Siddakatte Chennappa Shetty

Siddakatte Chennappa Shetty in thala-maddale

Siddakatte Chennappa Shetty is a Prominent Yakshagana artist from Bantwal taluk near Mangalore, Karnataka. Siddakatte was well known for his oratory skills in Yakshagana and Tala-Maddale.

Personal life

Siddakatte is the second son of Vasu Shetty and Lingamma born on May 8th 1952 at Rayee village. He lost his parents at a very early age. He attended school until he reached to the 5th standard of the Indian education system. Siddakatte chose yakshagana as his career and resided for the rest of his life in "Kalachethana" mavinakatte, Bantwal .

Career

Siddakatte made his debut to Yakshagana in 1965 through Troupe after being trained at Yakshagana kendra dharmashala under the guidance of Kuriya Vittal Shastri and Padre Chandu. He also studied the basics of Karnataka classical music to understand Yakshagana background music and its instruments. Thereafter, he moved to dharmastala,Kadri,bappanadu,Kumble and Madhur mela. Focusing primarily on his oratory skills, he took guidance from Kuthlodi Vasu Shetty, Dr.Prabhakar Joshi, Korgi Venkateshwara Upadhyaya and Dr.Shimanthoor Narayana Shetty. He admired Agari shirinivas bhagawatha for his extraordinary personality, disciplined lifestyle, and practiced so.

Badaguthittu (northern form) invited him because of his popularity in southern form. He made his entry through perdoor mela and after to saligrama. He learnt badagutittu naatya from heranjalu venkataramana. He gained his popularity in badaguthittu too. He was one of the very few successful artists who moved from thenkuthittu to badaguthittu and shone there. He came back to theenkuthittu through Yedaneer mela after being several years in Badaguthittu. There after he was working with Hosanagara troupe.

Shetty was a great collector of books and articles. He had deep knowledge on Ramayana, Mahabharatha, Bhagavatha and few other Indian literatures. He collected more than two thousand books in his personal library. Great voice, clean pronunciation and enunciation, tactical derivation of stories and sub stories from puranas in the conversation, Utilization of proverbs and Sanskrit Shloka at appropriate situation and in timely manner was his few specialties of talk.

Awards

Siddakatte was solicited by different firms in India and in gulf countries. He was awarded with Karnataka Rajyothsava district award in 2009. He was identified as "mathina malla" in Yakshagana and Tala-Maddale world.

Death

Siddakatte died of brain stem stroke on 22 March 2014 at Kasturba hospital Manipal, Mangalore.Thousands of his fan followers and colleagues gathered at his residence for his final rituals.

References

Karnataka Rajyotsava District award ^[1]to Yakshagana, Siddakatte Chennappa Shetty, Deccan Herald

ಸ್ವೀಕರಿಸಲಾಗದ ನಿಧನ ಚೆನ್ನಪ್ಪ ಶೆಟ್ಟಿ ಅಗಲಿಕೆ ^[2] By Dr. Prabhakar Joshi

Veerendra Heggade Condoles The Death Of Yakshagana Artiste Siddakatte Chennappa Shetty^[3]

Yakshagana, Siddakatte Chennappa Shetty^[4] No more, The Hindu

ಸಿದ್ಧಕಟ್ಟೆಯವರ ಅರ್ಥಗಾರಿಕೆಯ ಶಿಸ್ತು ಮತ್ತು ಬದ್ಧತೆ^[5] by ಟಿ.ಎ.ಎನ್.ಖ೦ಡಿಗೆ