Vijay Krishna Itnal: A Multifaceted Actor, Singer And Mimicry Artist

Bengaluru: Vijay Krishna Itnal is an Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering at the Vishwakarma Institute of Technology (VIT), University of Pune Maharashtra. For the official record, he remains a faculty of the well-known and one of the oldest Engineering Colleges. But, apart from that he is widely known for his multifaceted persona in acting, singing and mimicry.

The Penchant of Engineers: Strange it may appear, however, happens to be a stark reality. Many Engineering graduates have made it big in the Sandalwood industry, Ramesh Arvind is a Mechanical Engineering graduate while Sudeep holds a bachelor's degree in Industrial and Production Engineering. Dhananjaya had even got a job in Infosys. The number of Engineering graduates in state and national politics makes a big list: Arvind Limbavali, Murugesh Nirani, Shivkumar Udasi, Basavaraj Bommai, Akhilesh Yadav, Arvind Kejriwal...

No big surprise: Going by the peculiar trend it looks like no big a surprise that the Mechanical Engineering Assistant Professor Vijay Krishna Itnal blossoming into a multifaceted personality of a variety of art forms. He was a street-smart kid right from his childhood days and would recognize the public personalities in the newspapers and periodicals when he was barely two and a half years old. 

The musical journey of Vijay Krishna Itnal: He was born in Athani at his mother's native place on 1st August 1977. He did his Primary and high school education through Kannada medium at Gangavati, Bidar, and Kalaburgi, BE from Gulbarga Varsity and M Tech from VTU Belgaum through PDA Engineering College Kalaburagi. Presently, he is working as an Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering at VIT Engineering College Pune. 

Thanks to his father's service in multiple places: His father Krishna V. Itnal was working with the Life Insurance Corporation of India and as a result happened to serve in multiple locations due to transfer and promotions. In a way, it helped the young Vijay to become acquainted with any number of slangs of Kannada in different places of the then Hyderabad Karnataka region now renamed as Kalyan Karnataka.  His grip over Hindi and Urdu resulted from his family's stay in Bidar and Kalaburgi where even now urdu is the prevailing language. This might have helped with vocabulary, clarity of voice and grip over the usage of the tongue. 

A mimicry artist: He is basically a mimicry artist. While in Kalaburagi he developed the art of writing one-act plays based on humoristic topics, particularly parody being the soul of his plays. His art process was exhibited at Kalaburagi during the Sri Ganesh festival regularly. Pramod Desai, basically from the medical field, has been a mentor to Vijay and his friends. Pramod Desai is a versatile actor, who presently stays in Panjim, Goa. 

Pair was popularly known as Ram Lakhan  Jodi: His co-actor was Hrishikesh Ganathe, who now works in the Excise Department at Kalaburagi and was his classmate too. Rakesh Laxmikanth Pallareddy, who played the role of younger brother always is a software engineer currently based in South Africa. Their pair was popularly known as Ram Lakhan  Jodi.

Minimum audience of 700 people! Suresh Tuppad basically from Gadag was another senior actor. The shows were so popular that the minimum audience would be around 700 per play. Unfortunately, Vijay was a victim of Carona and had to be isolated for 22 days in a room in their flat in Dhayari Pune. At this crucial moment, he started singing to while away the time, taking the Carona threat positively.

A boon to singing songs of female singers: His voice modulation in mimicry came as a boon to singing songs of female singers. Now his voice perfectly matches the voice of legendary singer Lata Mangeshkar. He has not given up mimicry. A big break came to him as a boon from Srinivas Keshav of Srini Musicals of Bengaluru. 

Thanks to the daily recitation of Sri Vishnu Sahasranama: Currently, his co-singers are Srinivas Keshav, Ms, Amruta Karanth, a software engineer in Bengaluru, Mrs, Soumya Shaiva of Mysuru, Mrs Nayana Choure of Mumbai, Mrs Jyoti Kulkarni of Pune, Mrs Rajasri Raikote and Aswini Srinivas, both from Bengaluru. For language clarity, the impact might be due to the daily recitation of Sri Vishnu Sahasranama. So far he has given programs in Bengaluru, Mysore and Pune. His riyaj or practice even now is for a minimum of two hours daily in the evening. Apart from this, he is pursuing his Ph. D. too.

Sings in Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Punjabi, Telugu and Tamil...He sings mainly in Hindi and Kannada languages and also a few songs in Marathi, Punjabi, Telugu and Tamil languages too.

-Manohar Yadavatti