The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : ‘I did it on the spur of the moment’

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‘I did it on the spur of the moment’

Staff Reporter

Man who gouged out his eyes in great pain

Doctor says Karadi is being treated for psychosis
Blind faith made him commit the act

Bangalore: “I did not realise what I was doing. I just plucked them out, unable to control myself,” Mudukappa Karadi, the farmer from Adgagal village of Badami taluk, who flabbergasted everybody by gouging out his eyes recently, told The Hindu on Friday.

Mr. Karadi has been admitted to NIMHANS for further treatment after being referred by doctors at the S. Nijalingappa Medical College of Bagalkot. He has been in news ever since he removed his right eye first last month and then the left eye earlier this week and offered them to the spirit of Digambareshwar (Shankaraiahajja), believed to be a saint in the village.

Mr. Karadi horrified his village by plucking out his right eye on August 28 at the Digambareshwar Math in the village after he dreamed that the saint asked him to do so. He was hospitalised first in Badami, and then in Bagalkot, where he removed the other eye too on September 2.

“I did it on the spur of the moment, thayi, and now I am in great pain. I don’t know what to do now,” Mr Karadi said from his hospital bed.

Mr. Karadi, who has studied up to eighth standard, is a father of eight, the eldest of whom is just 13, a girl named Dyamavva.

Even as NIMHANS Resident Medical Officer V.L. Sateesh said Mr. Karadi was being treated for psychosis, his younger brother Maruti Karadi and brothers-in-law Yerappa Hanumanthappa and Mallikarjuna asserted that he was a creative person.

“He is not insane. He had written a story in his younger days. It was just his blind belief in Shankaraiahajja that made him gouge out his eyes. His family is shattered and his wife has to take on the entire responsibility of bringing up the children,” Mr. Maruti said.

Mr. Hanumanthappa said: “Though my sister Hanumavva along with Dyamavva and Fakirappa (the second child) tried to stop him from rushing out of the house that fateful night of Shravana amavasya, he somehow escaped and reached the math where he removed his first eye.”

Speaking of the incident when Mr. Karadi plucked out his second eye when he and Mr. Maruti were with him in hospital, Mr. Hanumanthappa said: “We could not stop him. He removed the second eye in a flash. Though he did not bleed much when he plucked out the first eye, there was excessive bleeding the second time. He has become weak now.”

Dr. Sateesh said Mr. Karadi was being treated for psychosis.

“He is showing abnormal behaviour, an indication of a severe mental disorder. We hope he will start responding to the treatment in three or four weeks.”

“As his eyes were bandaged when he was brought here, we referred him to the Minto Institute of Ophthalmology. However, we are continuing the medicines prescribed for his eyes by doctors at Bagalkot,” he added.

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