Date:15/04/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/04/15/stories/2007041517940500.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

The spirit of Karnataka lives in them

Staff Reporter

BANGALORE: No sooner than the team of artistes from Ramanagaram took a breather after a power-packed, hour-long `Dollu Kunitha' performance came a request from an onlooker. "I have come here all the way from Bidar to see this. I know you are tired, but please do it again." "All right. We will not disappoint you," a member of the Kempe Gowda Dollu Kunita said good-naturedly and performed their last piece of the day.

"We get really inspired by such requests. We don't get tired and we dance the whole day," said Basappa Gowda, who is with another Dollu Kunita team from Tarikolla of Bijapur district.

Such was the spirit of most of the folk arts teams that took part in the procession of the portrait of B.R. Ambedkar from Mysore Bank Circle to Vidhana Soudha on the occasion of Ambedkar Jayanti on Saturday. For over an hour, the area reverberated with the sound of their music and percussion. The Government had brought in a whole range of folk artistes — the Dollu Kunita team from Bijapur in the north to a Veeragase team from Mysore in the south and Mahatma Gandhi Mitra Mandali team from Bellary district in the east to Khande Kunita team from Karwar in the west. The performance of the teams reached the apogee when they reached the Vidhana Soudha where the procession came to end.