True Leader of Rural Development Obscure village Nandalike turns into cultural Bee-hive Nandalike Balachandra Rao and Team usher in Rural Development
In an ideal instance of rural development initiatives are taken by local leadership especially from among the youth. It was against such a background that Balachandra Rao of Nandalike, a remote, obscure and thoroughly undeveloped village in Karkala Taluk, Dakshina Kannada District provided astounding leadership to transform his village in a few years into an enlightened locality buzzing with myriad activities like promoting transport and communication, health care and schooling, literature and culture.
Nandalike was the birth place of poet Lakshminarayanappa of late 19th century, known mostly by his pen-name Muddana, which he had adopted in his spirit of utter modesty and unwillingness to attract attention. As a physical education instructor in a High School, a drill master in plain terms, he remained for a long time unidentified as the author of Sri Ramashwamedha and other celebrated literary works. As a result, the people of his birth place were steeped in ignorance of the fact that a great son of their village was the forerunner of Kannada Renaissance endowed with astute scholarship and deep knowledge, of whom any community could be justly proud.
Balachandra Rao, born in Nandalike in 1953 (12th March), was destined to play a pivotal role in turning a village lost in slumber into a living hamlet imbued with a spirit of harmony, friendship, cooperation and deep cultural bond.
As an undergraduate student of Government College, Mangalore, he studied portions of Muddana’s works and learnt about the poet’s greatness. Coming from the same village, Balachandra Rao developed an indomitable urge to make the place a true memorial to the bard who had spread the fame of his village far and wide, which, however, ironically, had remained obscure and backward in every respect.
Not that nobody in Nandalike was aware of Muddana till Balachandra Rao stepped in. The Muddana Smaraka Raitha Sangha (Muddana Memorial Peasants’ Association) had been started in 1958. Smt Seetahamma Heggadthi of the village had donated a piece of farmland for the construction of an independent building for the Raitha Sangha. Youth leaders of the locality had launched the project in all earnestness. The foundation stone for the building had been laid by the well-known social and political leader T A Pai. But the project suffered a severe setback with the untimely demise of Bhasker Rao, elder brother of Balachandra Rao, who was also a promising youth leader. The cause of Basker Raos’ death was lack of facility for timely medical treatment for typhoid, from which he was suffering. Balachandra Rao, who came to know of this later, was determined with the fervor to see that nobody should suffer such a fate in future. His first priority now was to get medical care facility provided in his village. This needed first of all a road to the village and facilities for conveyance and transport. There were elderly people like Sundar Ram Hegde, youth leaders like Suhas Hegde who lent active support to Balachandra Rao in his incessant efforts to pursue his project to its success. There was no end to his efforts in terms of meeting people that mattered, the amount of correspondence that he made, and the number of journeys that he undertook for the purpose of convincing the authorities of the urgency to implement the project, the support needed for the completion of the project in terms of permission and grants. It meant the sustained and continued striving of Balachandra Rao by way of making appeals to every officer in charge and exerting pressure on every department and section of administration to provide the required support mainly in the form of financial grant. Local leaders, MLA.’s, officials at all levels were approached for help. He was like Bhagirath in making every effort that was needed to make his dream a reality. It was not for personal gain that he left no stone unturned, but for upholding the identity and dignity if his village as the birth place of a very distinguished poet in Kannada. It was nationalism at the grass root level. It was the undaunted pursuit of Balachandra Rao and his able team that the following projects materialized that mark the history of this village that has transformed itself from obscurity to distinction.
In 1973 a nearly 5 km long motorable road was constructed to connect Nandalike with the main Road in Palli at a cost of Rs 6 lakh 75 thousand granted by the Karnataka Government. In the same year another road was provided to the Harijan colony in Nandalike. This project materialized at a cost of Rs 5 lakh.
Two years later a bus-stop was provided in Nandalike at a cost of Rs 75,000 as an amenity to passengers waiting to board a bus.
