AGOLDMINEThe late 19th century andearly 20th century saw KGFmines flourishing under JohnTaylor & Sons Company.

2 DECCAN HERALD Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Spectrum statescan

CMYK

MISCELLANY

But now, it is difficult to spot a millet crop.After hearing about Nagappa, I went tohis field and found rare millets crops,”afarmer from Koppal said.

Millets now demand a good price in themarket. But middlemen seem to be mak-ing more profits than farmers. SahajaSamrudha has therefore started a newventure by providing direct market facilityto farmers and linking farmers and foodprocessing units. “Thanks to this vital link,farmers will get a good price for their pro-duce. There are no middlemen involved inthis process,”explains G Krishnaprasad,director of the organisation.

In Haveri district, many farmers arevolunteering to grow millets and theyhave formed an association. Sahaja Sam-rudha has assured all types of co-opera-tion including training, seed selection anddistribution. “This will be a step towardsthe revival of our traditional farming sys-tem. Millet crops are low-maintenance, inthe sense that they neither require chemi-cals nor much irrigation. The nutritionalvalue of millets is also high. Farmer cantherefore get a good income from milletfarming,”says C ShanthKumar of the or-ganisation.Anandateertha Pyati

MAGIC GRAINS A bunch of many millet varieties. Below: Farmer Nagappa. PHOTOS BYTHE AUTHOR

Muddana’smemorial inpoor shapeSOCIETY A memorial built incommemoration of noted poet Muddanaat Nandalike in Karkala taluk is in a stateof neglect. Cracks have appeared on thewalls of the auditorium that is adjacent tohis house, writes HameedPadubidri

Nandalike in Karkala taluk is thehometown of well-known poetMuddana, whose real namewas Lakshminaranappa. Mud-dana was his pen name. A me-

morial built in honour of this great poet isin a state of neglect 23 years after it wasbuilt.

The foundation stone to the poet’s me-morial was laid on January 24, 1958, tomark Muddana’s birth anniversary, by thethen Union minister T A Pai. And then, agood 29 years after the foundation stonewaslaid, thememorialwas inaugurated. Itwas on May 16, 1987 that Veerendra Heg-gade(ofDharmasthalafame) inauguratedthe memorial at a programme presidedover by none other than poet and thinkerShivaram Karanth.

Now 23 years later, the memorial is inpoor shape. Not that there is any dearth ofrespectforthepoetamongpeople.Nanda-like’s only claim to fame has been that it isthe birthplace of the poet.

The proposal to build an auditorium in

honour of the poet came from people ofNandalike in 1956. A local philanthropistSeethamma Heggadathi donated a placefor the auditorium. A well-equipped audi-toriumwassetupwiththehelpoftheKan-nadaandCulturedepartment, thetourismdepartment, the district administrationand Veerendra Heggade. There is also a li-brary in the auditorium.

But the problem today is that cracks areappearing on the auditorium’s walls, be-cause of poor maintenance. Adjacent totheauditoriumisthehousewherethepoetlived. The name plate which said it was the‘KaviMane’orthepoet’shomehasnowdis-appeared.Muddana’skin live inthehouse.The tree under which Muddana sat andnarrated many stories to his audience canbarely be recognised today.

FormerChiefJusticeofAndhraPradeshHigh Court N D Krishna Rao’s childrenhavedonatedsixacresof landatNandalikein memory of the Justice to the govern-ment. A primary health centre has beenbuiltontwoacres.Therearestill fouracres

Power of milletsHe has grown 31 varieties of millets; thattoo on only two acres of land! All the cropsare in the harvesting stage. Farmersaround this village have visited the field ofNagappa Nimbegondi and appreciatedhis venture.

Five years ago, Nagappa, farmer ofMakari village, Haveri district, dependedonly on commercial crops. He used chem-ical fertilisers and pesticides a lot in hisfield. He grew BT cotton also. But, afterthe harvest, he realised he could not makemuch profits. Fed up with this situation,Nagappa decided to search for alternativecrops.

