Venkappaiah, the greatest storyteller

It is time for me to write about one great character and personality of our
village, Venkappaiah of Hosalli. If one were to conduct a popular vote for the
best entertaining character in our village, Venkappaiah would have won it
hands down. In my opinion he was the greatest storyteller I have ever come
across. He would present each incident in his life in such a fashion that the
audience would be spellbound and will be on their toes to hear more. He had
a never-ending treasure of stories in his basket which he would unravel to
the great delight of the audience of all age-group.
Venkappaiah had a 6+ feet tall giant of a personality and put his physical
strength to full use in doing hard work from morning to night. He had
migrated to our village from a place called Mooralli (three villages) where he
was the Patel of the village. Even after shifting base, his village people did
not allow him to relinquish his post. It was quite unusual for a man from a far
away village to retain his post of patel in his earlier location. But that was the
kind of reputation Venkappaiah had built up.
Venkappaiah had a large land holding of both arecanut plantation and paddy
fields. He had taken the land on tenancy basis. But for all practical purpose,
he was more than a land-lord. His house in Hosalli was like a fortress. He had
two sons from his first wife. The first son Thimmappa was a classmate and
close friend of my eldest brother. After the death of his first wife
Venkappaiah, had remarried and had children from her. His son from the
second wife, Srinivasa, was in my age-group.
Even the second marriage of Venkappaiah was a path-breaking event. He
actually did a seemollanghan in the process. What I mean here is that he
had a cross border marriage. The girl was from South Kanara district which
was under the erstwhile Madras State at that time. In those times all the
marriages used to be within the community without exception. Our
community people were located only in Sringeri, Koppa, Kalasa, Thirthahalli
and Hosanagara areas. In fact many of the brides used to be from the same
village. The adage variety is the spice of life did not hold good at all!
But Venkappaiah had the courage to break this tradition. There was another
catch. It was the name of the bride. Our community owed strict allegiance to
the Sringeri Mutt. The name of Sharadamba always carried great respect and
reverence. The moment Venkappaiah told that the name of the bride was
Sharada, everybody was quite happy. I wish to add here that both my
mother and first sister-in-law also carried the same name. Years later I was
also destined to follow the foot steps of Venkappaiah and married a girl from
South Kanara. But then the times were different and indeed it had been
accepted that variety was the spice of life!

Our village had a perfect community-living system in those days. Most of the
work connected with agriculture and preparations for the rainy season were
conducted through a system of sharing the labour. Each household had to fix
a day in advance for the work to be done and inform all the other
households. On the allotted day each household would depute one or two
persons for the occasion. All the deputed persons would join the household
and work for the full day to complete the job. They would be served food
cooked specially for such events. The salient feature of this system was that
even the richest person in the village would participate and do physical
labour along with the poorest. The arrangement was reciprocal and
commitments would be kept up invariably.
One main event held by each household annually was the covering of house
top (roof) with the new arecanut leaves before the onset of the monsoon.
Even though the houses of rich people were having tiled roofs, there would
be some constructions like cowsheds covered by arecanut leaves. The work
had to start early in the morning as it took a lot of time to remove the old
leaves and laying the new ones. The placement of fresh leaves was an expert
job known only to a few in the village. Our Venkappaiah was one such
expert.
As young boys, we used to wait for the arrival of Venkappaiah anxiously. He
used to wear a specially made leather chappal suited to him. As he used to
walk long distances regularly the wear and tear used to be high. We could
make out his arrival from a good distance on hearing the sound of his
chappals. We would shout at the top of our voice that Venkappaiah had
arrived! The news would light up the spirits of one and all. It was always a
familiar sight to see him arrive with two cans and two bags. One of the cans
would be full of creamy milk and the other with fresh curds. One of the bags
would be full with vegetables grown in his home-garden. He would hand over
the cans and the vegetable-bag to us to be sent to the kitchen for that days
use. He would sit down with the other bag and have a cup of coffee. The bag
would contain old clothes to be used while doing the physical labour. He
would change his clothes and move to the roof to start his job in the
company of others.
Once on the roof, Venkappaiah would go full throttle on his job of covering
the roof. Simultaneously he would start unfolding another event in his
colourful and exciting past life. Suddenly all other conversations would come
to an abrupt end. Everybody would keep their ears fully cleared to hear
another incident from the never ending treasure of Venkappaiah.
Venkappaiah would work for the full day till sunset in the evening. In
between he would have a lunch break; but he would continue with story
telling in view of the popular demand. As children we used to sit glued to our
seats or move with Venkappaiah to hear every word of his narration.
It is a pity that none of the stories of Venkappaiah were recorded by anybody
and they are permanently lost to the world. As they were real-life incidents

