- A profile of Prof. T N Krishnan, the violin maestro;
- A profile by Gowri Ramnarayan of Kalpakam Swaminathan; and,
- A profile (by Sriram Venkatkrishnan?) of Bidaram Krishnappa, the guru of Nagarathnamma (Is she the same as Bangalore Nagarathnamma, who is the source behind the Thyagaraja Aradhana in its present form? From this piece, it seems to be so).
July 26, 2007 at 7:19 pm
I do not know whether she is the same.There are some comments about Bangalore Nagaratnamma in the introduction of :”Women’s writing in India: 600 BC to the Present” edited by Susie Tharu and K.Lalita. She published Muddupalani’s ‘Radhika santwanam’ which was banned by the British because of its erotic nature. Anita Desai reviewed the book (at least the first volume) in “The New York Review of Books”. If you write about this wook, your R rating may remain.
July 26, 2007 at 8:01 pm
Dear Swarup,
Thanks for the pointer; in the interest of maintaining my R rating, here is the link to Anita Desai’s review that you mention in your comment
In any case, I have learnt that some British translators even Bowdlerised Kalidasa; Meenakshi Mukherjee talks about it here, for example. So, I am not surprised if they also banned some books for their erotic nature!
I think it is the same Nagarathnamma; see this article for example (which mentions that she was a student of Bidaram Krishnappa, contains a rare photograph of her, and also has information about her translating Muddu Palani’s book).