Veteran writer S. M. Vrushabhendra Swamy (88), who passed away on Wednesday was a unique person known for his hobbies and down-to-earth attitude in the literary and academic circles here.
One of his unique hobbies was to attend all the literary programmes irrespective of their magnitude and record the speeches in those functions. It was common to see Swamy, always clad in the bandhgala suit, come to the literary functions with an audio recorder in his hands and two battery cells in his pockets. As soon as the function started, he would switch on the audio recorder and sit in the audience.
Swamy would record the speeches for his personal use. He said that speeches at literary functions have value and beauty of their own and they need to be heard again and again. That is why they need to be recorded. He would gladly share the recordings if anybody requested. Thus, he had created audio archives of several speeches which he had recorded for last several years.
“This unique habit of Swamy has indeed helped preserve and conserve some of the memorable speeches delivered in Dharwad. He was attending all the functions and recording the speeches of all, irrespective of who the person was. Budding writers who spoke at functions that Swamy attended, could get the recorded copies of their speeches from Swamy’s archives. Some of my own speeches are safely preserved by him”, said poet Hema Pattanshetti said.
"Although he was senior-most among all the writers and academicians here, he was very polite. He liked entertaining the audience with his speech as well as enojoyed listening to others by being a part of the audience. He made award-winners. Noted Kannada writers like Jnanpith awardee Chandrashekhar Kambar, research scholar M.M. Kalburgi are his students in the Department of Kannada of Karnatak University", said poet Siddhaling Pattanshetti.
