Mysuru: “I am proud to be member of Sangeetha Ratna Piteelu Chowdaiah family,” said Mandya MP Sumalatha Ambarish.

She was speaking after inaugurating a programme in memory of Piteelu Chowdaiah as part of the series Mareyalagada Mahaneeyaru by playing a violin which was organised by District Kannada Sahitya Parishat and Dr. K.S. Gowdaiah Prathishtana, K.R. Nagar at the Parishat premises in Vijayanagar 1st stage here yesterday.

“I had heard of Piteelu Chowdaiah, but never knew Ambarish was his grandson till I married him. A few days after our marriage, while going in a car on Sankey Road in Bengaluru, Ambarish showed me the Chowdaiah Memorial  Hall built in memory of his grandfather.  

At the outset, I did not believe it as Ambarish usually spoke in a lighter vein and jocularly. It was confirmed later that Ambarish was indeed Chowdaiah’s grandson which was never unnecessarily discussed in public,” recalled Sumalatha.

“When I was in Andhra Pradesh, I could not gather much information on Chowdaiah. When acting in Malayalam movies and while discussing on Karnatak music, every artiste used to refer to and praise Chowdaiah. I learnt about his prowess on violin after acting more in Kannada movies,” she said.

Sumalatha recalled that Chowdaiah was once the People’s Ambassador of the then Mysore Province and had composed music for the English Musical ‘Violinst.’ He acted in the lead role for a Kannada movie ‘Vani’ released in 1943 which was the first movie for Pandaribai and Musuri Krishnamurthy too, she revealed.

MLA L. Nagendra, District Kannada Sahitya Parishat President Dr.Y.D. Rajanna, former President M. Chandrashekar, Information and Broadcasting Deputy Director Dr.T.C. Poornima, Theatre Artist Rajashekar Kadamba and others were present.