G.N. MOHAN writes from Hyderabad: The two people closest to K. Ramdas‘s heart were the writers Krishna Alanahalli and K.P. Poornachandra Tejaswi. Ramdas just could not come to terms with and accept Alanahalli’s death more than a decade ago. And when Tejaswi died in April this year, he saw his death too in that. He went into a depression from which he never recovered.

When I called upon the family recently in Mysore, Ramdas’s wife Nirmala and daughter Samatha showed me a photo album that virtually chronicled the history of the pro-people movement. I asked Samatha why she should not get her father to document his days. The end came before she could broach the idea with him.

He was different, he was straight. That is why he was always criticised. And even the family was used to the brickbats that Ramdas received. “For pappa, criticism is not new. He has lived with all that all his life,” Samatha said. “He was a person nobody could neglect.”

The light has gone out of the movement.