In January 2016, we were in our ancestral place Udupi for attending a wedding and visiting a couple of temples on the sidelines. While shuttling between the places, we used to come across a big banner in kannada 'Dr. Shivaram Karanth Theme Park' on the median of NH-17 highway, just before the junction of Kota town.
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| Pool with Dr. Shivaram Karanth's statue |
To quench our curiosity, we very eager to do a flash visit to the place but somehow it didn't materialize for first few days. Later in one of the evenings, we had one hour to spare around Kota and the visit to the theme park was a unanimous choice.
The theme park dedicated to the Jnanapeeta awardee comprises a landscaped garden, a library, an art gallery, an anganawadi and big indoor auditorium. In the garden, there's a small pool with bronze statue of Dr. Karanth in the middle. The life-size statue was made my local artists and one among them is Mr. Janardhana Havanje. The atmosphere around the pond is so serene that one would feel like to sit there for ever and read or write a literary work !
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| Front Facade
The library has a collection of all the works of the author and also book from his personal collections. In the art gallery, they had exhibited painting and photographs from local artists. Most of the paintings had scenes depicted from Dr. Karanth's novel.
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| Art Gallery |
The gallery type auditorium is one of noteworthy feature of the theme park. According to Mr. Havanje it's one of unique venue in the district and Udupi district. Every year during birth anniversary of Dr. Karanth ( i.e. on 10th October) there will be special program to honor noted personalities of Karnataka in the same auditorium. Mr. Ravi Belagere, Salumarada Thinmakka are some of the personalities who have been honored recently.
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| Auditorium |
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Nice to know about the theme park Sandeep! Place looks surreal... You should also Visit Balavana, established by the great writer himself in Puttur near Mangalore. You can have look at it here Shivarama Karanath Balavana, Puttur
ReplyDeleteAlso, I did not get when you said "unique features of anganwadi structure is that there's no differentiation between the walls and the ceilings, providing congenial learning environment for young kids."