BENGALURU: In the mid-1960s, Ma Ramamurthy designed the red-and-yellow Kannada flag and unfurled it for the first time in Akkipet in Chikpet. As a tribute, a locality in East Bengaluru, Ramamurthynagar, was named after the Kannada writer-activist.
While Ramamurthy himself is a fading memory, his wife Kamalamma has been leading a life of anonymity at the Sharada Abalashrama, a home for destitute women in Basavanagudi, for the past 50 years. The 91-year-old is also clueless about the current controversy brewing over the Kannada flag.
But ask her about her husband and his flag movement, and Kamalamma has vivid memories of it all. Hailing from Nanjangud, Kamalamma moved to Bengaluru after her marriage.
“I was 16 and my husband, 24. We stayed in a joint family with my in-laws at Shankarapuram. He (Ramamurthy) loved Kannada literature. Our house was always abuzz with Kannada writers. They’d be dropping in and we’d be serving them meals or snacks,’’ recalls Kamalamma.
In the mid-sixties, during one such meeting Ramamurthy along with noted writers A N Krishna Rao (Anakru), T R Subbarao (Ta Ra Su) and other like-minded people debated and discussed the flag designed by Ramamurthy. Kamalamma says Ramamurthy chose the bicolour ‘arishina-kumkuma’ (turmeric-vermilion) for the flag as it was a symbol of auspiciousness. “He did not sign it in a day or two. It took many days to conceptualise it. He even went to the local weaver and customised the flag,’’ she says.
Explaining the genesis of the red-and-yellow Kannada flag, Kamalamma, wife of Ma Ramamurthy, who designed it, said some people who migrated from Tamil Nadu had hoisted their Dravidian flag in Akkipete (which was dominated by Tamil speaking people).
“My husband then felt the need for a Kannada flag and wanted to hoist it in the same locality and did so. A statue of his has been erected in the same area to mark the first hoisting,’’ she says.
Later they marched towards Dharmambudhi lake area (a plain ground then, today it houses the Kempegowda bus station) where a huge convention was convened by pro-Kannada organisations.
After the flag was hoisted, Kamalamma recalled that her husband and others used to walk across the city carrying the flag. This was his attempt to make people aware of the Kannada flag.
“People used to register the flag in their minds, seeing them everyday. It used to be like a worshipful ritual for my husband,’’ she recalls. Unfortunately, tragedy struck the next year when Ramamurthy and their sons died in a freak accident while digging a well at his brother’s place.
Since then, Kamalamma made Sharada Abalashrama her home. Kannada activist Mavalli Aravind who accidentally happened to meet her, says, “No one knew Ramamurthy’s wife was residing in Sharada Abalashrama. She used to do odd jobs to meet her day-to-day expenses.”In 2014, the BBMP presented a cheque of `5 lakh to her.