CC: How and when did the idea come up ?

Liquid Space: Storm Festival is a brain child of Liquidspace Entertainment, a company incepted in 2009 by 2 brothers, Nellamakkada Lavin Uthappa and Sachin Bopanna. A dream of a couple of years back is being brought to reality in the form of the Storm Festival with the support of artist managers Submerge and The Syndicate. Storm aspires to showcase the natural beauty of Coorg, the Scotland of India and encourage responsible tourism through its initiative against the usage of plastic and drugs.

CC:  Can you tell us a bit about the festival ?

Liquid Space: The festival will have DJs from across the globe to keep your feet tapping and top bands from India to fill with different flavours of music while one gets to enjoy the serene beauty of nature along with adventure and camping experience to get you off the daily grind and mundane.

CC:  How many artists will be performing at the festival ?

Liquid Space: Storm in association with Karnataka Tourism, MTV Roots, Timescity.com and Radio One, will have over 37 artists from across the globe performing on two different stages. The Festival will have bands and DJs like Indian Ocean, Lesle Lewis, The Raghu Dixit Project, Richard Durand, Thomas Gold, Pearl, Nikhil Chinapa and others. We have 16 bands and about 23 DJ’s including 5 international acts.

CC:  This is the first time such a huge music festival is being organised in Coorg. With local boys Nikhil and Vachan playing, it seems more interesting.  How has the response been till now?

Liquid Space: We started promoting the festival actively since May 2011. The response has been overwhelming. Nikhil Chinapa is hosting the Festival and we also have DJ’s from Coorg like Kalypso and Vilas besides Vachan Chinnappa.

CC:  How many people are expected to participate?

Liquid Space: We have space for about 800 people to stay in tents and we are expecting around 1500 people to attend the festival everyday.

CC: Some locals are apprehensive about the festival. They feel it may disturb the environment. What do you have to say to them?

Liquid Space: The Organizers being from Coorg understand local sentiments and present apprehensions. With a strong conviction towards preserving the environment, team-Storm takes the concept of “responsible Tourism experience” to a new level. With eco-friendly venue, minimal usage of plastic and innovative recycling techniques, Storm Festival promises to fulfil the green-cause. The festival is a total “drug- free zone” and has a zero tolerance policy against those who breach it.

Kalavoor Johnson, general convener of the council was quoted in The Hindu stating:

“The Thalassery-Mysore railway line will never be a reality if it passes through Wayanad or Nilambur as the route entails laying of a railway track through long stretches of forest, which is unlikely to be approved by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF),” .

Interesting to note is that Mr.Jhonson seems to be quite oblivious to the fact that if the railway line passes through Coorg, it will not only damage the forests but the livelihood of the people of Coorg, the coffee plantations.

The proponents from across the border are currently lobbying in delhi with their claim that “the small stretch of forest along the route through Kodagu can be left undisturbed by the construction of tunnels”.

Yeah Mr.Aravindakshan- why not, lets have a Metro in Coorg Forests.

The Toddler, Chikka Veera Raja, Son of Linga Raja.

The above potrait is of  Chikka Veera Raja( also known as Chikka VeeraRajendra/Veerarajendra Wadiar), ca 1805.

Uthappa S K after winning the Junior Nationals in Pune in 2010.

A B Subbaiah’s dream team reachead the finals of the Senior National after a long haitus. The Last time Karnataka played in the finals was in 1969. Karantaka lost to Haryana in the finals for 2 – 1, but with bagging the best player award and V R Raghunath another Coorg lad being the top scorer in the tournament, the stars are shinning well.  Amar Aiyamma was the captain. Bharat Chetri proved that he is one of the top goal keepers in the Country.

Whether Uthappa will make it to the national side is anyone’s wildest guess, i would say. V R Raghunath is trying to get back to the team but the call never seems to come from the National side. The only Coorg lad in the team is Arjun Halappa.

Hockey buff’s will know very well how the 2 time top scorer in PHL, Lehnn Aiyyapa( Len Aiyappa ) was treated by the National Selectors. Len got so pissed with the treatment that he vowed never to play for India again.

Len Aiyappa playing for a Italian team in 2010

Dhanaraj Pillai in 2007 was also miffed with Len’s exclusion. He had said at that time;

Why haven’t the IHF included Len Aiyappa. He is the best drag-flicker available in the county at the moment. They didn’t even bother to call him for the camp despite his exploits in the last three PHL tournaments.

