On Karnataka Rajyotsava, a digital archive of 220 documentaries captures State’s many worlds

Bengaluru Varun Nagesh, a Bengaluru-based marketer who hails from Shivamogga, calls himself a documentary freak. So, when he decided to make a contribution to mark 70 years since the formation of the Mysore State, renamed Karnataka in 1973, the choice was pretty obvious: a dedicated website which brings together 220 documentaries on Karnataka, capturing the land that is “one State, many worlds”. The documentaries, spanning 1982 to 2026, capture 117 places across 94 hours of viewing and have been catalogued by regions and themes such as communities, music and art, livelihoods, politics and protest, and so on. Understanding the diversities For Mr. Nagesh, the idea of the project originated from “a sense of being South Indian and a Kannadiga”. “As you grow older, you begin to understand why certain things are important to maintain social harmony and structures,” he said.