Nadikerianda Chinnappa

Nadikerianda Chinnappa (1875–1931) was an Indian compiler, poet, translator, army man, police officer, cricket player, singer and philanthropist from Kodagu.

Origins Ancestry The Nadikerianda clan name originated from the words Nadu keri ('Central village') and the suffix anda which means 'belonging to'. Incidentally, Nadikeri is the name of a village in South Kodagu as well. According to a family tree drawn by Nadikerianda Chinnappa himself the earliest remembered ancestors of the clan were Nadikerianda Aiyanna and his wife Mayamma who lived around 1600 CE. This family tree was drawn up in 1918. The most notable legendary members of this clan were Nadikerianda Devayya and Kaaruvanna, the first was a folk ballad hero whose clan was responsible for the Malethirike shrine on top of the Somagiri peak, near the Nadikerianda ancestral house in Karada village. He was cursed by a powerful tantric. Kaaruvanna was his heroic brother who redeemed his spirit. They are considered to be the Kaarana or Kaarona (revered ancestors) of the clan.

Birth Nadikerianda Chinnappa was born in 1875 in the village of Karada, Napoklu naad in Coorg (now Kodagu) to Kodava parents Nadikerianda Aiyanna (not to be mistaken for the early ancestor who had the same name) and Pattamada Ponnavva. They had eight children, four daughters and four sons; Chinnappa was the fifth-eldest, he had two elder sisters, two elder brothers (Subbayya and Kaalappa), two younger sisters and one younger brother. His mother was a lady of the Pattamada clan who knew horse-riding.

Early life Education After matriculating in Mercara from the Central High School he did his F.A.(First Year Arts) from Mangalore. In college he was good at sports, especially in Hockey and Cricket, and in studies. He married his deceased brother Subbayya's widow, Nanjavva, in accordance to tradition, in Coorg and worked as a teacher in Mercara Central High School.

Career In 1899 he joined the revenue department and became a Senebaayi (Shanbhog or Accountant). That year in September he wrote an English poem, 'My Position as Shanbog', voicing his frustration with his job. The following year he became a Revenue Inspector and in 1902 he joined the Coorg Regiment of the army and rose to become a Subedar-Major. When the regiment was disbanded in 1904 he joined the Police Department, underwent training in Vellore and became a sub-Inspector in Kushalnagar. Thereafter he served in Napoklu, Srimangala and Virajpet for some five or six years each until he was made Prosecuting sub-Inspector and posted in Madikeri. Later he became a Prosecuting Inspector in Coorg. While he went about his duties, he witnessed local festivals and listened to folk-songs that were a part of his culture and was fascinated by them. He feared that these traditions and songs that were handed down orally over the generations would in time be forgotten, because of the dominance of the English language, and influence of the cultures of the neighbouring areas. He got acquainted with several folk-singers and often, when he returned after his day's work, he brought them home on his horse. He asked his wife to feed them and having served them local toddy, he got them to sing the folk-songs they knew, as they beat the dudi (small, hand-held, hourglass-shaped Coorg drum), while he transcribed the words of the songs, late into the night. By the year 1922 he had compiled many folk-songs and gathered enough material on the customs and traditions of Kodavas for his book, which he called the Pattole Palame. He also collected nearly 750 Kodava idioms and proverbs for the book.

In the second edition of Pattole Palame (or 'Silken Lore'), published by the University of Mysore in 1975, the editor describes it as one of the earliest, if not the earliest, extensive collection of folklore of any Indian community written in an Indian language by an Indian. he sang his own composition, the poem titled The Coorg national anthem: Swadēsi priya kirtane ('Patriot's hymn'). These gramophone recordings became part of the Linguistic Survey of India collection. (Ramachandrachar 7:1994) Kodava thakk is called Kodaga and it is wrongly identified as being a language of the erstwhile Madras province. The archives don't credit Chinnappa, they simply state that the narrator is unknown. Upon hearing the recording in the Madras museum in the early 1970s, his son, Subbayya, who had known about the recording, recognised his father's voice. Chinnappa's grandson N. S. Nanjappa has since informed the concerned authorities in the University of Chicago about the name of the narrator.

Renaissance Man

Nadikerianda Chinnappa was a renaissance man of his times. He was a compiler, poet, translator, army man, police officer, cricket player, historian, singer and philanthropist.

Poet Although he was best known for his compilation work, the Pattole Palame, he wrote original work in three languages: Kodava thakk, Kannada and English. Chinnappa was also a well-known Kodava thakk poet, his most famous work being Bhagavanthanda Paat, the translation of the Bhagavad Gita into Kodava thakk in the folksong style.