THERE is an element of intrigue that the very looks of this house betray. It has the semblance of being a two-storeyed mansion, but from certain angles you make out it does have a third floor too. The beige coating on the stone walls are deceptive enough to lend it a vintage look, more so when the structure has a couple of classical eve-roofed mini-balconies jutting out from the front side. The blue-painted windows are many but curiously small. The way they are grilled prompts one to suspect a stuffy air of ambiguity haunting its interiors.
Well, Jaina Bhakta Nivas in north Karnataka does have a distinction that’s steeped in many layers of mystery: it houses a family of, well, over 200 members. The exact figure is something that even septuagenarian Bheemanna Jinapa Narasinganavar, the head of the family, is himself not sure about. All he knows — courtesy the media — is that he helms Asia’s biggest undivided family which could as well be the world’s largest.
In fact, what lately bothers Bheemanna, 79, is not the task of a headcount of his household in Lokur village, some 20 km off Dharwad. The old, bald man is tired of having to entertain another set of journalists. “You scribes ask me all sort of questions, most of which I don’t like to answer,” he frowns in annoyance.
But ask him the census aspect of his family, and Bheemanna’s irritation turns into amusement. “Er, I don’t know,” he admits with a chuckle. “We must be around 210 people now, I’ve never counted them…” Going by an estimate, there are over 50 women, 75 men and as many children.
In a world of increasing complexity of relations, it will be naïve to believe that Jaina Bhakta Nivas, with its 22 rooms and 210-odd members, is a paragon of familial peace. Quiz Bheemanna on this, you get to learn he can be evasive too: “There have been no fights in my family, and none has been stupid enough to mediate. We’ve enough food to eat, clothes to wear. So why fight?” After all, this is one query Bheemanna has mastered to answer ever since a BBC documentary crew arrived at the threshold of his house more than a decade ago. “You media people keep asking the same question: how, how many, how much.” Chimes in 76-year-old Parasanna: “It has been our tradition to show mutual love and respect — irrespective of age and gender. Such values have been passed on to generations.” Parasanna introduces himself as a one-time wrestler and claims he has even toured with Dara Singh.
Soon, a sudden thought of a busy schedule ahead seemingly dawns upon Bheemanna. “We are agriculturists, we have work,” he grumbles as he tightens his dhoti. “We don’t have much time to sit around and chat.”
Agriculture. In fact, animal husbandry too. There’s a mighty cowshed with rows of cattle that
occupies the backyards of the house. Some other members are into petty businesses as well. So, that answers how and where their (totally veggie) food comes from. Statistically, it means 50 kg of jowar, 20 kg of wheat and 40 litres of milk everyday. A total of 1,200 rotis are made by a team of three women each in as many shifts. Work starts at 7.30 am. After 11 am, there’s an hour’s break. Then starts the preparation for dishes — till 1 pm.
That’s the time for the second team to take over the kitchen. They make rotis till 4 pm,
before leaving the kitchen. It’s around 7.30 in the evening when a third team resumes the same task and ends it after three hours of duty. “Making rotis is the toughest job in the house,” announces middle-aged Akkamma, one of the daughters-in-law. “We have to make them by hand and cook them on fire made of jowar straws. And all this in a dark and smoke-filled kitchen,” reveals Akkamma, her tone getting sterner as she narrates more of the routine. A streak of mellowness overtakes her when she says help from the other women in the house makes the grind bearable. And, then she
enquires, childlike, “I heard there are roti-making machines…. Can you get us one?”
It’s always at the kitchen that the food is served. There is a special delivery service, arranged by the women, for old home-mates and the men working in the fields. Come festivities, and the jowar consumption soars — with as many as 2,000 rotis being made in a day. The jowar, like almost everything else consumed by the family, is produced on the 270 acres of cultivable land owned by the family. It is converted into flour at the family-run mill.
Dharanendra, who takes care of the family-owned dairy, seeks to sound reassuring about harmony inside his home. “Why should there be differences when the Almighty has offered us everything? Women receive the same respect as men,” he says.
Akkamma props up the point, in a more convincing way. “Differences between women, if at all, would be brought before the mothers-in-law, and settled there. We don’t carry it to our drawing-rooms or bedrooms.”
