Song forever
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It’s a year since the folk scholar and poet S.K. Karim Khan passed away
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COMMITTED Receiving an award from former chief minister Ramakrishna Hegde
A report in The Hindu on Mahatma Gandhi’s call to the country’s youth to take part in the freedom movement, inspired S.K. Karim Khan to plunge into the freedom movement. Born to Abdurrahman Khan, an Afghani, and Jainabi of Saudi Arabia in
Sakleshpur of Hassan district, he became an ardent admirer of Gandhiji and served seven terms in jail. For his entire life, this folk poet and scholar devoted himself to the Gandhian philosophy.
It’s a year ago that we lost this outstanding lyricist of Kannada cinema, who had closely associated himself with people like Bhashyam, Subramanian, K.C. Reddy, T. Siddalingiah and Kengal Hanumanthaiya.
Remember the song “Natavara Gangadhara... “, one of the evergreen songs in the history of Kannada films. Composed by one of the forgotten music directors of Kannada, M. Venkataraju, the song from “Swarna Gauri” is in praise of Shiva, rendered beautifully by Vidwan Balamurali Krishna. Equally well-known are songs such as “Vanamali Vaikuntapate”, “Jayagowri jagadeeshwari” and “Nudi mana Shivaguna sankeertana”. If there is something that is striking about these songs, it is that they are all in praise of Hindu gods and are written with a heavy Sanskrit diction. And there’s more surprise, they were all written by Karim Khan.
He was proficient in both Sanskrit and Kannada and was a scholar on the folk traditions of Karnataka. Karim Khan travelled the length and breadth of Karnataka collecting folk narratives. A song that was theatre stalwart B.V. Karanth’s favourite, “Moolokadayya Govinda, solisabeda gelisayya...”, so much so that it became his signature tune, was collected by Karim Khan among hundreds of others.
Karim Khan started his career in professional theatre and authored over 80 plays. With a fine taste in literature, mythology and music, he wrote over 200 songs.
Even with all the indifference he was met with by the film industry and the government, Karim Khan never turned better. He lived and died in poor recognition.
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