GADAG: It is rock music, rather rocks that make music. A piece of stone lying in front of a temple near Itagi town in Gadag district, without attracting much attention for long, is making news now. A video by a tourist tapping the stone to create music has gone viral on social media sites.
Similar stones, which are called lithophonic rocks, have been used in the famous musical pillars of Hampi. They are also found at Neelgund Hills near Mulgund town, Basaveshwar temple near Itagi, Mugali in Ron taluk and Bhimambika temple in Itagi.
With the video going viral, people from Ron, Nargund, Gajendragad and Gadag are thronging the Itagi temple to check the musical notes emanating from the stone. Village elders call them Gangaalagallu. Gangal means steel or metal plate used for lunch and kallu means stone. When one strikes the stone, it sounds like hitting a metal plate.
Sharanappa Mallapur, a resident of Mugali village, said, “We have seen musical rocks for long. Some elders said these rocks have been lying here for the last 80-90 years. Some sculptors had got them here to make a Basavanna idol, but they stopped after coming to know that they were musical rocks.”
Shivalingasarja Desai of Itagi, who works as a biotechnology professor at BVB Engineering College in Hubballi, said, “These stones have rich deposits of iron and other metals, that is the reason they make these sounds. Of course, more studies are needed.”