An elderly lady, meanwhile, airs her discontent with the burden of work. Then she whispers conspiratorially: “There are a few females who have expressed the wish to move out and stay with their husbands working elsewhere. But, if this becomes a trend who’ll be here?”
In recent years, there have been rumours of rifts in the family and that not all its members were willing to stay back in the village. In fact, today, only a little over half its members stay in Jaina Bhakta Nivas — some 50 of them are in Dharwad and are into non-farming activities. What’s more, the brighter among them are
migrating to cities. Even so, with no partition of property having taken place, the family technically has 200-plus members.
Parshwanath, 75, is only happy with the newest developments. “Earlier, the elders wouldn’t let the kids study beyond class IV, because they feared education would prompt them to leave the village. Things have changed. Now we send our kids to schools in Dharwad. Only those who don’t get jobs, stay back in the village,” he says. Around 30 members of the family live in
another Narasinganavar house in Dharwad city — but even for them, milk and other supplies are sent everyday from Lokur. “Frankly, all of us are in constant touch. We help each other financially if need arises,” says Parasanna.
Not all male members at the Jaina Bhakta Nivas are agriculturists. For example, Manju is a taluk panchayat member. The oldest member of the family is Tamanna, 92. No, he isn’t bed-ridden, and there’s a bunch of cats hanging around him as he saunters down the corridors of the house. Till recently, he was looking after the financial matters of the family. The youngest in the family is one-year-old Bhumika. Most of the children staying in Lokur are between six and 11 years of age. The chirpy kids, playing in the adjacent lane, didn’t seem to mind the lack of entertainment options.
A family photograph is one that would have completed the picture. But a reluctant Bheemanna says one must visit them when there is a wedding function in the family. Given that everything happens in bulk at the Jaina Bhakta Nivas, marriages are no exception. Some 15 to 20 couples get married at each of these weddings. “That’s the time the entire family will be together.” So, when is the next expected to happen? “Maybe you’ll have to wait for another four years. We have weddings once every seven-eight years, and the last one happened two years ago,” he reveals with a smirk.
on the orders of a village deity
The ancestors of Lokur’s Jaina Bhakta Nivas residents were descendants of a certain Narasingappa (Narasinganavar). He, along with his brother Rayappa — both wrestlers — came to Lokur from Hatkal Angada near Miraj (now in Sangli district of Maharashtra) around 300 years ago, going by the version of Parshwanath, a senior member of the family.
Life wasn’t particularly happy for the family once they settled in Lokur. “Then, one day Narasingappa had a dream in which the village deity told his family great things would happen to them if they stayed back in this village. So, on the instruction of a Hindu Goddess, Narasingappa, a Jain, decided to marry a local girl and settle down in the village.” Parashwanath says till recent times, his family used to wonder what this fortune was. “Maybe the arrival of the BBC crew is what the Goddess meant,” he shrugs.
All the same, the family has even otherwise been leading a colourful life. The way they buy garments would be a wholesaler’s delight. For, the garments are invariably shopped in bulk — three to four times a year, each costing between Rs 1 lakh to 1.5 lakh. Ready-made fabric of all types and sizes are picked up from wholesale dealers and brought home, and family members pick what they like. There is a tailor in the village who exclusively works for the family. There is a family doctor too. The man, Dr A A Gadagoli says the annual medical expenses for the household run to about Rs 3 lakh.
Altogether, Bheemanna, the family head, says the annual expenditure for the family is around Rs 16 lakh while the income is Rs 18 lakh. “We manage to get by with this only because we are together. If we split up, all of us will end up with nothing.”
The family owns a single television set, behind which there is an interesting tale. Says Parshwanath: “The BBC team gifted it to us so that we could watch their documentary on us.” A former wrestler, Parish, as he is fondly called, sports a handlebar moustache and a friendly grin that instantly puts you at ease. The TV is placed in the middle of the large room, but has lately remained unplugged and unused. “There is no electricity here most of the time. And even if there is power, we don’t have the time to watch TV,” he says.
sriram.vmurthy@gmail.com
(with inputs from Pramodkumar Vaidya)