UAE: Well-known writer, poetess from Tulu Nadu, Dr. Sunitha Shetty will be bestowed with ‘Bunta Vibhushana Award’ for the year 2018 during the 44th anniversary celebration of UAE Bunts on Friday, May 11.
The anniversary programme of UAE Bunts will be held in the Ball Room of Hotel J.W. Marriott, Dubai. Main Convener of UAE Bunts, Padmashree Dr. B.R. Shetty will do the honours along with the Chief Guest Shashikiran Shetty, CEO & Managing Director of All Cargo Logistics Global who will be gracing the occasion. World Bunts Federation President Aikala Harish Shetty will also grace the function as Guest of Honour.
Film Actor Ashok Shetty along with Karnoor Mohan Rai will be the guests while famous Namma TV personality Naveen Shetty Yedmar will carry on the entire programme as Master of Ceremony.
Awardee Dr. Sunitha Shetty’s foot prints
Hailing from a small town of Kalavaaru near Mangalore Dr. Sunitha Shetty was born in the year 1939. She graduated from Government College Mangalore in Economics, Political Science majoring Kannada language.
She later moved to Mumbai to join her brother and started serving as a teacher there. After serving there for 10 years she achieved Post Graduation and did her M.A. in Kannada from Mumbai University. Later with an invitation from Mumbai University, she served there as a Professor for over 25 years and got her retirement at the age of 60.
During her time she saw lot of community issues, mainly on the marriage formalities in the society she was living. High ‘dowry system’ was one such issue in the community which resulted with many girls from the low income homes remaining unmarried though they had attained the age of marriage. Looking at these issues and also the atrocities done by a male dominated society, she waged a war against these systems and founded ‘Young Congress Swayam Sevak’ movement. She led the movement and with this she herself decided that she will not marry until the society changes the dowry system. Her movement got such a tremendous response that many young men came forward voluntarily supporting her movement and marrying without demanding any dowry. This lead to the downslide of the ‘dowry system’ and the system changes came to the society in large. Later a youngster came forward and proposed to marry her without demanding dowry. This proposal was then supported by her uncle who arranged for the marriage and today Dr. Sunitha Shetty is blessed with three children.
As a writer Dr. Sunita started with the weekly Kannada magazine ‘Prajamatha’ with her short stories published in the magazine from time to time. Later it got developed as she started teaching the students in her college with poem recitation. She started earlier with poems in Kannada and later she also started writing in Tulu language, which was her mother tongue. Her bouquet of Poems ‘Pingara’ gave her big popularity and later she wrote and published ‘Ninada’, ‘Antharanga’, ‘Payana’, ‘Nanna Doni Ninna Theera’ and various other short stories, dramas etc., and around 23 books are released to her credit.
Dr. Sunitha gained gathered more experience with her travelling to places which improved her knowledge towards literature. She was also invited to America as a Guest of Vishwa Buntara Sammelana. Later years she travelled to Europe, Dubai, Kuwait, Bahrain, Andaman Nicobar Islands, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Nepal and also in and around India. Daring to travel all alone to so many places made her strong and courageous. Blessed with this she shared and wrote her experience in a Book of Tourism titled ‘Pravasiya Hejjagalu’ which received honour of ‘Matoshree Ratnamma Heggade’ Award. Later she wrote ‘Sanskrati Payana’ describing the various art and folklore of various destinations. Looking at the various books she wrote especially about the well-known artiste K.K. Hebbar’s life story, the Sahitya Academy gave her an opportunity to write about Literature, Art, Folk & Tradition in Kannada & Tulu Languages.
Awards & Accolades Bestowed
Dr. Sunitha from the past five decades have been writing and still at the age of 79 going strong with her literature, drama and poems writings. Appraising her work she has been honoured by various Organisations in both Kannada & Tulu including appreciations from the government.
Some of the awards include:
- Veera Rani Abbaka Award in 1998 by Abbaka Prathistana Karnataka
- Jayadevi Thayi Ligade Award in 2012 by Vidyadhar Kannada Prathistana
- Karnataka Kalashree Award in the year 2012
- Siri 2018 Award by Buntara Yane Nadavara Sangha Mangaluru
- Alvas Nudisiri Award
- Guru Narayana Sahitya Award Mumbai
- Dhana Chintamani Athimabbe Award by Government of Karnataka
- Pusthaka Prashasthi Award by Tulu Sahitya Academy
- Khille Prashasthi Award by Khille Prathistana Puttur
- Sadhaka Prashasthi Award by Karnataka Sangha Mumbai
- Sahitya Prashasthi Award by Shree Krishna Prathistana Mumbai
- Nethaji Puraskar
- Felicitation by Vashi Kannada Sangha
- Felicitation by Tulu Koota Kuwait
She was Guest of Honour at ‘Akhila Bharatha Kannada Sanskriti Sammelana’ held in Surat in the year 2012.
Dr. Sunitha always keep encouraging youth and thus leading more and more young writers. She keeps supporting female gender equality and still helping those downtrodden in the society. Her support towards social cause is very well remembered, recognized and honoured even today.
