The Hindu : Front Page : Rajkumar, doyen of Kannada cinema, passes away

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Apr 13, 2006

Front Page

Front Page

Rajkumar, doyen of Kannada cinema, passes away

A. Jayaram

END OF AN ERA: Grieving relatives and friends beside the body of veteran Kannada actor Dr. Rajkumar, who passed away in Bangalore on Wednesday. — Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy

BANGALORE: Dr. Rajkumar, the doyen of Kannada cinema and citizen extraordinaire of Karnataka, died at a hospital here on Wednesday following cardiac arrest, plunging the State in gloom. The State capital, Bangalore, and several other urban centres observed a spontaneous bandh. Thousands of his fans made a beeline for his residence in Sadashivanagar here. He was a role model and a father figure of the Kannada youth, who called him "Annavaru."

What should have been a day of mourning was marred by violence in several places in Bangalore, indulged in by sections of film fans.

Dr. Rajkumar was a recipient of the Dadasaheb Phalke award (1996) and the Padma Bhushan (1983). He was one of only two Kannadigas to be conferred the "Karnataka Rathna" award (1992), the other being the poet laureate Kuvempu (Prof. K.V.Puttappa). He is survived by wife Parvathamma, two daughters and three film star sons, Shivaraj, Raghavendra and Puneeth.

Dr. Rajkumar was much more than a film star. He was an exemplar and an ideal for Kannadigas. Few film fans in the history of cinema in the country and even elsewhere can be said to have cast such a spell on at least two generations of film-goers as he did. What made him stand out was that he reached the peaks of cinema confining his acting to only one language, Kannada. He never acted in a non-Kannada film. There was no looking back for him after he made his triumphant entry into cinema in 1954 in the film "Bedara Kannappa." At that time Kannada was in the backwaters of cinema in the country, although it was at least 25 years old by then.

Dr. Rajkumar's trailblazing career as a film artiste ended following his abduction by the forest brigand Veerappan on July 30-31, 2000. The S.M. Krishna Government was thrown into a crisis. He was released after 108 days of captivity on November 15, 2000 following negotiations conducted by the governments of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka through emissaries. The abduction episode dented the image of the Karnataka Government, and the then State police chief C. Dinakar alleged in a book published in 2003 that the Krishna Government paid a ransom to Veerappan for his release.

Despite the success, some of his counterparts in the South enjoyed in politics, Rajkumar confined himself to films. Though there was a lot of pressure to join politics, particularly in the early 1980s when he led the Gokak agitation demanding primacy for Kannada in school education, he did not yield. BJP leader L.K. Advani, who cancelled the Karnataka leg of his Bharat Suraksha Yatra which was to have begun at Bijapur on Wednesday, is expected to attend the funeral on Thursday.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Front Page

News Update

Stories in this Section