Malgudi Days actress passes away

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">bangalore: the "typical" small-time housewife and mother, with a "homely" face and a fine acting talent: these were the characteristics that endeared godadevi ramkumar to karnataka''s film, television, radio and theatre audiences. "i can''t believe she is not there," her <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">malgudi days</span> co-star chippy gangjee involuntarily declared. the 64-year old actress died of lung cancer at a private nursing home in bangalore on monday. in june, last year, goda completed a radio play for all india radio''s drama division. as she returned home and climbed the stairs, she was panting hard. her younger sister chided her and said: "you should at least go see the gp." though initially diagonised as pneumonia, the family, including goda''s younger brother artist s.g. vasudev, discovered that she had an advanced stage of lung cancer. "she had already seen cancer at very close quarters, as my mother and my late wife died of the same disease," vasudev rued. goda was very brave. even counsellors were amazed at her forbearance. she took a course of chemotherapy, decided another course was not worth it, moved to a small nursing home, about two minutes away from her home in jayanagar, where she died. "she was a wonderful person, a committed theatre activist," actress bhargavi narayan, goda''s fellow national college histrionics club member stated, recalling her sterling performances in t.p. kailasam''s tongue-twisting plays like <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">ammavra ganda, undandi gunda </span>and <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">bahadur gandu.</span> goda started acting in her school days itself and joined up one of bangalore''s early theatre troupes, kalajyothi, based in malleswaram, in the 1950s. her performance of kamlu in kalajyothi''s shows of ammavra ganda drew accolades. she performed as girish karnad''s ailing wife in samskara, based on u.r. ananthamurthy''s novel by the same name, as b.v. karanth''s wife and superstar vishnuvardhan''s mother in his debut film <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">vamshavruksha, </span>based on s.l. byrappa''s novel of the same name and the girish kasaravalli directed <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">mooru daarigalu.</span> "she should have done several more roles, but she didn''t want to get into commercial films. she was very finicky about who she was acting with and what the role was," vasudev said. the most recent glimpse of goda was in the episode "the brahmin" of the shankar nag directed malgudi days being re-telecast on doordarshan. "she played my wife in the story of how a young man worms himself into my family life and business and takes me for a ride," ganjee recollected. from then on, every time he met goda and her businessman husband, gangjee would also joke with him: "hey, watch out, i am also in the line for her!" </div> </div>