Bengaluru: Teaching Kannada is a service like none to N Gnana Murthy fromRBI Layout in JP Nagar. When Murthy offered to teach Kannada to Thaawarchand Gehlot from Madhya Pradesh, who was appointed the governor of Karnataka recently, Raj Bhavan readily accepted it.
Having tutored the language for over four decades to hundreds of Bengalureans, the 66-year-old is known among his students as Kannada Guru. Having started his teaching career at 24, Murthy has come a long way. He has learnt other languages like Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi and English, mainly because he could easily tutor his respective students to learn Kannada.
“I often reach out to people, and teaching them Kannada through their mother tongue is always a happy experience,” he says. Murthy, who has had experience of teaching bureaucrats, thought of reaching out to Gehlot when he assumed office. “I wrote a letter in Hindi and English to him on October 20 requesting an opportunity to teach him Kannada lessons. I received a call from his office the next day giving me a 20-minute appointment at Raj Bhavan,” Murthy says.
“I began classes for the governor who was quick in learning as I was teaching in Hindi. The class went on for 40 minutes,” he adds. Murthy is expecting another call from the governor’s office to start lessons from where he had left.
