Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (SP)

Mangaluru, Apr 15: Surprisingly, a political science professor in Hampi University  has been performing in Nemotsavas in the coast of Karnataka. Nemotsavas are a part of cultural heritage of Karnataka coast and Kasargod district, in which spirits are believed to manifest themselves through the performers who have to follow a strict regimen, and give assurances, provide reliefs to individual problems and bless the local community.

The professor in question, Sridhar Kantha, hails from Manjeshwar. His father, Dinakar Kantha, was a performer in Nemotsavas.  Dinakar wanted his son to get educated and bag a good job. He did not want his son to pursue his own profession because of the need to maintain strict austerities and other problems associated with it.  Sridhar completed his primary education at Manjeshwar before pursuing high school and degree education in Aloysius college in the city, and completing MA, MPhil degrees through Mangalore University. He then did research and got PHD through Hampi University. Sridhar hunted for job for quite some time before joining Hampi University in 1999.

(Nemotsavas, inset; Sridhar Kantha)

Sridhar came across unexpected upheavals in his life after his father breathed his last in 2006. His health problems could not be resolved by doctors. The family finally approached an astrologer who found through astrological query that the divine powers want Sridhar to perform Nema dedicated to Vaidyanatha Daiva like his father at least once a year to get over the problems.  Sridhar, who was under pressure from family members to fall in line with this advice, was initially hesitant as he had a small experience in this field, having accompanied his father to Nemotsavas. When the committee at Gurpur Vaidyanatha Daivasthana approached him in 2006 with a request to perform there, he agreed to concede to the demand made in astrological query. The committee unexpectedly offered him golden bracelet there, which conferred on him the status of being a permanent performer there. In 1999, Kantha recalls that he had received interview call letter from Hampi University the day he came back home after performing in the first ever Nema of Vaidyanatha Daiva after his father brought pressure on him to do so. He was hunting for a job till then.

Thereafter, Kantha was approached by various Samithis for Nemotsava, but he accepted only a few like Badaje Pilichamundi, Koodelu Vajangalaya,Nettilapadavu Dhoomavathi, apart from Vaidyanatha Daiva of Gurpur.

Kantha recalls that at the advice of his father, he had stayed away from Nemotsavas but some developments within the family made it necessary for  him to change his decision and perform at Daiva Nemas. He says he comes home four to five times every year to perform in Nemotasavas, adding that although it entails a difficult regimen, he gets happiness every time he performs in Nemotsavas.

Kantha's wife, working as lecturer in a college at Vamanjur, has been supporting her husband in performing at Nemotsavas. She was the one who persisted with her husband to change his earlier decision to stay away from Nemotsavas and take part in them.