Meanwhile Ishwarappa Banakar, afarmer of Hireyadachi village ofHirekerur taluk, established a millet seedbank in his house. This inspired Nagappato switch over to traditional farming. Heparticipated in the field visit day organisedat Ishwarappa’s field and was impressedby varieties of finger millets.

Without wasting much time, Nagappascoured for seeds and Sahaja Samrudha,the organic farmers’association, providedsome varieties of millet seeds. He sowed31 varieties of millets which are all now inthe harvesting stage. Recently a festivalwas organised in Nagappa’s field and hun-dreds of farmers took part in this uniqueprogramme. Farmers found rare varietieslike Underaagi, Kariddi raagi, Bondaraa-gi, Makariraagi, Vidaluraagi, pearl millet,Kodo millet, Proso millet and others.

“I have collected all the good qualityseeds from every crop and these will beused for the next sowing season. I havesuffered because I couldn’t procure goodseeds during the previous years. Today, Ihave made sure that the seeds from myfield are conserved,”says Nagappa Nim-begondi. “I remember seeing a lot ofthese millets crops in my childhood days.

Every dropcounts

An excellent water utilisation ex-periment is in progress in vil-lagesinandaroundSaligramain

KR Nagar taluk. Excess water fromtanks that runs away is now beingchannelisedintofarmers’fieldsbywayof canals.

Tanks such as Hunasekatte andGendekere in villages like Doddakop-palu and Mundur near Saligrama arefullduringtherainyseason.Thewaterthatoverflowsfromthetanksrunsintonearly 70 to 100 cusecs.

This excess water eventually joinsthe Chamaraja Left Bank Canal ofSaligrama.

Thousands of farmers in the bor-derareasofKRNagarconstituencyin-cluding Bettahalli, Mundur, DoddaKoppalu,Devitandhre,Melur,Senabi-nakuppe, Tandrekoppal, Katnal,Kodiyal,Kallimuddanahalli,Yelemud-danahalli, Bachahalli, Moodala Bee-

du, Kenchanahalli, Maluganahalli,Sheegavalu, Kurubahalli, Karpu-ravalli, Sankanahalli, Narachana-halli, Hosa Agrahara, Batigana-halli, Hanumanahalli andBeechanahalli Koppal all dependon the Harangi Left Bank Canal.

Onlyafewhundredfarmershaveaccess to water for irrigation, how-ever. The tail-end farmers of thecatchment area have not been ableto raise any crops in spite of thepresence of the canal.

There were promises from legis-lator S R Mahesh that the problemwould be solved.

Accordingly, a head regulatorhasbeeninstallednearthebundsofGendekere and Hunasekatte tanksin Doddakoppal village nearMundur.Also,aone-and-a-halfkilo-metre canal has been built to allowwatertoirrigatenearly7,000acres

REMEMBERING A POETMuddana memorial hall atNandalike in Karkala taluk.Right: The tree under whichhe regaled his audience.Below: A painting of the poet.

of landremaining.TheMuddanaSmarakaMitra Mandali has sought that a sportstraining centre and a playground be madeonthislandinmemoryofthepoet,whowasalso a physical training teacher.

There is a statue of Muddana in Manga-lore. The MGM College in Udupi givesawaytheMuddanaPoetryPrizeeveryyear.At Nandalike, the poet’s birth anniversaryis celebrated by the Mitra Mandali therewiththehelpofthelocalschoolauthorities.The Kannada Sangha in Moodabidare’sKantavara also gives away the MuddanaSahitya Prashasthi every year.

Muddana is said to have served in someschools in Udupi district. There is an audi-torium built in his memory in Udupi’sChristian High School. And yet, in spite ofall this, thedistrictadministrationseemstohave neglected the memorial built for thegreatmaninhishometown.Thepoet’sad-mirersarehopingthatsomepositiveactionis taken in this connection.

