Senior journalist NV Sankaran, popularly known as Gnani passes away

CHENNAI: Senior journalist NV Sankaran, popularly known as Gnani (64), passed away in the wee hours Monday.  

He has been regularly taking dialysis. People in the know said he felt uneasiness in the wee hours and he died on the way to the hospital. His mortal remains are kept for public homage in his residence at KK Nagar.

Gnani, an untiring journalist, was working till Sunday night.

He had, just 10 hours before his death, made a Facebook post commenting on speech by S Gurumurthy at the 48th anniversary of Thuglak weekly. The post has become his last statement, with many of his associates posting their comments on Facebook, expressing their disbelief on the veteran's untimely death.

Widely considered as an unbiased commentator on all social and political events, Gnani was a multi-faceted personality. Trained in theatre by Badal Sircar, he has directed and produced over 50 plays various languages like Bengali, Marathi, German and English in Tamil. 

He was also a founding member of Veedhi, Chennai's first street theatre group (1978), Koothupppattarai as well as a founder director of Pareeksha. As a film and video maker, he had directed and produced the first ever serial on Periyar EVR besides producing several fiction serials and over 30 documentaries on social issues. 

Gnani wrote numerous articles on social and political events in various journals and newspaper for over 40 years in Tamil and English. During the early seventies, he was a student campaigner for socialism and during emergency fought emergency as a journalist, working with The Indian Express.

In the Mid eighties, he worked with the National Front founded by VP Singh and DMK, as a translator for the former on stage for over 70 public rallies. 

Gnani has been a social activist sharing platform with various women's groups, human rights groups and cultural groups. He has also translated the works of Medha Patkar, Nikhil Chakravarthy, Asgar Ali Engineer, Nagabhooshan Patnaik and George Fernandez, and others on stage.

Gnani trained students in theatre and journalism as NSS advisor in several universities. He has been working with school and college students as life skills trainer for the last one decade.

Gnani has authored and published about 20 books in Tamil on various social issues, current affairs and fiction. 

For a decade, he has been an active critic and debater on television news channels.Lately, he had started ‘Oh Pakkangal’ a YouTube channel, discussing hot political topics.

The family is planning to donate Gnani's body to Madras Medical College as per his wishes. A senior college official confirmed that they have received the request from the family and most likely that the body would be handed over by evening. 

Gnani's body will be used for teaching students at the Madras Medical College.