On Sunday, the 13th (of July), my father and the Founder-Editor of Star of Mysore and Mysuru Mithra, K.B. Ganapathy, passed away.

Knowing him, I think he would have got a kick out of it if he had kicked the bucket on Friday the 13th, popularly considered an unlucky day.

It feels odd to write about my father, but I feel I owe it to the readers of Star of Mysore, who have made this small newspaper from this small city into one of India’s most successful evening newspapers. 

To not write about him would feel wrong. Especially because his life was not only well lived, but it was also wildly interesting.

KBG, as he was popularly known, never really spoke much of his early life with me until a few years ago, when I became a father and he, a grandfather. The stories were fantastic.

When you become one of the youngest lawyers in Bengaluru at a time when jukeboxes and dance halls were in vogue…

When you, as a nerdy, bespectacled boy from Coorg to have the audacity to move to Bombay to become an actor, then a scriptwriter, without knowing a word of Hindi…

When you rejoin College in Bombay to study journalism and are chosen to work under a legend like T.J.S. George…

When you launch your own advertising agency in Pune and help name the now-iconic moped, Luna…

When you move Osho Rajneesh from Juhu Beach into an apartment and handle his first PR campaign for The Illustrated Weekly of India…

When you finally pack it all up and return to Mysore to run a bill-book printing press… and then start your own newspaper… You’re bound to have stories. And KBG had a whole lot of them and he told them brilliantly… 

From tales of quirky Bombay industrialists to the eccentricities of Osho Rajneesh, from the spiritual gurus he encountered in his career to dealing with political thugs he had confronted, his stories were always unexpected, always unforgettable.

Whether he was protesting at the Bombay Docks with George Fernandes or breaking ‘journalistic ethics’ by openly campaigning for H.S. Shankaralinge Gowda in Mysore, KBG lived with a conviction few dared to match and fewer still could argue with, though I often did.

What made him a good journalist was simple. A nose for news, a maniacal work ethic, and a fearlessness that bordered on charming arrogance. 

KBG also had a quirk. He never wore a shirt without a pocket. Why? Because he always carried a tiny notepad and a pen. Even on the day he died, he had notes scribbled in his little notepad stuffed in his shirt pocket — observations and “news points for reporters.” He never stopped reporting.

KBG loved intellectual combat, and often our dinner table arguments ended with me yelling, “Youth may be wasted on the young, but wisdom is definitely wasted on the old !” 

He would smirk and say, “Don’t flatter yourself. At your age, only Rahul Gandhi can be forever young.” Then, with a smile, he would ask, “Drink?”

That was KBG. You could argue with him, disagree with him, even mock him, but he always knew how to separate debate and decency.

That same spirit defined Star of Mysore. Even if you didn’t share his ideology, your voice still had a place in his paper. 

Through Star of Mysore and Mysuru Mithra, he gave voice to countless civic warriors. Many of them eventually joined politics, but before that, they helped shape our city.

 He encouraged service clubs like Rotary, Lions and MGP, believing they created a collective civic conscience to keep the Government accountable.

Though he had an irreverent side, he was also deeply spiritual.

On his 85th birthday, I asked him, “After all these years, what according to you is happiness?” He replied instantly, “Freedom from physical pain.”  

Then, after a pause, added, “You can have all the money and status you want, but if your body is hurting, even if it’s a toothache, you’ll be miserable.” 

I asked when he had this spiritual epiphany. With a mischievous smile he replied, “When I had piles.” We both laughed. I said, “Now you know how it feels to work with you.” He laughed and clapped, something he would do on hearing something witty. That bellowing laughter with clapping will be missed.

Since his passing, people have asked me how I’m coping. For now, I keep reading the note he would write on the first page of his diary every year for over 40 years. They are lines from the Bible:

“The race is not to the swift,

nor the battle to the strong,

nor does food come to the wise

or wealth to the brilliant,

but time and chance happen to them all.”

And then he would add, in his own hand:

“So do not despair, Ganapathy, for this too shall pass.”

And so, while we grieve, we carry on, for… this too shall pass.

On behalf of my family and everyone at Star of Mysore and Mysuru Mithra, Thank You, dear readers, for your love and loyalty. We hope to continue informing, entertaining and waking the activist in every Mysurean.

P.S.:  After his passing, some have criticised the current State Government for not offering KBG State Honours like his peers got.

Honestly, it doesn’t matter.

What greater honour can a journalist ask for than the love of his readers? 

That, for my father, was more than enough.

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