Troubled waters over Cauvery but Karnataka, TN have history of sharing

The violence over a decades-long Cauvery water-sharing dispute across Karnataka and in some parts of Tamil Nadu has threatened the peace in the states which both Tamilians and Kannadigas call home and have lived in for hundreds of years.

The violence over a decades-long Cauvery water-sharing dispute across Karnataka and in some parts of Tamil Nadu has threatened the peace in the states which both Tamilians and Kannadigas call home and have lived in for hundreds of years.

Kannada activists burn an effigy of Tamilandu chief minister Jayalalitha during a protest against the Supreme Court verdict on release of Cauvery water for the neighbouring state.(PTI)

It’s not just the 765-kilometre long river that originates in Karnataka and flows through Tamil Nadu, the two southern states also share slices of history, people and culture.

Indian History in Pictures, which tweets from the handle @indianhistorypics, posted pictures of people who were born in Tamil Nadu but spent their entire lives in Karnataka, the state with which it is engaged in a bitter battle over the waters of Cauvery. It also mentioned Tamilians who were born in Karnataka and made it their home.

Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa, who wrote to her counterpart in Karnataka S Siddharamaiah appealing for protection to people from her states caught in the crossfire is one such well-known personality. She was born in Karnataka’s Mandya district.

CV Raman, the winner of Nobel Prize for physics in 1930, was born in Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu but lived in Bengaluru. Bengaluru is littered with roads and areas named after the physicist who worked in the field of light scattering.

Famous cartoonist RK Laxman was born in Mysuru in a Tamil-speaking family. And his brother writer RK Narayan was born in Chennai but lived in Mysuru all through his life. Readers find traces of Mysuru in his best-known works set in the fictional town of Malgudi.

K Seshadri Iyer, who is known as the maker of modern Bengaluru, was born in a Tamil Brahmin family and similarly the famous Kannada writer Masti Venkatesha Iyengar was also a Tamilian. A winner of the Jnanpith Award, he was popularly referred to as Maasti Kannadada Aasti or Maasti is Kannada’s treasure.

Tamil superstar Rajinikanth was born in Bengaluru in 1950 and Kannada’s veteran actor Dr Rajkumar was born in Tamil Nadu’s Gajanur.

Read | One dead in police firing as Karnataka burns over Cauvery water dispute