With furrowed brows, his face evinces fear, as he uncomfortably convinces himself to stay still for a picture. The flash of the camera irritates him, but his pulls it off, gently rubbing his eyes with his coarse, wrinkled hands, as if he was just made to gaze at the sun…..The anomaly is startling.
Stone Age man of the 21st century – Kenchappa Gowda
While his contemporaries around the globe handle hi-tech gadgets overcoming initial jitters, Kenchappa Gowda, a septuagenarian has no clue about the transformation that the world around him has undergone.
How would he, after all over the last 48 years Kenchappa has been living in the heart of a deep jungle in Sullia, about 86 kms from Mangaluru – like a Stone Age man!
Clad in just a codpiece, Kenchappa’s little world is confined to the sprawling forest of Baledi Reserved Forest and a dilapidated structure made of wood and coconut leaves, that he calls home.
Inside this structure, which looks as old as him, Kenchappa sits majestically on a hand-made bamboo cot laid with areca spathes as mattress. He is fully aware that he is in his territory. A hand garden near his ‘house’, meticulously guarded with a stone compound- Kenchappa is happy in his hand-made world.
Rains do unleash cacophony of sorts in his otherwise symphonic life. He has to part from his house and live in tree holes to ward himself off the wrath of rains- Otherwise life is beautiful for Kenchappa.
He lives in Baledi of Miyodi in Markanja village and once in a blue moon when he has visitors coming to meet him, he welcomes them with all the grace, which comes as a huge surprise to his visitors.
Ask him for a glass of water and he is quick to rush to the stream flowing nearby to fetch you water in a coconut shell! There is a Stone Age version available in his ‘home’ for every modern day commodity.
So, why is he in this plight?
Well, nobody has an answer for the same and as far as Kenchappa is concerned, the question irks him, but fighting the irritation back, he only says “This is where I belong to.” Often dodging the question, he brings out the poet in him or the intense nature lover, describing the beauty of the birds, animals, skies, rivers and the trees around him.
But for outsiders, all that they know is that Kenchappa was only 23 when he decided to renounce the life that he was leading and venture into wild.
Man of very few words, Kenchappa says that he could not relate to the world that he was living in and as the beckoning and sway of leading a life in the forest was too strong, he succumbed.
Born to Kudanekodi Doddanna Gowda and Durgamma, as long as he lived in the ‘civilised society’, he worked as an agri worker. All the efforts from family members to bring him back failed.
How does he live?
For the pangs of stomach, Kenchappa visits the nearby villages once in a while, otherwise forest feeds him enough. Whenever he takes food from the nearby villagers, he makes sure it does not turn out to be alms. With no currency in hand, Kenchappa pays back the villagers for food with some forest produce.
So much so that when he has ‘guests’ from the ‘civilised world’ coming over to meet him, Kenchappa does make it a point to give some parting gift- that again would always be a tuber or a coconut shell full of honey or some wild fruit!
Protector of the forest
The locals say that Kenchappa has neither irritated them nor has he ever caused any damaged to the forest.
Instead, they look at him as the protector of the forest. One of the locals says that every time there was a wild elephant rampage, Kenchappa was seen shouting from the tree top, scaring the elephants, thus preventing the rogue elephants from barging into the villages.
Government, schemes, politics, parties, religion ……nothing really matters to Kenchappa, who is happy and contented in the lap of Mother Nature.