In 1982 the long felt need for medical care was met, with the construction of a hospital named after N D Krishna Rao on a two acre site granted by the government. The year also saw the auspicious event of inauguration of Bus transport facility between Nandalike and Karkala or Mudubidire.
In the same year the Mithra Mandali of Nandalike collaborated with the Administration of the Mahalingeshwara School in celebrating the Golden Jubilee of the school.
The project of constructing a building in memory of Poet Muddana materialized at last in 1982 at a cost of Rs 8 lakhs. In 1985 with the willing help of NSS volunteers of 10 colleges under the fold of Mangalore University a Muddana Memorial Grove was raised in Nandalike, with more than 2000 saplings of fruit-bearing trees planted. This has become a pride of the place, a fitting tribute to the poet in a novel way.
In 1986 development projects were carried out in the Mahalingeshwara School campus at a cost of about Rs 2 lakh.
In 1987 the great dream of the village was realized with the completion of the 3 lakh project- the Kavi Muddana Smaraka (Memorial) building. The Karnataka Government supported the project with a grant to the tune of Rs 2 lakh and the Mumbai Karnataka granted a support of Rs 1 lakh.
On the occasion of the Decennial of Muddana Memorial Mithra Mandali in 1987, 10 eminent writers of Kannada were honoured.
In 1988 Sri Radhakrishnayya, son of Nandalike Muddana was honoured under the auspices of Kannada Mitra Mandali.
An ambitious project of publishing all the works of Muddana was launched in 1995 to promote the study of Muddana by the general public. The Ramashwamedha and Adbhutaramayana, both prose epics in old Kannada based on the Ramayana and two Yakshagana Prasangas ‘Rathnavathi Kalyana’ and ‘Kumaravijaya’ are the most important works of Muddana.
In 2004 the Silver Jubilee of the Mithra Mandali was celebrated in a worthy manner and to suit the occasion 25 distinguished scholars were felicitated. In 2006 the ambitious project of publishing the text of Ramashwamedha with a commentary was taken up. A special foreword was written by Dr Padekallu Vishnu Bhat. This special publication was released on the occasion of the Akka Sammelan in the USA. The Project cost around 10 lakhs raised as donation from the public.
Between 2007 and 2019 31 literary men were presented with Muddana Memorial awards in recognition of their distinguished contribution to the study of Poet Muddana.
In 2017 on the occasion of 150th year of Muddana’s birth, the Postal Department was approached with a request to issue a commemoration stamp and First Day Cover. It marked national recognition to a Kannada Poet when the special stamp and the First Day Cover were released.
During 2017- 2019 another ambitious project was undertaken for the reprint of all the works of Muddana and to bring out recordings of Muddana’s Yakshagana prasangas sung by eminent Yakshagana Bhagawaths. Muddana memorial programmes were held in 150 different schools and colleges of Udupi and Dakshina Kannada Districts and was a special way of promoting the study of the poet.
The Muddana Memorial Mithra Mandali is active even today in helping the memory of the poet to remain green in the minds of the people of Nandalike and the villages in the neighbourhood. The Muddana Memrial Building reverberates with a variety of cultural programmes like Yakshagana Tala Maddale Sessions, seminars, Award presentation ceremonies and performances of Yakshagana. The Muddana Memorial Library is devoted to the service of the readers. The Muddana Vana serves a special tribute to the memory of Poet Muddana, where the luxuriantly grown fruit trees are a standing testimony to the greatness of the poet.
These ambitious projects materialized indeed with the collective contribution of the Government, philanthropists at home and from outside and the willing cooperation of local citizens, youth leaders, officials, legislators but the driving force of the projects, the spirit of visualization and conception of the projects, the motivation behind them, the initiative to move heaven and earth to make the dream of a project a reality, and the leadership to organize events to immortalize the memory of the late poet extra ordinary came from Nandalike Balachandra Rao who deserves national recognition for his indefatigable task of achieving an all-round renaissance of a sleeping village Nandalike.