Puneeth Rajkumar, the multifaceted personality he was, had co-authored a coffee table book, biography of his father, Dr. Rajkumar. Though the project started when the thespian was alive, it evolved into a passionate project after his passing.
“It was cathartic for him to be consumed by work for the book after his father’s death. It helped him come to terms with the loss,” said co-author and Puneeth’s friend, Prakruti N. Banavasi.
In pictures | Puneeth Rajkumar’s final journey
“Puneeth asked me to work on a biography in the late 1990s, but I took it seriously only a few years later. We collected 8,800 photographs and wrote over one lakh words, which was eventually edited down to a book of nearly 300 pages with 1,750 rare photographs some of which had never been published earlier,” he recounted.
Money donated
The book, ‘Dr. Rajkumar - The Person Behind the Personality’ was released in 2012 by Paravatamma Rajkumar. “While Puneeth bore all costs, every rupee the book earned was donated to government Kannada medium schools,” said Mr. Banavasi.
