down to full-time theatre activity. Kailasam was a great performer. He never wrote out any of his plays himself, but dictated them to young admirers. His plays are not very significant for their literary merit any more. But they were the torchbearers in the fight for a modem theatre in Kannada. Summing up, it was the liberal outlook of these writers on life and society that shaped the contemporary literary and theatre movement of Mysore rather than any sharpening political and social contradictions developing in the state. This statement of course when viewed in absolute terms will sound controversial and even overstated. It is a statement in relative terms, in comparison with other Indian languages and literature. 122 Numbers 14-15