BOON FOR FARMERS Extra water from Hunasekatte and Gendekere near Saligramais being channelised into the fields.

AGRICULTURE Excess water from tanksin KR Nagar taluk is being channelisedinto farmers’ fields, thereby savingnearly 70 to 100 cusecs of water. Anexample of optimal use of resources,reports Saligrama Yashwanth

of land. The expenditure on the canal hasamounted to Rs 70 lakh.

As much as 350 metres of deepcut con-struction work has been taken up in thebuilding of the canal.

This has ensured that excess rain waterflows into the canal. Hundreds of acreshave been irrigated thanks to this simpleproject, explains Harangi division’s Assis-tant Executive Engineer Ningashetty.Farmers in the region are, needless to say,thrilled by this development.

They believe that a similar system, if put

THE FOUNDA-TION STONE TO

THE POET’SMEMORIAL WAS LAIDON JANUARY 24,1958 TO MARK HISBIRTH ANNIVERSARYBY THE THEN UNIONMINISTER T A PAI.

As the incense slowly burns...Agarbatthi,thethin,small incensestick

withitsall-pervadingfragranceholdsa special place in our daily lives. It is

indeeddifficult to imagineitsabsence!Theincense sticks have a demand equal to thatof flowers, to say the least.

Though available easily, the making ofagarbatthis involveshardeffortbyseveral.Also, the process requires a large amountof bamboo stems and branches. With theforest cover fast receding, it is difficult toprocurebambooformakingincensesticks.The thin sticks are rolled on a paste of in-cense and then dried.

AtribalcommunityatArasalunearRip-ponpet in Hosanagar taluk of Shimoga isengaged in cutting bamboo and slicingthick bamboo poles into thin strips, usefulformakingincensesticks.Nearlyfivetosix

tribal families venture into the forest earlyin the morning and cut the required quan-tity of bamboo spelt out by contractors.They bring the cut bamboo to their shedsprovided by the contractors and spend theentiredayslicingthepolesintostripsofreq-uisite measurement, with a sharp knife.Thoseskilledactually insertthestripsinbe-tween their fingers during the work! Yet, aslip spells untold disaster.

Abundleweighingonekgofthesesticksfetches Rs six for the worker. The childrenin these families attend a nearby schoolduring daytime and help their parents attheirleisure.SaysSiddappa,“Thisisourvo-cationandweknownootherwork.”“So,weshall continue with this job,” the tribalmakes it clear. Several such Siddappas areworkinginthis industry.HailingfromKar-

war and Chikmagalur, they reside in thesheds provided by the contractors the en-tireyearandvisit theirhometownsonceortwiceduringfestivals.Restofthetimetheywork under licensed contractors, cuttingbamboo stem and slicing it into thin strips.

The remaining portion of the bamboopole is sold by contractors as fuel; there ismore waste than utility here!

However, their hard work is bringing onaquickdeclineinthebambootreesdeepin-side the Malnad forests. The day is not farwhen not a single bamboo shoot will beavailable. It is high time the forest depart-ment took steps to contain the wanton de-struction,whilealsoformulatingaplanforbamboo cultivation at the earliest.Soma M Ghatta(Translated by B S Srivani)

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Muddana’s works

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■Ratnavathi Kalyana, SriramaPattabhishekha, Adbhuta Ramayana andSriramashwamedha are his importantworks.

■The poet died at a young age aftersuffering from an illness.

■Muddana was a great lover of theYakshagana. He has composedYakshagana episodes such asKumara Vijaya.

in place at other tanks in the K R Nagar re-gion, could help irrigate vast areas of land.

Irrigation department officials pointout that if the Hunasekatte and Gen-dekere tanks are de-silted and the en-croachments of the tank area are avoided,more water can be stored and made use ofby farmers. In spite of so much waterchannelised into farmers’ fields, there isstill water flowing to the Harangi LeftBank. The farmers in the region haveproved that if there is a will, there is indeeda way. And a canal.