Nadikerianda Chinnappa (1875–1931) was an Indian compiler, poet, translator, army man, police officer, cricket player, singer and philanthropist from Kodagu.
He married his deceased brother Subbayya's widow, Nanjavva, in accordance to tradition, in Coorg and worked as a teacher in Mercara Central High School.
[2] His job in the Police Force required him to travel on horseback to the villages nestled in the valleys and hills of Kodagu.
He feared that these traditions and songs that were handed down orally over the generations would in time be forgotten, because of the dominance of the English language, and influence of the cultures of the neighbouring areas.
He asked his wife to feed them and having served them local toddy, he got them to sing the folk-songs they knew, as they beat the dudi (small, hand-held, hourglass-shaped Coorg drum), while he transcribed the words of the songs, late into the night.
By the year 1922 he had compiled many folk-songs and gathered enough material on the customs and traditions of Kodavas for his book, which he called the Pattole Palame.
The Pattole Palame, a collection of Kodava folksongs and traditions compiled in the early 1900s by Nadikerianda Chinnappa, was first published in 1924.
Some British officials who were interested in Indology(C. S. Sooter and C. Hilton Brown) encouraged Chinnappa in his effort and asked some prominent Kodavas – District Magistrate Rao Saheb (later Dewan Bahadur) Ketolira Chengappa, Retd.
When these reviewers commended the book, C.S.Sooter, the then Commissioner of Coorg, got the British Government to provide financial assistance to the author to publish it.
Traditionally known as Balo Pat, these songs are sung by four men who beat dudis (small, handheld, hourglass-shaped Coorg drums) as they sing.
In 1929, Chinnappa's translation of the Bhagwat Gita into Kodava thakk, called Bhagvathanda Patt, got published.
On 1 October 1917, Nadikerianda Chinnappa wrote a patriotic song in Kodava thakk Sri Moola Kanniye ('Primal Goddess').
(Biddappa:20 1996) In 1922, after narrating the Kodava thakk rendering of the biblical parable 'Prodigal son',[6] he sang his own composition, the poem titled The Coorg national anthem: Swadēsi priya kirtane ('Patriot's hymn').
This was digitised recently by the Linguistics Department of the University of Chicago[8] Kodava thakk is called Kodaga and it is wrongly identified as being a language of the erstwhile Madras province.
He was a compiler, poet, translator, army man, police officer, cricket player, historian, singer and philanthropist.
He also wrote a well-known poem in Kannada and it was titled Somagirija Deva, on the deity of the Nadikerianda clan, at the Malethirike shrine.
In fact, at any point of time during his employment in the Police Department there used to be around 8–10 students boarding in his Madikeri and Virajpet residences, free of cost.
(Ramachandrachar 10:1994) Nadikerianda Chinnappa and Appaneravanda Hardas Appachcha Kavi are the two important poets and writers of the Kodava language.
Nadikerianda Chinnappa is well known for his magnum opus the 'Pattole Palome', a compilation of the folk songs and hymns of the Kodavas.
The 119th birth anniversary of Chinnappa was celebrated in 1994 jointly by the Karnataka Janapada (folk) association and the Yakshagana Academy.
But before the marriage was to happen, Chinnappa died of cancer, aged 56, on 12 September 1931, only a few months after his retirement from the Police service.
Ponnappa, the famous cartoonist is Nadikerianda Chinnappa's youngest grandson – son of Subbayya and Ponnamma.
After retirement from Canada in 1995, the Boverianda Chinnappas settled down in Bangalore and began to realise the author's cherished dream of translating the Pattole Palame into English.
While they were searching for copies of the original edition of the Pattole Palame, a ninety-year-old farmer and self-taught folk artist, Bacharaniyanda Annaiah, responded to their advertisement.