Kedige Pratishtana Centenary: Honouring Four Local Legends Who Shaped Mangaluru's Culture, Arts and Agriculture

A century after poet-musician Kedige Bhaskar Rao's birth, Mangaluru came together to celebrate four achievers who quietly built the city's cultural and agricultural legacy.

Mangaluru: Some anniversaries come with fireworks. This one came with a poem, a song and four quiet lives finally getting their due.

On Sunday, August 16, 2026, the Lions Seva Mandira at Mallikatte filled up early. More than 200 people, family, friends, Lions Club members, and representatives of Senior Chamber International (SCI), Mangalore, walked in to mark the birth centenary of the late Kedige Bhaskar Rao, a Kannada poet, musician and village leader remembered for shaping community life as much as verse. For readers outside Karnataka, Mallikatte is a well-known neighbourhood near Mangaluru's city centre, and evenings like this one are part of how the coast keeps its cultural memory alive.

The evening, organised by Kedige Pratishtana, Mangaluru, was named the Bhaskara Shatabdi Samsmarana, literally, the "centenary remembrance" of Bhaskar Rao, paired with the presentation of the Laxmi Bhaskara Awards.

An Evening Rooted in Tradition

The programme opened at 5 p.m. with traditional refreshments, followed by a rendition of Ranga Geethe by Team Arehole. A welcome dance by Nidhi and a vibrant pageantry sequence, also by Team Arehole, followed, before the formal proceedings began with floral tributes and the ceremonial lighting of the lamp.

Kedige Pratishtana President Dr. Kedige Aravinda Rao welcomed the gathering and thanked everyone who had contributed to the evening's success.

A quiet, moving moment came with the release of Kedige Huvu, a collection of children's poems written by the late Kedige Bhaskar Rao. The book was released by social leader and cultural ambassador Sudhakara Pejavar, in the presence of family and dignitaries, a fitting tribute to a man remembered as much for his verses as for his community leadership.

The evening was as much a family's tribute to their father as it was Mangaluru's tribute to four people who never sought the spotlight.

Four Lives, Four Kinds of Service

The heart of the evening was the presentation of the Laxmi Bhaskara Awards to four individuals, each recognised for a different, lifelong contribution to the region.

Col. Nithin Bhide has long been a familiar figure to students in the region as Commanding Officer of the 18 KAR BN NCC, Mangalore Group, guiding cadets through training camps at institutions including St Aloysius College and Sacred Heart College, Madanthyar. The Rashtra Seva Nishta Award recognised decades of steering young people toward discipline and national service.

Prof. Dr. M. Prabhakar Joshi is a familiar name to anyone who follows Yakshagana, the coastal region's centuries-old night-long dance-drama tradition. A scholar, teacher, performer and critic, he has also served as co-founder and chief editor of a cultural portal documenting Coastal Karnataka's art forms, and was earlier honoured with the Balipa Award for his work safeguarding Yakshagana's traditions. The Yakshakala Nishta Award placed him alongside the region's foremost custodians of the art form.

Prof. Anantha Padmanabha Rao received the Chitrakala Nishta Award for a career spent balancing classroom teaching with artistic pursuit, the kind of quiet educational leadership that shapes generations of students without ever making headlines.

Kuriyaje Tirumaleshwara Bhat, a farmer from Bellare Kodiyala village in Sullia taluk, received the Krishi Seva Nishta Award for exemplary agricultural leadership. He has been known in farming circles for turning his own homestead into a model of imaginative, sustainable cultivation, inspiring other farmers in the taluk to experiment with their land rather than simply work it. For readers unfamiliar with the region, Sullia is one of the interior taluks of Dakshina Kannada district, where agriculture remains central to daily life.

A Gesture Beyond the Stage

Awards were not the only form of recognition that evening. In one of the programme's most touching moments, Hariesha presented a wheelchair to 103-year-old mridangam maestro Vidwan Babu Rai, received on his behalf by his son, Subhash Rai, a small act of care for a musician who has spent a century keeping rhythm for others.

Scholarship cheques were also handed out to students Parnika, Megha V. Shet, Kushith, Ranjitha and Harsha D. Ramesh, in association with the Mangalore Lions Charitable and Educational Trust, with CA Nagaraj Sharma present for the distribution.

Voices on Stage

The formal proceedings featured an address by chief guest Dr. Yaji Pavanje Divakar Bhat, Sanskrit Professor at Srinivas University. The stage was shared by programme coordinator Dattatreya Bala, SCI Mangalore President Harisha, Lions Club Mangalore President Hema Rao, and senior family representative Harsha Kumar Kedige.

The audience got its own moment of creativity too, with a spot-art activity built around a canvas designed by senior artist Dinesh Holla, turning passive attendees into participants for an evening.

Curtain Call

The cultural programme closed with performances by Team Arehole Nandagokula and a group dance by Team SCI Mangalore, led by Chetana Dattatreya, before the evening wound down with a community dinner at 8:30 p.m.

For a city that takes quiet pride in its writers, artists, farmers and soldiers, the Kedige Pratishtana centenary was a reminder that legacy isn't only built by the famous. Sometimes it is built one poem, one farm, one classroom and one uniform at a time, and an evening like this one simply pauses long enough to say thank you.

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