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forests. Matching the colourful route interspersed by nice and
tiny villages enroute was the musical call given by the
transport company staff who used to call passengers listing
the bus stops along the way starting from Shimoga,Savalanga
,Shiralkoppa Sagara the last stop having an extended
hyphenation. Here also my father joined me when I arranged a
camp at Channagiri.Here also we were in need of some good
covered accommodation and a local school teacher came
forward to rent his house for a fortnight. But the first day itself

proved disastrous as the whole house was swarming with bugs
and needless to say the night turned into a nightmare and
robbed of sleep we got up early and began to think of
alternative accommodation. We made friends with one
Mr.Iyengar a Licensed Medical Practitioner and an itinerant
doctor who would travel on different days by bus on different
routes and keep appointments with patients in the villages. He
would visit the patients and examine them and dispense
medicines .So we took his help and prevailed upon the
Inspection Bungalow attendant to spare us a room for 10 days.
At this time I knew there was a large lake some 10 or 15 miles
away called Sulekere Lake and my father and I paid a visit to
the lake and were thrilled to see the vast sheet of water.

My father began to frequent the doctor family at his residence
when I would leave for my work. The secret parleys became
public some time after we left Bangalore. It appeared the doctor
proposed to offer his daughter’s hand in marriage to me who at
that time was hardly sixteen years when I myself would have
touched twenty three. My mother didn’t allow this proposal
any further as I was not ready for marriage myself.

When I was touring these parts like Bhadravathi,Honnali, Male
bannur ,etc a terrible incident occurred. I was camping at a
village called Nallur in Honnali taluk of Shimoga district. On
the western side there were some hills and rocky terrain which
needed to be surveyed for Uranium. On that day when I
proceeded towards a village called Guddathu komarahalli where

the annual festival of Sri Ranganathaswamy’s chariot
procession on Ratha sapthami day was in progress. Suddenly

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