Kannada Madhura Geetegalu: Ratnan Padagalu

G. P. Rajarathnam (1909–1979), popularly known as Rajaratnam, was a Kannada writer and poet.

G.P. Rajarathnam was from Gundlupet a town in chamrajnagar district, Karnataka. His ancestors are from Tirukkanapur Agrahara of Naga city in TamilNadu. They came to mysore in 1906.

G. P. Rajarathnam wrote many books, but he is best known for his work Ratnana Padagalu, which deals with life as seen through the eyes of Yendkuduka Ratna (Drunkard Ratna). Ratnana Padagalu has been popularized by well-known Kannada singers, and it is still appreciated and admired. Many Kannada movie songs are taken from Ratnana Padagalu.

He wrote poems for children which were called Kannada Nursery Rhymes.[citation needed] K. S. Nissar Ahmed, a prominent poet, said that Rajarathnam understood the minds of children, as well as what they needed. Some of the rhymes are "Naayi Mari", "Taata butti tumba rotti", "Putaani Krishna", "Haavu bantu haavu bantu", "Kuri mari byaa", "Namma maneyalondu sanna paapa", KANDANA KAAVYA MAALE etc. Mysore Ananthaswamy and his son Raju Ananthaswami have composed many songs written by G.P. Rajarathnam.

According to Rajarathnam himself, he had no intention of writing poems for children. But once, he found himself jobless after doing his MA, and stood in for his ailing father who was a Kannada teacher in a school. He was quite distressed to see the kind of poems in the Kannada syllabus for such small children. That evening, while he was sitting and thinking, a poem, "Bannada tagadina tutturi", came to him without his bidding. He was thrilled with it, and taught it to his students the next day, who loved it too. He then went around teaching it to all the children he knew, until finally, it came to a publisher's notice, who asked him to write a few more poems and published his first collection of children's songs.

References:

1. Modern Indian literature, an anthology 2. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi. 1992. p. 645. ISBN 1992 Check |isbn= value (help). Retrieved 2010-01-02.

2."25 works of children's writer G.P. Rajarathnam released". The Hindu. 2008-03-22. Archived from the original on 2010-01-02. Retrieved 2010-01-02.

3."Create awareness on importance of reading books". The Hindu. 2007-07-09. Archived from the original on 2010-01-02. Retrieved 2010-01-02.