By Shobha Rao Smilemaker

Puttur, Oct 20: It was an unusual visit to the simple village of Padumale near Puttur which happens to be the birthplace of legendary folk heroes Koti and Chennaya.

Centuries ago, the district of Dakshina Kannada in Karnataka was covered by dense forests and was inhabited by tribals called Billawas who were experts in Archery. The Billawa community members take pride in the 500+ years old legend of the brave twins Koti (meaning sun) and Chennaya (meaning moon). The courageous exploits of the brave twins have been repeated across the ages in local folk songs called paddhanas.

In spite of being strong, powerful and experts in archery, Koti and Chennaya became great role models because of their life-long battle against injustice, due to the prevailing caste discrimination rules of those times. The spirits of Koti Chennaya are worshipped even now in special shrines called 'garadis' across India and special dance and song rituals called Nema Utsavs are held regularly in their honour.

Our first stop was at the ‘samadhi’ site of their mother Deyi Baidethi which was renovated and open to public on in April 2021.She was an expert herbal medicinal healer and inspite of being fully pregnant, she was summoned by a local ruler called Perumal Ballal to relieve him from intense pain caused by a poisonous thorn. Her medicinal herbs cured his infection and saved the ruler's life. However she died soon after giving birth to the twins and Perumal Ballal promised to take care of her children.

He gave Koti and Chennaya good training and the twins became experts in the use of weapons. The ruler's minister, Budhivanta, got jealous of the growing influence of Koti and Chennaya and repeatedly had provocative fights with them. In a fit of anger, the tyrannical Buddhivanta was killed by the twins. However they managed to escape from jail and went to bravely fight along with other rulers of places like Panja and Yenmur.

In one of the battles that followed, at Yenmur, the young Koti was killed from behind by treachery and his heart broken brother Chennaya killed himself. Before dying they managed to get a truce among the three warring rulers.

Koti and Chennaya used to worship the spirit of Nagaberemaru and we also saw a renovated shrine dedicated to it, next to their mother’s samadhi.

We walked around their area and even saw a well from which some weapons of Koti and Chennaya are said to have been recovered.

Another ancient mud structure that has been well preserved is the Dharma Chavadi. This was the place where the local ruler Perumal Ballal used to meet his subjects to sort out issues and dispense justice.

We were surrounded by around eight hectares of land where Koti and Chennaya world perform Kambala race - the Buffalo race in slushy mud. Mysteriously, till today it has become impossible to cultivate anything on their original kambala land.

On the way back we followed a signboard towards Kovethoota – the birthplace of their mother Deyi Baidethi, but we returned as the narrow slushy roads made it difficult to drive the car. It is better not to visit this place in the heavy monsoon season.

Finally we bid adieu to Padumale village which is the Moola Sthana of the twins and their mother and is revered by the Tulu speaking community. The legend of Koti and Chenneya will become an inspiration across India for their honesty, bravery and truth in facing all their challenges in life!

Shobha Rao Smilemaker has a vision of living in a world where people use their ability to find and make smiles in any situation. She is a lawyer by qualification, a soft skills trainer by passion, a motivational speaker, a freelance journalist, a bestselling author, an avid traveler and founder of 'Smilemakers Trainings'. She can be contacted at www.shobhasmilemaker.com.