THE
LATE K. SAMPATHGIRI RAO
K.
CHANDRASEKHARAN
With
K. Sampathgiri Rao’s passing away on the first of May of this year, one more
link with the past of Triveni’s life has snapped. It was only early last
year that the journal sustained a grievous loss in the death of Sri M.
Seshachalapati on the Advisory Board. Sampathgiri’s death has not only created
a void hard to fill on the Advisory Board but an irreparable void among the
devoted supporters of the journal. To me more than to the journal, his demise has
meant the disappearance of a lively spirit hard to be met with among my
friends.
It
was in the year 1934, during the month of May that the late Editor, Sri K.
Ramakotiswara Rau, brought Sampathgiri to me at Malleswaram to be introduced.
Sampathgiri did not require much of formal words to make himself familiar to me
even before a few words had passed between us. His witty talk accompanied by
anecdotes or some of the leading personalities known to us both, easily
strengthened our understanding of each other.
There-afterwards
Sampathgiri’s credentials to much more significant recognition came to my
knowledge when I learnt of his attainments as a very eminent Headmaster whose
enthusiasm was combined with an invincible human approach to all problems of
educating the youth in school and college. Added to his qualifications as an
educator, was his unswerving loyalty to the national outlook which had just
then started holding in its grip many intellectuals of our country. Naturally
by his sterling character and merits in the profession, he was raised to the
place of a Principal when the school itself became a college in Basavangudi.
Ever
bubbling with life amidst groups of friends, he never obtrusively showed any
trace of his own merits as a scholar in English and Kannada nor as a facile
speaker in both. It became evident to me when he unhesitatingly took up the
editorship of the Triveni during the absence of Ramakotiswara Rau in
jail about 1942, how ably he could conduct as an editor apart from piloting the
journal to success through those difficult days when the Triveni had
suffered from lack of subscribers of the necessary numbers. Idealist as he
remained till the last, he never allowed himself to be carried away by dreams
which would conflict with the practical claims of running a journal. Hence,
perhaps, his attentions always not so much to seeing to the journal’s high
class finish as to its regularity in appearance. Hard worker as he was reputed
to be, it never stood in the way of his sailing smoothly with all persons of
every kind of disposition both in private and public.
He
endeared himself to me, particularly because of his unfatiguing attentions to
my claims on his time whenever I happened to be on the friendly soil of
Bangalore. He never excused himself on the ground of any engagement otherwise
if my requests to him to accompany me to friends whom he as well as I loved to
care for in Bangalore. It meant for me a very stimulating hour to be with him
in my rounds to friends such as Gundappa, Masti, Sitaramaiah and Nittoor
Sreenivasa Rau. He was not only a good conversationalist but an able writer,
especially a translator into Kannada from English of many standard works.
In
short, he was as unassuming as was unofficious; unobscuring as unimposing;
unwavering in his loyalties as unsparing of his services to good causes.
Indeed, he was a singular person who won and kept the affection, gratitude and
admiration of countless friends and institutions.