narrated in great style by Venkappaiah, there is no chance of reconstructing

them in any way. He had faced tough times, great challenges and had come
out successful by his sheer courage and enterprising nature. He could see
them in a light hearted way as recollections from his past. There used to be
tragedies, comic situations, challenges, pathos, joyous moments and what
not. Only a master like him would have the guts to face them and come out
successful every time. I also feel guilty that I do not recollect a single
incident as narrated by him. In our anxiety to hear the next incident, we
simply forgot the earlier ones! But that doesnt prevent me from writing
about him. I will use this occasion to record his greatness to the future
generations to come. Nobody can stop me! So let me continue!
As already mentioned by me above, we had to reciprocate and attend the
similar work at Venkappaiahs house in Hosalli. My father used to return the
favour always personally. But there was one occasion on which he could not;
as an alternative he deputed my elder brother and me on his behalf. We were
in the age group of twenty at that time and had picked up sufficient expertise
in doing different manual jobs. We thought it was a good opportunity to show
our mettle to an expert like Venkappaiah. We told Venkappaiah that father
was not well and he thought it fit to depute two of us to compensate one
Venkappaiah! He was not exactly pleased; but assigned specific job to us and
asked us to proceed. He was a taskmaster when it came to work. But it
would be an understatement if I say that we had it tough! We had presumed
AVL+AVK=V (Venkappaiah); but it was actually like AVL+AVK=V/10. What I
mean here is - output of two of us together was hardly equivalent to a tenth
of Venkappaiah. The only justice we did was probably to the food served to
us as lunch in the noon! We toiled hard till late in the evening and felt greatly
relieved when the final task was accomplished!
In our villages it was customary to recite Sanskrit slokas during lunch time
on occasions like marriages, Navarathri festival, etc. There used to be some
sort of competition in reciting these slokas. The practice was popularly known
as reciting granthas. The granthas would invariably end with Hara Namah
Parvathi Pathaye! or Jai Seetha Kantha Smaran. The audience would
respond loudly shouting,Hara Hara Mahadeva or Jai Jai Ram. It was an
opportunity for people of all age-group to exhibit their talents. Our
Venkappaiah used to recite one peculiar sloka (?), which nobody could
decipher! In fact nobody ever knew in which language it was! I am
reproducing it below from my memory:
Gadi Tingi Nagavaan,
Gadi Tingi Nagavaan
Sarvangi Batthise,
Sarvangi Batthise
Girje Kote Sahukar,
Bahu Dina Samsar
Gadi Tingi Nagavaan!
Gadi Tingi Nagavaan!

In my opinion this was the mother of all granthas! Simply because of the way
it was rendered by the great Venkappaiah and the secrecy behind its origin.
Venkappaiah neither explained its meaning nor its origin. But people
continued to enjoy it and Venkappaiah remained an enigma to our villagers.
I do not remember when exactly this great mans story telling sessions came
to an end. As I moved out of our village with my professional career, I could
not keep a track. Today his sons have constructed new houses in Hosalli and
the fortress like old house stands dismantled. With it the memories of
Venkappaiah have also disappeared. But for many of us he would remain an
evergreen hero, the master storyteller, the one and the only Venkappaiah of
Hosalli. May his soul rest in peace!
A V Krishnamurthy
1st November 2008
Mob: 9845722240
E-mail: avkmurthy@gmail.com
Hi
AVK has immortalized Venkappaiah very deservedly. I feel very sorry none
of his stories our author is able to remember. We appear to have lost a
treasure house. I think our AVK has bequeathed Venkappaiah's skills in story
telling, but in a different way. Venkappiah's skills were oral, but AVK"s skill
are written.
Cheers,
N. Narayanan