Karnataka   

Kaikeri has a different story to tell

Cherishing a great moment: Somaiah pointing towards the ground where Gandhiji held the meeting at Kaikeri village near Gonicoppa in Kodagu during his visit in 1934.

KAIKERI (KODAGU DISTRICT): “Mahatma Gandhi had come here long ago, but I neither understood nor remember what he spoke,” was the reply given by octagenarian H.A. Somaiah at the Kaikeri SC Colony, near Gonicoppa town in Virajpet taluk, on Saturday.

Gandhiji visited the colony in the village in 1934 and had conducted a meeting at Kolbane in the village. It was a big occasion for the members of the “Kembatti” group of people belonging to the Scheduled Castes, one of the principal inhabitants of Kodagu. They follow every aspect embedded in the Kodava culture. It was then known as “Kaikeri Harijan Colony.”

“Gandhiji spoke in English and I did not understand anything of it,” Mr. Somaiah, who is totally deaf, told The Hindu. He could understand the question only after the word “Gandhiji” was written down in Kannada.

He was happily yapping along with a group of children from his colony under the peepal tree. His innocence in not being able to hear what was shouted into his ears as questions turned out to be a good banter to the children who had swarmed him. “I was a small boy like him,” he said pointing towards a 10-year-old boy sitting next to him.

H.S. Seethamma, who is too old to tell her age, recounted the visit of Gandhiji, but would not remember anything.

The colony was attributed a historic status after Gandhiji’s visit. However, except tiled houses replacing the thatched ones of the past, not much has changed in the lives of the inhabitants. Men still work as daily wage labourers.

What is heartening to note is that all children of this generation go to schools nearby. There was not much of an enthusiasm among the residents of the colony when they were asked about elections.

“No one has visited us so far,” is what Shashi, a youth from the colony, had to say when the conversation drifted to elections. But, H.A. Ponnamma, who was fetching water from a mini water supply scheme tank in the colony, struck a different note. “Candidates visit us only when they want votes, they turn a deaf ear to our difficulties,” she said. She said her request for sanctioning funds for the construction of a retaining wall in front of her house had not been considered by any political representative in the last five years. She showed the twin toilets constructed, probably under the total sanitation project of the Government, recently and one of the toilets did not have door and is unusable.

H.N. Muthamma, a former president of the Hathur gram panchayat and currently a member, said that a proposal to put up some monument to perpetuate the memory of the visit of the Father of the Nation was there.

But the plan had not materialised for various reasons. Mr. Shashi endorsed her views requesting the elected representatives to something in that regard.

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