Shankar Nag, Who Was Malgudi And So Much More

All is well… all is well…

These lines for Hindi cinema viewers may be something that set all things going, thanks to 3 Idiots, but for those who have had the privilege of knowing Kannada cinema of a different era, it is yet another reminder of one of the biggest dreamers that Kannada Cinema ever had. Shankar Nag. We heard this line first in his directorial debut Minchina Ota where the jail sentry goes on his daily rounds and confirms at the end of the day that ‘all is well’.

I say yet another reminder because, for anyone who lives in silicon city, every corner here is a reminder that there lived a man who envisioned this city, this state and the Kannada film industry differently.

The face that is etched on the back of many auto rickshaws, whose drivers weren't even born when Nag left this day 28 years ago, is his. He played an auto driver in the film Auto-Raja, and ‘Shankaranna’ has been forever immortalised in the hearts of every auto wallah here.

There is no place in this city that I do not feel the absence of this man I terribly regret having never met. Every time I am at a traffic snarl caused by the metro construction, I wish he had not left before his dreams materialised. He had lived in Mumbai. He knew the local was its lifeline, and he wanted a similar connectivity for this city. And each time I miss the locals and faced the Mumbai madness, I miss Shankar Nag.

What we have in the name of metro today is nowhere close to what Shankar Nag wanted. His idea of metro was an underground rail project that will not harm the aesthetics of the landscape. The canopy of trees that were characteristic of Bengaluru would still be painting the pretty picture that it did in Shankar Nag’s days.

He didn’t plain dream it, he desired it, and he did everything possible to make it happen. From multiple video interviews of people who had known him, it can be learnt that Shankar Nag got the Geological Survey of India to study Bengaluru, advised on the underground rail, a concept 10 times more expensive than a surface rail, he convinced the chief minister of the idea, met London Underground authorities (funded his trip there), and met French railway companies. As Bengaluru was not a linear city like Mumbai, the train he planned was a circular one.

But alas, what we have today is nowhere close to what he conceived.

If Bengaluru is, today, called the ‘new culture capital’ of Karnataka, a tag once enjoyed by Mysore, that dreamer has to be acknowledged. Shankar Nag’s dreams for the city knew no bounds, he was brimming with ideas for every field that could contribute to the growth of the city.

Shankar Nag envisioned an affordable theatre, which his wife Arundathi brought to fruition. The city’s bustling theatre and creative art activities are, today, much spoken of. The silhouette of Shankar Nag, with arms stretched towards the sky, etched on glass at the entrance of Bengaluru’s well-known theatre Ranga Shankara, is a reminder of the endless possibilities the man believed in. Each time I stole a glance at the empty stage, I could envision that video come alive.

Each time I look at all that cinema has at its disposal today, each time I switch Netflix on, every time there is a podcast, I sigh, wishing Shankar Nag had lived to see technology transform cinema both for the makers as well as the audience. Kannada cinema too would be sharing the dais with the world’s best.

For he was a filmmaker, whose directorial debut Minchina Ota won several state awards. All that he used in cinema, from the ideas to the storytelling was way ahead of his time. Although some of them weren’t commercial successes then, have achieved cult status today, and rightfully so.

And there can be no one in this country who grew up in the 80’s and 90’s who can stop humming the title track of the famed Malgudi Days, which Shankar Nag directed, in chorus. “Tanana tana nana na…tana na tana nana naa”.

The man’s work streamed into the living rooms of even those who have never stepped into Karnataka. A visit to Agumbe, Shankar’s Malgudi set, and the house where he shot it (which today has the owners double up as hosts to numerous trekkers who stop or stay over) took me back in time, and I could almost spot ‘little Swami’ running around the house. Oh, how I wished.

In an era where language pride and regionalism manifests as plain pointless protests, he was one whose pride turned into projects. Like Hamsalekha described this dreamer aptly: “All his dreams had 10 problems, but for him, all those problems turned into dreams.” “He wove his dreams into his work.” All sound recording for Kannada cinema then happened in Chennai but he wanted that to happen here, and that’s how the first sound studio of Kannada cinema was born.

Hundreds of studios probably are tucked away in the various bylanes of Bengaluru today, but every single one of them owes its existence to the pioneer, who thought about every single detail and sourced it himself, from Kashmiri wood to soundproof the room, to artists that he found locally and trained.

The slums in Mumbai, which unfortunately are also seen as the sub-skyline of Bengaluru, remind me of him. He had a plan to build readymade houses using Austrian technology that used pre-fabricated sheets to address the issue of homelessness in the city and thereby deal with the slum issue - all within Rs 45,000.

No, he didn’t have vested interest. If there is a man who returned campaign money to political leaders for campaigning, it was him.

The title track of the film Nodi Swami Naavirodu Heege was a chartbuster and will, forever, be one of the first songs that come to mind when anyone mentions Shankar Nag. For it portrayed in verse and spirit what Shankar had been. The lines, Naale embuva chinte mandala namagilla, nine neneduda mathe endigu nenyolla (We don’t worry about tomorrow nor do we dwell in our past), sum up Shankar. For he lived in the present and lived like there was no tomorrow.

Although he was a dreamer, he was one who believed not in sleeping.

Each time I retire for the day, I hear his words yell out to me, satta mele malgodu idde idey, badkidaaga enadru sadhisu ( accomplish something while you are awake, you can always sleep once you die) reflected how he lived his life. He hardly slept. Anyone who wished to make a film had to only ask him and he would find time to accommodate yet another dream.

Flipping through the pages of the book Nanna tamma Shankara by his brother and stalwart Anant Nag, one gets a glimpse of the life of a man who should have lived.

Illayaraja recreated this track for the Hindi film Cheeni Kum, as Jaane do na, but Jotheyali jothe jotheyali iruvenu heege endu..hosa harusha wa taruvenu indu yendu (With you, with you I shall be, this way forever, bringing you new joy, forever) serve as an immortal message from Shankar to Karnataka.

Shankar was no plain actor or director, he was an institution. From cinema to politics, to urban planning and infrastructure, to technology, there was so much he wished to do. How can one not be inspired by a person who redefined talent, rewrote rules and reimagined Bengaluru!