Balipa Narayana Bhagawatha never played to the gallery, says scholar

MANGALURU

Yakshagana playback singer Balipa Narayana Bhagawatha who passed away on Thursday, was a professional artist par excellence. He lived and flourished, and was active in Yakshagana theatre for nearly seven decades.

The Balipa Gana Yana, a Kannada book compiled by Kannada teacher Nagaveni Manchi, and published by P. Dayananda Pai and P. Satish Pai Yakshagana Adhyayana Kendra, Mangalore University in 2015, has recorded his memories permanently. The book throws light on the life and career of the legendary artist.

Among the interesting incidents, the book talks of how once the singer who did not have any money and travelled from B.C. Road to Mangaluru by hitching lifts from many lorries on the highway. It has recorded how as a boy with an empty stomach he had to watch his grandfather (also named Balipa Narayana Bhagawatha, who was also a Yakshagana playback singer, and popularly called as Ajja Balipa) eating at a hotel in Ullal without offering him any food. Later, he got some food with the intervention of the hotel owner.

The ‘Junior Balipa’ learnt the nuances of Yakshagana and singing under the tutelage of his grandfather (‘Ajja Balipa’). The grandfather passed on the unique Balipa style of singing to his grandson.

K. Chinnappa Gowda, founder-Director of Mangalore University’s Yakshagana Adhyayana Kendra and who was the Chief Editor of the ‘Balipa Gana Yana’, told The Hindu that with the demise of ‘Junior Balipa’ probably the ‘Balipa style of singing’ has become history.

“It was a special style of singing and remains as a benchmark in Yakshagana playback singing,” said Mr. Gowda, a former Vice-Chancellor of Karnataka Folklore University.

Mr. Gowda, also a retired Kannada professor, said: “The junior Balipa Narayana Bhagawatha never played to the gallery. Instead, the gallery itself was created around him for his singing.”