Sri Chandrashekhara Sastri belonged to the Hulusukamme (or Ulucukamme) Brahmana subsect hailing from Srinivasapura. He arrived in Mulabagal as the Headmaster of the Anglo Vernacular School. He earned the respect of all people owing to his character, scholarship, and work ethic. His elder brother Sri Nanjunda Sastri was a renowned Vedic Guru; his younger brother, Sri Subbasastri made a name for himself as the schoolmaster in a place named Yerukaluve.
Y K Ramachandra Rao is one among the people to be remembered from the Parishad’s initial history.[1] He retired as a Railway Chief Engineer. He hailed from Elandoor. He had a natural, abiding interest in Kannada; when Gopal Krishna Gokhale died in 1915, Ramachandra Rao arranged an essay-writing competition in Kannada, offering a gift to the best essay written about that great soul. I remember that the prize-winning essay—it was written by a student—was published in the Parishad’s periodical.
Sri Venkatarama Bhatta urged my grandfather and my younger grandfather to perform my Thread Ceremony as early as possible.
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.
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 20th 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.
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.