In case Narendra Modi becomes Prime Minister of this Country, I would go away from this country’ – this was the statement of Dr UR Ananthamurthy, Jnanapith Award winner for Kannada literature, multi talented personality created lot of controversy.

Now Dr UR Ananthamurthy breathed his last on Friday evening at a private hospital and physically departed from all of us. He has huge fan following and he is considered as ‘Guru’ by many.

Dr URA leaving from this earth has happened within 3 months of Narendra Modi taking over as PM of this country.

Narendra Modi tweet in message is that - Shri UR Ananthamurthy's demise is a loss to Kannada literature. My condolences to his family. May his soul rest in peace 7:27 PM - 22 Aug 2014

Udupi Rajagopalacharya Ananthamurthy 82 year’s legendary Kannada writer of Navya Movement, sixth one among eight Jnanapith award winners from Karnataka is a flamboyant personality. Winner of Padma Bhushan held many coveted positions.

The Kannada cinema industry cannot forget this genius. Samskara’ a path breaking cinema of 70’s based on novel of Dr UR Ananthamurthy, directed by Pattabhirama Reddy was screened recently and the film print was from Berlin. When the ‘Samskara’ film print was not traced for screening Konark Reddy son of director Pattabhirama Reddy got in touch with Stefanie Schulte Strathaus, co-director, Arsenal Institute of Film and Video and happy to find the print that is preserved well.

Dr URA novels such as Avasthe, Bharathipura, Bara, Mouni, Deeksha, Prakruthi were adapted for silver screen. The recent special jury award went to Dr Girish Kasaravalli a Rajat Kamal and it was for Dr UR Ananthamurthy – Not a biography….but a hypothesis. It is 75 minutes authentic presentation beginning from the days of 'Ghatashradda' directed by Dr GK based on Dr URA novel. Well known writers Ashis Nandy, Shiv Visvanathan, Ashok Vajpayi, CN Ramachandran, Samik Bandopadhyay, S R Vijayashankar, HS Raghavendra Rao, Manu Chakravarti plus the key person to the 'Hypothesis' Dr UR Ananthamurthy have been part of it.

GS Bhaskar has done the cinematography and Bindu Malini has composed music while Mohan Kamakshi is editor of this commendable work of Dr GK.

A socialist in his thoughts Dr URA was suffering from multiple deceases. Nephrologist Dr Sudarshan Ballal was attending on him.

Born in 1932 in a remote village in Thirthahalli taluk of Shimoga district Dr URA had traditional Sanskrit schooling and completed post graduation from Mysore Univeristy in 1956. He was awarded PHD for English and comparative literature) from UK.

The prestigious Jnanapith award came to him in 1994 for over all contribution.