Remembering Shankar Nag

Shankar Nag was born on 9th November 1954 in Mallapur village of Karnataka moved to Mumbai after finishing his education.

Putting together a tribute is not a easy task,because Shankar Nag was visionary in every sense. Shankar will be remembered as a brilliant actor, director and a technician. Shankar Nag along with his brother Ananth Nag moved to Mumbai and joined Marathi theatre,where he met actress Arundhathi in a drama rehearsal and eventually they got married.

Even after establishing himself in the marathi theatre,his heart was in karnataka. Eventually he moved to karnataka and started a amature theatre group "Sanket". He was fluent in Kannada,Marathi,English,Hindi and Konkani languages.

Shankar Nag was instrumental in bringing the R.K.Laxman collection of short stories onto the television. Malgudi Days is still remembered for its directorial acumen. He directed few more serials for DD1-Delhi and DD1-Kannada. I have meet so many people who still love to watch Malgudi Days.

Before shankar nag joined the film industry,most of the technical activities were done with technicians at Chennai. Because of this lot of time and effort was wasted in moving from Bangalore to Chennai. This prompted shankar nag to start dubbing studio(Sanket Electronics) in bangalore. Shankar Nag was a master technican,which we can see in his movies,theater and TV.

Shankar Nag was a brilliant actor and has won national award on debut. His acting career spanned for 12 years(1978-1990). He has acted in more than 90 films. Many of his films have become a big grosser at box office. Auto Raja was still remembered by many people including auto driver's for the portrayal of well educated riding auto rickshaw and showing auto driver's in good image.

Shankar Nag has used music in his films with perfection. He was instrumental in getting Illayaraja compose some of the memorable tunes in the Kannada industry. He even prevailed upon Illayaraja to compose background music in few of the films.In those Illayaraja was regarded was best music director in the south india and was choosy in doing non tamil movies.

Shankar Nag left many unfinished projects like the Country Club at his farm near Bangalore, a ropeway to Nandi Hills and a low cost prefab housing scheme. An admirer of Ramakrishna Hegde, he was not much into active politics. However he had a great vision for Bangalore. Way back in 1990, before his untimely death, he proposed a Metro for Bangalore city, based on what he had seen in London.

There is lot more to write about the man who dreamt for the betterment of film industry and people of Bangalore. He didn't get much credit because of presence of stalwarts like Rajkumar and Vishnuvardhan. But he didn't much more than these people to the film industry.

I feel he is Guru Dutt of Kannada Film. Guru Dutt was also a brilliant actor,director and technician. People didn't understand both Guru Dutt and Shankar Nag because their thinking was way ahead others. People can to know about there importance after their demise. Incidentally both are from Karnataka.

Still lot more to write,a post is just a small tribute to shankar nag.