Onake Obavva

Last evening I was trying to explain my daughter who "Obavva" was. (For the uninitiated: Obavva was a brave lady of Chitradurga, wife of a guard, who sacrifices her life to save her kingdom from enemies.)
Try as much I did to explain her the story, I was not able to put the best words to explain Obavva's martyrdom to my daughter. I was reminded to this wonderful song from the Movie "NagaraHavu". (besides being a great movie, it has some unforgettable songs). "Kannada Nadina Veera Ramani" song is one of my all time favorite songs. The rendition by P.B.Srinivas is just great ... but the song is par excellence because of Obavva's act depicted by actress Jayanthi. (in cameo).
This song being my dad's favorite as well ... he had trained me in it when I was barely 8-9 yrs old. I have sung this song in several competitions and have won many prizes. There was this one time when my teacher who was so impressed with my rendition of the song in our school competition suggested I sing the same song for District level singing competition. She even brought a cassette recorder to the competition and recorded my song. The speciality of this song was everytime I sang it, I got teary... so did my teacher. Just went on to show how much my teacher cared for me and our bonding.
Anyways, I digress ... so yesterday, in order to better explain Obavva's story, I played the song to my daughter on youtube. She watched it attentively. Obavva's death in the end started to haunt her... she could never understand why someone as brave as her could be killed ... but she appreciated her bravery and loved the video. She also understood the story much better than what I had tried to explain.

I hadn't heard this song in a very long time ... but yesterday when I heard it, I surprised myself by not only singing along without forgetting the lyrics .... but also crying at the end of the song.
Some songs are so touching, they never fail to stir you.