Girish Karnad turns down Karnataka govt film award

Mangalore Today News Network

Bangalore, December 4: Jnanapeeth awardee and well known theatre personality Girish Karnad today said he would not accept the ’Puttanna Kanagal Award’ given by the Karnataka government.

In a brief press note Karnad said, "I have thanked the Director, Kannada and Culture for awarding the Puttanna Kanagal Award to me and regretted my inability to accept the honour."

Karnad did not cite any reason for his decision.The state government announced film awards for 2008-09 and chose Karnad for the award, instituted in the name of veteran film director Puttanna Kanagal.

The jury of the State film awards altered the list of awardees yielding to pressure from a section of journalists at a press conference called to announce the awards. As per the original list film maker K S R Das was chosen for the Puttanna Kanagal award.

Girish KarnadA few journalists raised objections to the selection citing that Das directed more non-Kannada movies than Kannada and most of his movies did not merit the award named after veteran director Puttanna Kanagal.

Bhargava, well-known director and head of the jury, tried to defend the selection stating that Das’ contribution to Kannada industry was significant. He said names of Girish Karnad, D Rajendra Babu and P H Vishwanath were also discussed for the award.

Karnad’s name was rejected considering that he had already been honoured with many awards including Padmabhushan and ‘this is too small an award’ compared to those.

His defence did not convince a couple of Kannada film journalists. Bhargava had to face criticism for his statement undermining the Puttanna Kanagal award.

As the agitated journalists warned him that the jury will have to face severe opposition for selecting Das, Bhargav spoke to members of the jury in front of the media and announced that he would withdraw Das’ name and include Girish Karnad’s name.

“Girish Karnad was my first choice during the debate in the jury meetings. But there was no support from the members. I had to go by majority opinion in the committee. But now I am happy to announce Karnad’s name for the award,” he said.

Bhargava said that “Ajantha,” a dubbed movie, was among those screened by the jury. “The committee found that it was a dubbed movie. A few portions were shot with Kannada artistes, while the rest was a mix of sequences shot for non-Kannada movies.

Technically such movies are called para-dubbed. The Information Department should avoid entry of such movies for the awards,” he said.