Indian playwright Girish Karnad no more

Veteran Indian playwright, actor and director Girish Karnad died of multiple organ failure in Bengaluru early today at the age of 81.

Karnad, who will be remembered for his roles in Shyam Benegal's Hindi films "Nishant" (1975) and "Manthan" (1976), was an accomplished academician and playwright as an actor both on the stage and on the big screen, reports our New Delhi correspondent. 

Recipient of India's third highest civilian honour Padma Bhushan in 1992, Karnad was born on May 19, 1938, in Maharashtra and was a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford where he wrote his first play critically-acclaimed "Yayati" in 1961.

Among his other acclaimed plays are "Tughlaq" (1964), "Hayavadana" (1972). He made his acting and screenwriting debut with a classic Kannada language film "Samskara" in 1970.

An eminent stage personality in 1960s and 1970s, considered the golden period of Indian theatre, Karnad often used history and mythology to deal with burning contemporary issues in his plays which have been translated into English and several Indian languages and reproduced on the stage by eminent directors like Ebrahim Alkazi, B V Karanth, Alyque Padamsee,  Satyadev Dubey, Vijaya Mehta, Shyamanand Jalan, Amal Allana and Zafer Mohiuddin.

Karnad won four Filmfare Awards, of which three for Best Director in Kannada language and the fourth a Filmfare Best Screenplay Award.

Karnad had earned the wrath of Hindu right-wing forces for his views on 18th century Mysore ruler Tipu Sultan. He was also reportedly on the hit list of a group that killed journalist-author Gauri Lankesh in Bengaluru a few years ago.

He made his debut as a film director with Vamsha Vriksha (1971), a Kannada language film which fetched him national award for best direction along with B V Karanth who co-directed the film.

Later, Karnad directed several movies in Kannada and Hindi, including Godhuli (1977) having Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah and Kulbhushan Kharbanda in the cast and Utsav (1984) which stars Shashi Kapoor and Rekha. .

He has several documentaries, on Kannada poet D R Bendre (1972), Kanaka-Purandara (English, 1988) on two medieval devotional poets of Karnataka, Kanaka Dasa and Purandara Dasa, and The Lamp in the Niche (English, 1989) on Sufism and the Bhakti movement.

He served as Director of Pune's Film and Television Institute of India (1974–1975) and chairman of the Sangeet Natak Akademi, the National Academy of the Performing Arts (1988–93).