Shankar Nag | The Karnataka Films Icon | Statesmen

South India cinema consists of 4 prominent languages namely Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu and Tamil. But when it comes to ranking Kannada cinema industry is usually perceived to be inferior. Albeit, few people would look into Kannada cinemas whenever, there are releases of few directors like Yogaraj Bhat, Soori, Upendra, R.Chandru, Shashank, Preetham Gubbi, Prem(Besagara Halli Bairegowda), Om Sai Prakash, Om Prakash Rao, GuruPrasad etc. or few stars like Puneeth Raj Kumar, Shivaraj Kumar, Sudeep, Darshan, Ganesh, Ajay Rao, Diganth, Upendra, the most of the films would go un-noticed. But there was a man who had single handedly made whole India forward to Kannada Cinema for short span of 12 years with his 90+ films. This man was none another than Shankar Nag.

 

Shankar Nag was born on November 9, 1954 in Mallapur Village, Kumta (North Canara), Karnataka as younger brother of versatile multilingual actor and former minister of Government of Karnataka, Ananth Nag.  Albeit, he completed schooling at Bombay and was involved in Marathi theatre his cinema debut was with Girish Karanad’s Kannada film Ondanondu Kaladalli which was an Off-beat Kannada which was also a commercial success. After that,  within the span of 12 years (from 1978 to 1990) he acted in some 80 Kannada movies, in leading role, besides co-producing (with actor-brother Anant Nag ) and directing 12 films like Minchina Ota,  Accident, Ondu Muttina Kathe, Nodi Swami Naavirodu Heege, Hosa Teerpu, Lalach, Janma Janmada Anubandha and Geetha. Although, some of the movies were not critical success, it is believed that none of his movies lost business. He also directed tele serial Malgudi Days based on R.K.Narayan's short stories. Besides these, he was actively involved in Kannada Theatre. He also co-wrote 22 June 1897, an Indian National award winning Marathi film.

 

His films like Accident, Minchina Ota were not big commercial success, but it had won many National and international awards. Apart from these movies there is one movie which has made him remain in hearts of Kannadigas. That movie is none other than Auto Raja. This movie has made people remember him, 22 years even after his death. We can still see Autos in Karnataka which has Shankar Nag’s photo.  Auto drivers still consider him as the role model in Karnataka. Interestingly, he died in a car accident.

 

Not only liberal arts, he will be remembered also for modernization of Karnataka. He was instrumental in realization of Banglore Metro and establishment of Karnataka Milk Federation with brand Nandini. So much for a man who lived for just 35 odd years.

 

Written By: Sandeep Shetty