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TRANSITION
 Kota Shivarama Karanth
(born 1902)
He was Karnataka's renaissance man, reconciling science and art as few have done. Kota
Shivarama Karanth wrote his first book in 1924, completing 400 eventually and winning the
Jnanpith. Yet, above all else, he was a thorn in the flesh of orthodoxy. In Chomana Dudi,
Karanth explored the plight of a Dalit. The rigidity of Brahminism was not for him and he
put principle to practice by entering into an inter-caste marriage. The dissenting
instinct was as sharp when he returned his Padma Bhushan in protest against the Emergency.
Karanth's pen was formidable. He compiled an acclaimed encyclopedia on popular science for
children. His treatise on Yakshagana, the folk art from his native Dakshina Kannada
district, was commended by the Swedish Academy. It was also the rampant industrialisation
of Dakshina Kannada which brought out the ecologist in Karanth, he who made heresy an art
form.
 Biju Patnaik
(born 1916)
He was the original politician with a passion for flying, beating the brothers Gandhi
by a good half-century. Bijoyananda (Biju) Patnaik flew for the Royal Indian Air Force
during World War II, flew out, on Jawaharlal Nehru's orders, Indonesian resistance leaders
from Dutch-besieged Java, flew the first Indian plane to Kashmir after the Pakistani
invasion in 1947 and waltzed into public life soon thereafter. Elected to the Orissa
Assembly in 1952, Biju became chief minister in less than a decade. He had acid on his
tongue. During his last term as chief minister (1990-95), he asked citizens to lynch
negligent bureaucrats. When accused of being unsympathetic towards victims of an illicit
liquor tragedy, he retorted: "They certainly deserve to die." To the end, Biju
was his own mascot, if not his state's as well. Two of his children, Naveen Patnaik and
Geeta Mehta, are writers of repute. Yet, their primary identity flows from their father.
That was Biju: "Utkal Shanda" (Oriya bull), perennial gadfly -- perhaps the
Indian polity's last lion as well; and a throwback to times when politics was a genteel
preserve.
 Sombhu Mitra
(born 1915)
In life and in death, Sombhu Mitra hated fuss. He died at 2.15 a.m. As per his wishes,
Shaonli, his daughter, quickly drove the body to the crematorium. By 4.00 a.m., as
Calcutta slept, its resident thespian had made the pyre his own. This was only in keeping
with Mitra's lifelong mission: to take theatre away from the extravagant. A year after the
Bengal famine, he had directed a play on the tragedy, Nabanna (New Harvest). It was the
interface of theatre and journalism. The script approximated everyday speech. With this,
Mitra began a quality theatre movement in Calcutta and Mumbai. His influence was to reach
cinema. Balraj Sahni, K.A. Abbas and Raj Kapoor -- who acted in Jagte Raho, a film
directed by Mitra -- saw him as the master. In 1948, Mitra left ipta to form his own
group, Bohurupee. From Sophocles to Ibsen, he enacted them all. He also won the Magsaysay
Award -- not to speak of the audience's heart.
 Mihir
Sen
(born 1930)
Fifteen hours; that's what it took Mihir Sen to cross the English Channel in 1958, to
reach immortality. He was 28 then, having learnt to swim only in his 20s. A lawyer
entirely at home in Calcutta's social whirl, Sen, in 1959 and 1960, swam where no man had
done before and conquered seven straits across the world. This earned him the Padma Shri
and a mythology as evocative as that of Varun, lord of the seas. "The horizon is
restricted by pressures of career and family," he felt, "youth should be a time
to constantly stretch it." Post-retirement, life's waters were more choppy. First
came Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, then penury and, the unkindest cut, a country's
apathy. In his last days, he lived off the charity of relatives, barely recalling his name
or being able to move about. The ruin of a once proud physique was visible; sadly, the
torment of the soul was not. |
