By Dr Jagadeesh Kumar
California, Jun 19: Tulsi Tulu Koota, Northern California celebrated their annual get-together of the Tulu community on the occasion of Bisu 2024. Tuluvas from the San Francisco Bay area and the Sacramento regions came together to celebrate Bisu and to meet and greet other fellow community members. The event was held at the picturesque lake Elizabeth park in Fremont, California. It was organized by Tulsi Tulu Koota founder Anitha Naik and the Bisu event team including Shakila Ramesh, Anupama Rai, Deepa Saliyan, Ravikala Jagadeesh, Dr Jagadeesh Kumar, Sandeep Rai and Girish Hullatti. Many other volunteers extended their help on the day.
Tulsi Tulu Koota formed with the vision of joining hands to preserve Tulu language and cherish Tulu culture. Tulsi originally started as ‘Tul’uver, ‘Si’licon Valley but soon extended as Tulu Koota, North California to include people who live outside California’s Silicon Valley region but close enough to drive for Tulsi events. Tulsi Tulu koota has 100+ families and many attend the events organized by Tulsi to connect and celebrate the shared culture and heritage.
On the day of Bisu 2024, a beautiful decoration of Bisu Kani table was set up with various flowers, fruits, vegetables and other produce, mostly consisting of the produce typically grown in the Tulu region of Bharat (India). The significance of Bisu is to celebrate the harvest and thank mother nature. The Bisu celebration event also featured a special heritage table showcasing the special and unique items of the Tulu region such as batti, pudaayi, tadpe, Odu, bisale, taala, marayi, thatti-kudupu, manth, sambara marai, muttaale, thonduru, kara etc.
Lunch was specially made for the Tulu community by Udupi origin caterer and included delicacies such as moode, chattambode, kadle manoli, pineapple menaskai, majjige huli, mysore-pak, paayasa etc, taking the community on a time travel back to the times of wonderful tastes savored in their hometowns.
A Tigalari Tulu script popularization exercise was also held with the examples of how to organize various letters on a Tulu script board. Nearly all of the gathering showed keen interest and were able to write their names using Tulu script and beamed with pride of having been able to write something in Tulu.
Following the lunch, everybody got together to come up with creative and impromptu skit play ideas for the themes provided by the organizers. One group played a skit highlighting the tiger dance and the other team played a skit with a Yakshagana theme. It was a great fun and energizing activity for everyone including the young, adults and the elderly. Another game including every member narrating fun facts was also well received and saw enthusiastic participation from all. Pradeep Kulal assisted with the photography and video of the event and everyone volunteered for various activities involving decoration, serving food, and the site clean-up activities. It was a day well spent for all and left the community yearning for many more future years of Bisu celebration.