November 5th 2010 was a very auspicious day for Kannadigas in AbuDhabi. AbuDhabi Kannada sangha celebrated Kannada Rajyotsava on this day.There was very large gathering even though it coincided with deepavali festival, [Festival of lights]. The main attraction was comedy by Praanesh also known as Gangavathi Beechi and Narasimha Joshi.They entertained the audience with their jokes. Many cultural programs were held like Ghost dance, group songs, folk dance. But the program which attracted me the most was a Bharatanatyam DANCE DOCUMENTARY DRAMA on NATYARANI SHANTHALA by children. It was a treat to all art lovers. The children performed so beautifully that this event is one such special event which will stay in my mind for a very long time.

Though I had it with me, I never heard it even once. After listening them, I loved it so much that I wondered why haven't I listened to them till now. It was through Namitha, I came to know that these beautiful poems were composed by DVG on stone sculptures of BELUR and HALEBIDU temples . The lyrics of all poems are very beautiful. She also came up with an idea that she wanted to show a slide show presentation on rich stone-sculptural heritage of Belur and Halebidu Temples to the audience along with the dance drama. I loved her idea very much. I collected few images of the temples from net and made a slide show. The songs chosen were melodious. Even though I had been to Belur and Halebid, I didn't had the opportunity to enjoy those carvings to my heart's content. This project helped me to know more about the Hoysala Architecture and reminded me of the life history of the great dancer Shantala.

As I mentioned earlier, I also came to know more about DVG or Devanahalli Venkataramanaiah Gundappa. DVG was born in Mulabagilu in 1887. He was multitalented person. He knew many languages. Apart from being a poet, he had knowledge about engineering too. I was surprised to know that he was an assistant to Sir Vishveshwariah when Krishnarajasagar Dam was built, which was the largest dam in Asia at that time.
His philosophical poem called MANKUTHIMMANA KAGGA is very famous. He had translated many western literature to Kannada. He had been associated with freedom fighters too.
This is Kannada version of Mankuthimmana Kagga
ಹುಲ್ಲಾಗು ಬೆಟ್ಟದಡಿ, ಮನೆಗೆ ಮಲ್ಲಿಗೆಯಾಗು
ಕಲ್ಲಾಗು ಕಷ್ಟಗಳ ಮಳೆಯ ವಿಧಿ ಸುರಿಯೇ
ಬೆಲ್ಲ ಸಕ್ಕರೆಯಾಗು ದೀನ ದುರ್ಬಲರಿಂಗೆ
ಎಲ್ಲರೊಳಗೊಂದಾಗು ಮಂಕುತಿಮ್ಮ .
ಬೆಲ್ಲ ಸಕ್ಕರೆಯಾಗು ದೀನ ದುರ್ಬಲರಿಂಗೆ
ಎಲ್ಲರೊಳಗೊಂದಾಗು ಮಂಕುತಿಮ್ಮ .
Dance drama in three parts.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
More Links:
http://www.indiaprofile.com/heritage/hoysalatemple.htm
3 comments:
Mrs. Namitha Ananth is an asset for Abu Dhabi Kannadigas. She with the good support of her husband always comes up with good dance numbers.
I had visited a Jain Temple in Ranakpur, Rajasthan which has lots of similarity to our Belur / Halebidu stone temples. Very fine designed carved on Marble.
Thank You Mr Ravi for the additional information. I didn't have any knowledge about this. Your information helped me to know something new. I surfed more about it in Internet. Thank you very much. Keep sending me such informations in future too.
Awesome...!!
Nice Narration...
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