Tumkur Sunandamma ( kn, ಟಿ. ಸುನಂದಮ್ಮ, born Tumkur, 1917 – died

Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

, 27 January 2006) was an Indian writer and humorist in the

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

language. She was a recipient of the Karnataka Sahitya Academy Award.

Early life

Sunandamma was born in Tumkur, Mysore in 1917. She belonged to a distinguished family of the

Kingdom of Mysore The Kingdom of Mysore was a realm in South India, southern India, traditionally believed to have been founded in 1399 in the vicinity of the modern city of Mysore. From 1799 until 1950, it was a princely state, until 1947 in a subsidiary allia ...

, her father T. Ramaiah being a senior civil servant. Despite social strictures against the education of girls at the time, she studied up to high school. The lone girl in her class, she outperformed the boys, leading to considerable pressure from their parents to have her removed from the school. She was married off at the age of 11.

Career

Sunandamma began writing

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

for a children's magazine, ''Makkala Pustaka

while still a child. At the age of 25, her articles began to appear in the newly established humour magazine ''Koravanji'', receiving critical praise. When she moved to

, her observations of the Middle class, middle-class lives of her neighbours, in particular the women of

Basavangudi Basavanagudi is a residential and commercial locality in the Indian city of Bangalore. It is located in South Bangalore, along the borders of Jayanagar. The name "Basavanagudi" refers to the Bull Temple, which contains a monolith statue of the ...

, began to inform her writings. They were lauded as ''potent and pungent''. Sunandamma wrote radio plays for

All India Radio All or ALL may refer to: Language * All, an indefinite pronoun in English * All, one of the English determiners * Allar language (ISO 639-3 code) * Allative case (abbreviated ALL) Music * All (band), an American punk rock band * ''All'' (All a ...

. Several of her works were adapted by others for the theatre. ''All's well'', an English reworking from a Kannada play by Sundar based on Sunandamma's short story ''Aadaddella Olithe…?'' was directed Pramod Shiggaon and presented in 2008. ''Heegadre hege?'' written by K. Y. Narayana Swamy and directed by Pramod Shiggaon, was performed in Bangalore in October 2011.

Honours

Sunandamma was the first writer to receive the

Daana Chintamani Attimabbe Award The Daana Chintamani Attimabbe Award (or Attimabbe Prashasti) is a literary award dedicated for woman writers in the Indian state of Karnataka. The award was established in 1995 by the government of Karnataka. It is the highest literary honour fo ...

in 1995 by Karnataka Government. In 1979, Sunandamma was elected the first president of the Karnataka Lekhakiyara Sangha (Karnataka Women Writers' Association). She received the Karnataka Sahitya Academy Award in 1981. In 2004, she was awarded the Anupama Prasasti, a literary award from the Karnataka Women Writers' Association.

Selected works

* ''Jambhada cheela'' * ''Bannada chitte'' * ''Pepparamentu'' * ''Muttina chenda'' * ''Ruuddi gaadi'' * ''Vriksha vahana'' * ''Nanna attegiri'' * ''Dr M. Shivaram'' – a biography * ''Tenali Ramakrishnan'' – a children's biography * ''Samaya Sindu'' * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sunandamma, T Women writers from Karnataka Indian humorists Kannada-language writers 1917 births 2006 deaths People from Tumkur Women humorists 20th-century Indian women writers Indian women children's writers Indian children's writers 20th-century Indian poets Indian women poets 20th-century Indian dramatists and playwrights Poets from Karnataka Indian women dramatists and playwrights Dramatists and playwrights from Karnataka