Sampath Kumaran and other were aomong those who regularly came for such get-togethers. We were also accompanied by Judge Srinivasa Iyer and D Venkataramayya at times. We had friendly conversations for about an hour or two. Dewan Sir Mirza Ismail and Sir S P Rajagopalacharya visited the place often.

Here poetry isn’t the proverbial tough nut to crack. One need not raise their eyebrows remembering illustrious poets like Pampa, Ranna, Ṣaḍakṣarī, Harihara, Rudra-bhaṭṭa, Nāraṇappa (Kumāra-vyāsa). Our aim here is some light poetry. In these we see hints of prosody here and there; alliteration is present in a haphazard manner. The purpose here is to highlight some light compositions of people which they normally don’t highlight themselves.

Tradition and Contemporary Science

Though Srinivasa Sastri had great respect for our śāstra-s and tradition, people who knew him thought that he had some disdain for ordinary scholars. Once Sastri was supposedly quite harsh in his speech at a scholarly assembly in Bangalore. He delivered the talk at the assembly hall in the Kannada Sahitya Parishat, Bangalore. The talk was organised by Sastri’s friend D. Venkataramayya.

Venkaṭalakṣmāsānī