Mysuru: This time around, Dasara has not jest been about festivities.
On Friday morning, Public Works minister Dr H C Mahadevappa, deputy commissioner Shikha and chairperson of zilla panchayat, Dr Pushpa Amarnath, attired in karate uniform, stood up to break a tile each with their hands.
They joined a teacher of Mysuru, Rajamani, who broke six granite slabs at a time. Over 1,000 other girls and children participated in learning simple self-defence techniques, and 200 students of ten Karate schools of Mysuru demonstrated more than 200 self- defence techniques using simple things like dupatta and others.
All this was a part of a unique programme ‘Naari Shakthi’ held to instill a sense of confidence among women and children during Dasara. The programme did not fail to inspire Kalavathi, a second year degree student and a resident of BCM hostel and daughter of a farmer, who hails from Bettadkoodalli in Gundlupet taluk. She said “My confidence has been boosted to know the fact that we can defend ourselves with such simple techniques.”
Navya (name changed) a first PU student and a resident of destitute cottage in Mysuru said, “I am amazed that we can protect ourselves with just common sense and our dupatta,” she said.
Ten schools of Karate Association of Mysuru are training 2,900 girl students residing in 36 backward community hostels in Mysuru district with simple self-defence techniques for 100 days during Dasara. Students from hostels demonstrated simple basic techniques of self-defence, demonstrating how they could prevent snatching of cell phones by just changing from one ear to another and how they could prevent chain-snatching by holding the thief’s shirt or trousers.
