Karunanidhi, a script writer par excellence

A script writer par excellence, M Karunanidhi began penning scripts for plays as a 20-year-old, his works becoming a vehicle for propagating the principles of the Dravidian movement.

Age did not wither his pithy prose and as he crossed 90, he wrote his last script for a television serial based on reformist Hindu saint Ramanuja, who strove for an egalitarian society.

Scripting dialogues for the television soap based on the 11-th century Vaishnavite saint in 2015, Karunanidhi had praised the saint for throwing his weight behind the oppressed and backward classes.

A voracious reader and prolific writer, Karunanidhi took a keen interest in Tamil literature, poetry and drama and even as a 20-year-old had enacted a reformist drama "Pazhaniappan.'