As many as 55 participants, including some from abroad, paid a befitting tribute to playwright and Jnanpith award winner Girish Karnad on his death anniversary on Thursday, through a complete reading of the memoirs of the late author, Aadaadta Asyushya.
In the online event that began at 6 a.m. on Thursday, participants from the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany apart from various theatre and literary personalities and enthusiasts took their turns to read out portions from the memoirs allotted to them by Abhinaya Bharati, the Dharwad-based theatre group which organised and coordinated the unique tribute.
Abhinaya Bharati president Arvind Kulkarni kick-started the event by beginning the reading session at the scheduled time. And, others followed him one after the other as per the time allotted to them. The reading sessions which was streamed live on the Facebook page of Abhinaya Bharati went on smoothly.
Each participant was allotted 20 minutes to read an average of six pages from Aadaadta Asyushya, which is divided into 11 chapters named after places where Mr. Karnad spent his life.
Theatre personality and film director T.S. Nagabharana joined the live session that stretched to over 18 hours as the 46th participant and readout the portion allotted to him. Theatre personality Shripati Manjanbail was the 14th reader.
Along with Mr. Arvind Kulkarni, Vinayak Naik and Prajna Mattihalli, Jyothi Dixit, Sumit Maitri, Vallish Shastri (from the U.S.), Jai Hanmanthgad (from the U.K.), Revati Shripati Manjanbail and Professor Basavaraj Donur coordinated the event, which saw enthusiastic participation from youngsters to senior citizens. The reading sessions concluded at around midnight.