MANDYA: Braving the evening chill, lakhs of people gathered at Sir M Visvesvaraya stadium in Mandya to pay respects to their ‘Mandyada Gandu’. People started to gather at the stadium premises from Sunday itself.
The crowd continued to swell, stunning cops and local leaders as more than three lakh people showed up. This forced Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy and the actor’s family members to keep his mortal remains at the stadium till 10 am.
Among the fans were people coming from Mysuru, Chamarajanagar, Hassan, Ramanagara and other districts. The crowd led to choc-a-block traffic with thousands of vehicles parked in and around the stadium as well as in narrow bylanes in the area.
Emotions ran high at the stadium with fans in tears paying homage to their leader who represented them for more than 20 years. Ambareesh had also enthralled them on the silver screen for more than three decades. While hundreds took pictures of the actor’s body and some others took selfies that disrupted the flow of the queue.
Police had a tough time managing the crowd when people rushed to break barricades that had been put up by police personnel who were brought in from neighbouring districts.
Sensing trouble, District Minister C S Puttaraju helped the fans enter the stadium from the gate reserved for VIPs. The fans standing in long queues raised slogans praising their leader even as the authorities made repeated appeals to maintain peace.
After keeping the mortal remains at the stadium for more than 18 hours, Ambareesh’s wife Sumalatha smeared mud on her husband’s forehead as he had a soft spot for his home district. Her act visibly moved many in the crowd. There was silence in the stadium when Ambareesh’s son Abhishek went around thanking fans and people of Mandya for their love for his father before the body was airlifted to Bengaluru in a helicopter. With the body of Ambareesh airlifted for cremation, thousands of people proceeded to Kanteerava studio in vehicles and bikes. Traffic towards Bengaluru witnessed a sudden surge with bumper-to-bumper traffic.
One more Ambareesh fan kills himself
Mysuru: Upset with the death of his favourite actor, another fan of Ambareesh committed suicide by hanging at his house in Maddur. G S Surendra (46), a diehard fan of Ambareesh from Goravanahalli, had gone to Mandya to pay his last respects to the veteran actor. Unable to bear the demise of his leader, he took the extreme step. Surendra had a tattoo of ‘Ambi’ on his hand.
Ambi relished dosas, chutney prepared in a small Hassan eatery
Hassan: In Hassan, tributes are pouring in for Ambareesh. Hundreds of fans have been offering pooja to his portraits in Hassan and Channarayapatna. Local residents too recall the ‘Rebel Star’s’ association with the district. Ambareesh relished the crispy dosa prepared in Hassan city, and he would make it a point to always drop in at Venkatesh Dosa Corner in K R Puram. On several occasions, he waited for over half an hour to savour the dosa. Often on his way to Dakshina Kannada for film shooting, he would sit in his car and eat dosa with his friends. “He loved the taste of chutney prepared at our shop,” recalls Venkatesh, the owner of Venkatesh Dosa Corner.