The richness, originality, and euphony of his poetry, his preternatural feel for the Kannada language, and his charismatic personality would result in him being hailed as a Varakavi (lit.

A multidisciplinary genius, his library is said to have held books spanning 102 subjects, including Quantum Physics, Mathematics, and Physiology.

[5] Recognized as Karnataka's Kavikula Tilaka ("Crown-jewel among Kannada Poets") by Udupi's Adamaru Matha, he would also be called a Kāvya Gāruḍiga (~ poet-sorcerer)[6] for his ability to create magical poetry.

The Bendres, also known as Thosars for some time, originally belonged to Kumbaru, a village in the Colaba district of Maharashtra, but a series of migrations which took them to Kalasi, Nasik and Tasgaon would see them finally settle down, along with the Lagu family, their patrons, in Shirahatti, a town that was formerly part of the princely state of Sangli and is now a part of Gadag district, Karnataka.

Bendre's paternal grandfather, Appashastri (called Appabhatta) (1840–1914), was a Dashagranthi ("Master of ten volumes of sacred lore") who composed several kirtans in Marathi.

Extraordinarily strong-willed, she confronted being cast out by her in-laws following her husband's death (in 1887–88) by moving, on her own, to Dharwad with her newborn child (Bendre's mother, Ambavva) and her two older daughters.

In his autobiographical essay titled 'The High Yoga of Poetry', Bendre says that "deprived by fate of my father's and his family's closeness, it was by direct observance of my mother's and grandmother's conduct that I realised my manhood.

"[9] In a poem he wrote in his seventies, Bendre would pay tribute to Godubai's courage by remembering her as someone who has "fed him [on] tiger's milk".

Patwardhan had taught at the Basel Mission High School in Dharwad and was an influential person in Pune's literary circles.

Through Patwardhan's cousin, K. R. Paranjape, Bendre would come to know Ram Ganesh Gadkari (Govindagraja), a pioneering poet of modern Marathi literature.

This 'Sharada Mandal' would serve as a model for (and sow the seed of) the famous "ಗೆಳೆಯರ ಗುಂಪು (Geleyara Gumpu)", the "literary circle" that Bendre would put together in the years following his return to Dharwad.

Govindagraja too might have exercised an influence on Bendre: the similarity in theme between 'Raatrige (To the Night) and 'Manatali Divasa Ratra' makes this a plausible supposition.

For Bendre, these four gurus were the Irish mystic and poet, A.E., the Lebanese poet-philosopher, Khalil Gibran, "Gurudeva" Rabindranath Tagore, and the Indian revolutionary and seer, Sri Aurobindo.

or Gibran, helped Bendre develop a strong sense of community besides "teaching [him] to love [his] mother" through the exquisite poems of 'The Crescent Moon' collection.

In later years, his visit to the Pondicherry Ashram for a darshana of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother would make a profound impression and influence the trajectory of his post-1956 poetry.

The publication of Gari would cause the floodgates to open, as it were, and the river of lyric poetry that rushed forth – in the form of the collections Moorthi mattu Kaamakastoori (1934), Sakheegeeta (1937), Uyyaale (1938), and Naadaleele (1938) – would overwhelm the Kannada literary world with its newness, innovation, and originality.

[1] In an essay written examining Bendre's "poetics",[14] Shankar Mokashi offers an excellent presentation of the idea of a varakavi.

The early phase, despite being one of experimentation, nonetheless referenced several of Bendre's central poetic concerns and can be thought of as having laid the ground for the poetry that was to come.

However, the poems of Gari show the first signs of Bendre's experiments with Dharwad's "earthy" vulgate as well as his preoccupation with naada or euphony.

This phase involved endless experimentation and resulted in some of the finest lyric poetry produced in modern Kannada literature.

[4]" Like the last two lines of the poem "ನಾನು (I)" say: ""The Nārayaṇa of the lotus-heart has himself turned into the mortal Datta / as Ambikātanaya he mirrors in Kannada the universe's inner voice."

"[16] Later, many years after he had earned the varakavi honorific and was secure in his position as the doyen of modern Kannada poetry, he would say in the foreword to Naaku Tanti: "...to all those sahrudayas who have continued to welcome the poems of 'Ambikatanayadatta,' 'Bendre' conveys his gratitude: that his scribesmanship is not simply a waste, that his happy, wanton singing is not completely fruitless.

With Bendre unemployed for long durations between 1924 and 1942, the burden of managing the family and finances fell on Lakshmibai who bore them stoically.

He appointed Bendre the (unofficial) editor of his magazine, Jeevana, and paid him a monthly sum to help him tide through those years.

[1] Another poem, "ನೀ ಹೀಂಗ ನೋಡಬ್ಯಾಡ ನನ್ನ (Don't Look at Me This Way)", written as a lament at the loss of his daughter Lalitha, is one of 20th-century Kannada literature's most popular as well as critically acclaimed song-poems.

Deeply saddened by Lakshmibai's death (at a time when things were finally beginning to look up financially), Bendre found solace in the company of Swami Nityananda of Vajreshvari.

Bendre had once heard someone say that Dharwad's natural beauty – in particular, its rains and its lush greenness – was capable of making anybody who lived there a poet.

In the foreword he wrote to Chennaveera Kanavi's Nela-Mugilu poetry collection, Bendre would answer this by saying that "despite Dandeli's thick forests having more rain and greenness than Dharwad, not a single poet has come out of the region".

He has, with his own eyes, seen how Dharwad has put back and rebuilt the Kannada [language and culture] that at the beginning of this century was lying waste.

As was his wont from the very beginning, he continued to mingle with all kinds of people, accept invitations to speak from all over, and talk uninterruptedly for hours together.