Poets are in that rarefied atmosphere where most of the times a majority of readers do not understand what they write. However, the fact is that the sensitivity and sensibilities they display in their poems do touch the hearts of millions. Their popularity soars when their poems become signature songs like Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘Jana Gana Mana’ or Kuvempu’s ‘Jaya Bharatha Jananiya…’ To this league belongs Nadoja and Nityotsava poet Professor Kokkare Hosahalli Shekh Haider Nissar Ahmed, popular as Prof. K.S. Nissar Ahmed, who inaugurated this year’s Dasara festivities.
Despite his busy schedule, Prof. Nissar Ahmed took time off to speak to Star of Mysore Features Editor N. Niranjan Nikam at the Government Guest House. In this rare, exclusive and candid interview, he spoke in fluent English about Kuvempu, his childhood, his views on current issues and the reasons why he wrote some of the well-known poems like ‘Nityotsava’, ‘Kurigalu Saar Kurigalu’, ‘America America’ and ‘Mysore Zoo’.—Ed
