My works have been in both Kannada & English. My writing in english has been mainly through my blogs and a few scribbles here and there. A major breakthrough happened through the prestigious newspaper of India, The Hindu and I have been regularly contributing articles to their Friday Review section. You can visit the here to view the articles. Most of my Kannada works have been published in various books as part of an anthology work.
I am rather indebted to a lot of encouragement I’ve received from www.kannadaaudio.com/forum. This was one forum wherein a lot of my earlier works got recognized amongst the members. I was able to make several friends who constantly encouraged and appreciated my works, which eventually enabled me to approach a wider audience. This was made possible by thatskannada (now renamed to http://kannada.oneindia.in) which was a web portal that has been acclaimed amongst the non-resident kannadigas overseas, as well as many in India.
A few of my poems were initially published at thatskannada.com, and notable amongst them was “Shabari”, which is also available on this website. Shabari was a poem that put a lot of limelight on me, and gave me the opportunity for being published for the first time, under the auspices of “Saahityaanjali” – with the editorship of Sri. Nag Aithal, well known amongst kannada writers as Aahitaanala. Since then, I’ve been able to contribute stories and articles to 3 books of anthological nature so far. The titles of the books are as follows:
- Aacheecheya Kathegalu (Stories from here & there)
- Kannadadamara Chetana (The immortal spirit of Kannada) – A treatise on the life and work of the famous Kannada writer & Jnanapith awardee – Masti Venkatesha Iyengar.
- Deepa toridedege (Collection of short stories)
- Aniketana – A Journal published by the Karnataka Sahitya Parishat – a literary body promoting Kannada Language. This journal carries my translated works of two great Kannada writers – Dr. Shivarama Karanth’s (Jnanapith Awardee) essay on the economic conditions of the society and memoirs of Sri Belagere Krishna shastry from the book ‘Egdaagella aite’.
I am currently working on a book, that is based on Sri Allamaprabhu – a 12th Century philosopher and spiritual personality who made huge contributions to the Spiritual movement of Sri Basavanna in Karnataka. The work titled “Allamanarasutta” is my journey into the philosophy propounded by Allama Prabhudeva.
On the side, I have also started giving talks on the 16th Century work – Shoonya Sampaadane. It is a one-of-its-kind literary master piece of Kannada that made an attempt to weave a story around the life of Allama Prabhu through the available vachana literature written by the philosophers and spiritual personalities of the 12th Century Veerashaiva movement in Karnataka.
3 comments
hi,
praveen..
i went in search of the bhaavageethe and finally ended in your blog..
well i’m also kannada literature geek.
and a part time writer…
i used to write viz i love..
but i think i’ll be good if i got the basics from any of the expert like you am approaching every one but no one replying..
well can you help me??
basically i’m a techie but i’m interested in all these kind of things..
well all the best for your work.
Author
@Sreenidhi: First of all, a hearty welcome to my space, and secondly my deepest apologies for not having been able to reply so far. Honestly am dumbfounded that you felt I am someone suitable to advise you in this matter. 🙂 Flattering as it may sound, and blushing, though I am, I really don’t consider myself worthy of that position. I surely don’t mind sharing with you some of my thoughts on writing, or what motivates me or how I go about it, but they are things that I’ve tried on myself, and may not necessarily work on you! 🙂 Feel free to write to me at praveen.shivashankar@gmail.com
Waiting eagerly for your English Literature. 😀