HUBBALLI: To mark the 125th birth anniversary of Jnanpith awardee and renowned poet from Dharwad Dattatreya Ramachandra Bendre or Da Ra Bendre on January 31, fans have started a campaign urging Google to come up with a doodle on its search engine.
Bendre was born in 1896 in Dharwad. After completion of schooling in Dharwad, he went to Pune to pursue BA in Sanskrit and English in 1918. After returning to Dharwad, he served as a school teacher and wrote hundreds of poems. He published most of his works under the pen name Ambikatanayadatta. He was awarded the prestigious Jnanpith award in 1964 for his poetry collection Naakutanti.
A group of like-minded people from Hubballi-Dharwad, Bengaluru and other parts of the state have started an email campaign to Google requesting a doodle dedicated to the noted poet. Many people have sent an email to the company in this regard and have started campaigning through social media to reach more and more people.
Retired professor of Karnatak University, Dharwad, Ashok Shettar said, "Bendre was a great poet and his literary works are eternal. To respect such a great human being on his 125th birth anniversary, the campaign has been initiated by many people. Some fans of Bendre have started the campaign in Bengaluru and we also supported the cause."
Upendra Kakanur, one of the campaigners, said they are asking people to write to the email id of Google Doodle. Many people found it difficult to post in English, therefore campaigners prepared a draft email and circulated it on social media. More than 5,000 people have sent a mail to the company and they are hoping Google will consider their request.
The campaign started only about a month ago, so there was not enough time to reach out to the maximum number of people and send more emails. But still many are responding quickly to the campaign. As it is a late request for a doodle, they don’t know whether the company will respond to it or not, said another campaigner.