

The actor seems to have learnt from his failures but more needs to be done. The films matched the effort and skills of the actor. In '99' and 'Mugulu Nage', he brilliantly pulled off the familiar pang of heartache. Ganesh played an angry young man fighting to preserve his mother tongue and also a classy, committed lover in 'Geetha'. His strongest performance in recent years came in ‘Geetha’, 'Mugulu Nage' and '99'. Even remakes and a 'Mungaru Male' sequel couldn't bring him back to consistent form.īetween an array of substandard films, the success of ‘Shravani Subramanya’ and ‘Zoom’ held his career together. So apparent was his decline that the poor quality of films like ‘Buguri’, ‘Style King’ and ‘Mr 420’ were dead giveaways from their posters themselves. The industry can be unforgiving about crumbled careers. The unimaginative script wasted efforts of terrific talents like cameraman R Rathnavelu and editor Anthony. His venture into direction with ‘Kool’ turned out to be a disaster. Ganesh’s acting never suffered in these films but his roles felt like clones of each other, offering nothing new to the filmgoers. The failures of ‘Maduve Mane’, ‘Shyloo’, ‘Munjane’, and ‘Sakkare’ proved directors’ inability to write romantic dramas suited to the changing times. It appeared he had no qualms about being stereotyped and that triggered a downward slide in his career. The audience also developed a liking for thrillers, a genre hardly explored by Ganesh. With ‘Bombaat’, the law of averages caught up with him. The film was an attempt to provide Ganesh a mass image but failed terribly due to a plot that ranged from tedious to idiotic.įrom 2010 onwards, Kannada cinema witnessed a small yet significant wave of new-generation filmmakers writing refreshing scripts. Ganesh’s success inspired many from the television field to nurture their tinsel town dreams. His performances were marked by wit, articulate dialogue delivery, and a bottomless pit of energy. Reports said many women threatened to commit suicide when he decided to get married. His roles were quintessentially about youth and romance. They brimmed with drama, attracting the family audience. Ganesh’s rapid ascent made his competitors insecure, with one of the superstars even expressing his displeasure over it in a television interview.ĭuring his prime, Ganesh’s films were visually sumptuous. He gave seven straight hits (‘Chellata’, ‘Mungaru Male’, ‘Hudugaata’, ‘Cheluvina Chittara’, ‘Krishna’, ‘Gaalipata’ and ‘Aramane’) to reignite the era of romance in Kannada in the late 2000s.

The gigantic success of Yogaraj Bhat’s ‘Mungaru Male’ in 2007 turned him into a man with a golden touch, earning him the tag ‘Golden Star’ Ganesh. In ‘Chellata’, Ganesh kickstarted his career as a hero in Kannada cinema with this dialogue: “Namskara, Namskara, Namskara.” Much before he tasted fame in the industry, he was familiar to Kannadigas as ‘Comedy Time Ganesh’, who greeted them with the same catchy line while anchoring the television show.Īs ‘Chellata’ turned 15 on Wednesday, fans on social media reminisced about the time he arrived as a breath of fresh air in Sandalwood.
