Karnad stayed idealistic as Karnataka politics became toxic: Shyam Benegal

Filmmaker Shyam Benegal collaborated with the polyglot playwright and actor through the 1970s and remained his friend for more than five decades

Even after a busy day of palling around, when people headed home to sleep, Girish Karnad would stay up and write. In fact, much of his writing was done at night. The master Kannada playwright was blessed also with a supernatural ability to concentrate in circumstances far from the ideal. “He could be in the middle of a railway station but nothing could disturb his ability to concentrate on what he was thinking or writing. He could calmly keep all the hustle and bustle out of his mind,” says Shyam Benegal, who as a long-time friend and collaborator observed this