To that the then IHF Secretary K Jothikumaran said “that since all the three drag flickers, Sandeep Singh, Didar Singh and Raghunath, have performed well in the PHL, there was no point in having one more drag flicker in the side.”

It was no secret that Len hated Jothikumaran to the core. And “What a relief” it was for Len when Jothikumaran was caught red-handed and kicked out of IHF.

Even after Jotikumaran’s exit Len never got a call back.

But even today Len is everywhere in the domestic circuit and still scoring hat-tricks and still winning for his team. He has been quite positive and his love for the game keeps him going.
The last time I found him online, he was imparting drag flick lessons to the Italians.

For that matter even Amar Aiyamma has been ignored by the National Selectors. Unlike Cricket, in Indian Hockey there is no statistics maintained about games and individual player and thus it makes it quite easy for the selectors to pick and choose whomsoever they want in the national side without worrying much about the scrutiny from others.

Uthappa is young and he has a long way to go.  My advice is – just love hockey, play well. Forget whether you get into the national side or not. Whether you stay there for long or not. Enjoy the game kid.

The Forest Minister C H Vijayshakar was quoted in Times of India saying;

There is no benefit from the tag. We have to protect and develop the areas, while Unesco doesn’t give any grants. The international body has no laws, guidelines or schemes. Moreover, once these areas are declared as World Heritage Sites, we won’t be able to take up any developmental activities. Why should we allow someone else to control us?”

The Minister also said they have taken the decision to oppose is because - all political representatives in the area are opposed to the move.

An ecstatic former MLC A.K. Subbaiah was quoted in The Hindu stating;

I welcome the decision of the government. The refusal was absolutely necessary to defeat the “mischief” of certain pseudo-environmentalists and the State government needed to be congratulated on this score, Mr. Subbaiah said. He said the timber lobby would not benefit from the decision as made out by the environmental groups.

Nanda Subbaiah, former president Siddapur Kodagu Small Growers’ (Coffee) Association, said;

the decision of the State government to oppose the idea would help the common people, particularly in Kodagu. The people nursed fears of displaced from their lands in the event of World Heritage Site recognition.

Rebutting the pseudo-environmentalist tag, The Secretary of Coorg Wildlife Society, Tarun Cariappa had the following to say;

We have been accused about a lot of things lately, being pseudo-environmentalist, getting foreign funds, etc. We  would like to make it clear that we have never been in access of foreign funds. And we have even asked the Honorable Speaker and MLA from Virajpet Mr. K.G.Bopaiah to conduct an inquiry if he thinks that we are getting foreign funding for our activities.  We do support the inclusion of 3 Wildlife Sanctuaries & 2  Reserve Forests in Kodagu to be added to UNESCO World Heritage site, which forms a crucial part of Western Ghats. At the same time we would like to reiterate that CWS has not proposed to the Centre or UNESCO to include the sites to World Heritage List. It was the Central Govt which has requested the same.  CWS and the people of Kodagu can only wonder why are the political representatives and other organisations are so much opposed to UNESCO’s plan to declare the already protected areas of the 3 Wildlife Sanctuaries & 2 Reserve Forest areas in Kodagu as World Heritage Site ?.  There seems to be a systematic campaign by certain individuals to discredit our and other environmental organisations.

Some persons inimical to the interests of Kodagu had fed Mr. Yeddyurappa with wrong information on Bane lands.

If that is so, then… there are politicians or bureaucrats in the Karnataka Goverment who want to deprive the Kodava people and other indigenous communities in Kodagu over their rights to the bane lands.

The news report also speaks about the ever dragging issue of General K.S. Thimayya Memorial at Sunnyside(his home), at Madikeri. Deccan Herald reports that Transport Minister R.Ashok has assured that order to shift RTO office will be passed immediately.  He also assured that the Karnataka Government is serious about solving the Jamma Bane issue and lamented that the issue got stuck because of Home Minister Dr V S Acharya and Minister for Primary & Secondary Education, Kageri Vishweshwar Hegde barging in with their demands at the precise moment – when CM Yeddyurappa was going to make an announcement to resolve the issue in Kodagu.

A Cookery year in Coorg is a unique Cookbook and Calendar that showcases the unique, diverse and mouthwatering Coorg food and recipes. The Calendar has a collection of recipes from the traditional fare of the Kodava people. Presented in the innovative format of a Calendar with vivid images and easy to follow recipe instructions for all levels of culinary expertise!

Click on the Images to view in bigger resolution.

Christmas Gifts

The calender can be purchased online . The cost is Rs 250.
The price includes Free shipping within India.