Shankar Nag: The Man Who Tried to Build Bengaluru a Metro in the 1980s

“He lived 35 years and packed in enough ideas for a hundred and fifty.”

• How Bengaluru theatre people remember him

Shankar Nag was a Kannada actor, director and theatre maker best known for directing Malgudi Days, the 1987 television series based on R K Narayan's stories, and for playing an auto driver in Auto Raja (1980). Born in 1954 in Uttara Kannada, he won the best actor award at the International Film Festival of India for his debut, Ondanondu Kaladalli (1978), founded the Sanket theatre group with his wife Arundhati Nag, and proposed ideas like a metro and a ropeway for Bengaluru long before the city built either. He died in a road accident on September 30, 1990.

Get into almost any auto in Bengaluru and there is a decent chance his face is on the back. Drivers who were not born when he died still paint him there. I asked one driver why, and he said, simply, that Shankar Nag was the only star who acted like he respected them. That is as good a starting point as any.

His filmography is short because his life was. What follows is his Bangalore story: the films, the theatre, the ideas and the playhouse that now carries his name.

Who Was Shankar Nag?

He was one of the most inventive figures in Kannada cinema and theatre in the late 1970s and 1980s. He began in Marathi theatre in Mumbai, moved into Kannada films, and within a decade was acting, directing, producing and running a theatre group at the same time.

• Ondanondu Kaladalli (1978). His debut as an actor, a samurai-style period film directed by Girish Karnad, which won him the best actor award at IFFI.
• Minchina Ota (1980). His first film as director, made with his brother Anant Nag.
• Auto Raja (1980). The film that made him the permanent hero of Bengaluru's auto drivers.
• Accident (1985). A tense drama about a hit and run involving a politician's son, still regarded as one of the best Kannada films of its decade.
• Malgudi Days (1987). The television series that made him famous across India.

Why Do Bengaluru Autos Carry Shankar Nag's Picture?

Because of Auto Raja, and because of how he was seen off screen. In the film he played an auto driver with dignity, and the drivers of Bengaluru adopted him as one of their own. Over the decades his portrait became a kind of badge on the city's autos, especially around his death anniversary on September 30, when drivers decorate their vehicles and hold tributes.

“Other stars played auto drivers as a joke. He played one as a hero.”

• A Bengaluru auto driver, explaining the portrait

How Did Shankar Nag Make Malgudi Days?

He directed the series for Doordarshan, adapting R K Narayan's stories about the fictional town of Malgudi, and shot much of it in Agumbe in the Western Ghats. The cast included Master Manjunath as Swami and Girish Karnad as his father, and R K Laxman drew the sketches in the opening titles. It became one of the most loved Indian television series of its era, and it still has a devoted following.

What Were Shankar Nag's Ideas for Bengaluru?

He is widely remembered for proposing a metro rail system for Bengaluru in the 1980s, along with a ropeway to Nandi Hills and plans for low-cost housing. None were built in his lifetime. When Namma Metro finally opened in 2011, many Bangaloreans pointed out that he had been talking about it more than twenty years earlier.

• The metro. He reportedly studied systems abroad and pitched an urban rail network for the city.
• The ropeway. A cable car to Nandi Hills, to make the city's favourite weekend escape easier to reach.
• Housing. Low-cost, prefabricated housing for the city's growing population.
• The studio. He set up Sanket Electronics, a recording studio, with his brother, bringing better sound facilities to Kannada film.

What Was Sanket Theatre?

Sanket is the Kannada theatre group he co-founded with Arundhati Nag. It staged productions in Bengaluru through the 1980s and gave the city a serious, modern Kannada stage presence. After his death, Arundhati continued the work, and it led directly to the founding of Ranga Shankara.

How Did Shankar Nag Die?

He died in a car accident on September 30, 1990, near Anagodu in Davanagere district, while travelling to a film location. He was 35. His death was a shock to Karnataka, and his funeral in Bengaluru drew very large crowds.

Where Can You See Shankar Nag's Legacy in Bengaluru?

At Ranga Shankara in JP Nagar, on the backs of autos, and in the episodes of Malgudi Days that still turn up on screens across the country. Ranga Shankara, opened by Arundhati Nag in 2004, is the most direct tribute and one of the busiest theatres in India.

• Ranga Shankara. JP Nagar 2nd Phase. A play almost every day, affordable tickets and a cafe that is a small institution in itself.
• Bengaluru's autos. Look at the back of the next auto you take.
• September 30. His death anniversary, when auto stands across the city hold tributes.
• Malgudi Days. Available to stream, and a good introduction to his directing.
• Accident and Minchina Ota. His films as director, worth tracking down.

What Can Bangaloreans Learn From Shankar Nag?

That ideas do not need permission to be right. He proposed a metro when the city had barely thought about one, built a theatre group without a theatre, and treated auto drivers as heroes in a film industry that mostly ignored them. The city eventually caught up with most of his ideas. It is worth asking which ones we are still ignoring.

Why Does Shankar Nag Belong in People of Bangalore?

Same city, new stories, always.

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