Years ago, Shamanna was known to me as a character in Poorna Chandra Tejasvi’s Annana Nenapu , which was then published in parts in Lankesh Patrike . Later, when I moved to Shimoga, I saw Shamanna many times in various programmes. I had no occasion to interact with him. In the year 2007, I was working for a Kannada daily Namma Naadu in Shimoga. Since it was a daily evening paper, we used to be busy sending the paper to print in the afternoon. On one such afternoon, someone called the office landline to check if Tejasvi passed away. We tuned into E-tv and it was flashing news of his demise. The camera panned towards Shamanna, who was taking his friend’s last photos. I came in contact with Shamanna during the same period. Vasanth Bannadi had asked me to interview Shamanna and write a piece on the days he spent with Tejasvi for his ‘Shabdaguna’, a periodical. I requested my friend and activist Manjula to take me to Shamanna’s place. After changing two buses and walking for a mile, we reached the place. Shamanna warmed upto us withing few minutes of our meeting, and happily shared his memories of Tejasvi. On my way home that evening, I was lost in the world of Tejasvi and Shamanna’s friendship.
I was not confident of my writing. I wanted to show it to someone before it went to print. I requested G.P. Basavaraju sir, who had known Shamanna for years, to go through it once. He was thrilled and praised my writing. Since they were my initial days as a writer, every word of his appreciation boosted my confidence. Without wasting much time, he said, “Akshatha, I had thought of narrating Shamanna’s autobiography. I could not do it. You do it, we shall publish it in our magazine.” I thought it was difficult for me. I agreed with hesitation. That’s how work on Shamanna’s autobiography, Kadathoreya Jaadu began.
My daily trips to Shamanna’s Bhagavathikere began. There was only one bus – Veerabhadraswamy at 8 a.m. everyday from Shimoga to Bhagavathikere. My conversations with him would continue throughout the day. While narrating his past he would jump from childhood days straight away to his days of Raitha Sangha, so on and so forth. It depended on his mood. Gradually, I found a way to turn this mode to my benefit.
Shamanna’s residence is located amidst greenery mango, chikku, jumbo fruit and other trees. He used to sit under one of those trees and share his memories. As he spoke to me, I could visualise his role as a common man, a farmer, a villager, a family person, a friend at different stages of his life and tried to bring those images in my writing. His different images spread over a long career, have remained intact in my memory and have influenced me to a great extent.
Shamanna is a dear ‘Ayya’ for students of the government school at Bhagavatikere. He involves himself in school activities. Looks for a music teacher for the school and if any important cultural personality visits places nearby he will bring them to school. Whenever he is in the village, he pays a visit to the school and teaches the children a song or reads out a poem for them.
He dons the role of Bommanahalli’s Kindarijogi in the school and hundreds of students run around him. A group of six-seven students came to his house one afternoon. They wanted to exhibit their talents before him. One had learnt a new song, the other was showing off his new painting. Interestingly, a girl had translated the popular Kannada song Nodalli Baninali Moodihudu Malebillu into his mother tongue, a dialect spoken in Lambani tandas (hamlets). He listened to all of them, appreciated, besides offering them sweets. “See how talented our children are. But the influence of globalisation and the competition posed by English schools have made these rural talents lose opportunity,” he said to himself taking a deep breath.
Translated by Sathish G.T.
Namma Shamanna will be released by writer Chandrashekhar Patil on April 24, Karnataka Sangha, Shimoga, 10.30 a.m.
