Janapada Loka - The Folk Art Museum Of Karnataka
Most Bengalureans who drive along the Bangalore-Mysore highway can relate to me on this. Long drive , hunger cravings and usually most of them stop at Kamat Lokaruchi for that typical North Karnataka Banana Leaf meal. After serving your pot belly with yummy food when you walk towards the gate to hop onto your car, you tend to see “Janapada Loka” which is located right next to Kamat. But then you convince yourself that let me visit this next time since the need of the hour is to beat the Bangalore-Mysore highway traffic and reach home soon.
After tending to ignore this place many times, finally this time we made up our mind to visit this folk museum. We had planned our day only to visit this museum. We started off at around 12 PM from Bangalore and reached Kamat Lokaruchi at around 1:30 PM. We had lunch there and then it was time now to soak into the rustic vibes of our state.
You will need to take a ticket to enter this place.
Entry fee: Adults - Rs.50. Children – Rs. 25
Timings: 9:30 am to 5:30 PM (Tuesday Holiday)
At the entrance, big brass trumpets on the gates welcome you.
You will find a map of this place which will help you decide how to navigate and visit your places of interest. In fact, you won’t feel like missing anything here. Every exhibit or museum is worth watching.
Janapada Loka (Janapada means “Folklore” and Loka means “World”). So welcome to the World of Folklore 
. This folk museum is dedicated to preserving and propagating the rural folk culture of Karnataka.
As you enter the gate and start walking you will find various life size murals on either side depicting various dance forms like Karaga, Bhoota Kola etc. From here, my dad started explaining what each of these dance forms are and which part of Karnataka they belong to.
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| Yakshagana is a theatrical dance art form performed in coastal Karnataka |
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| Jaggalige is a drum that gives high pitched sound when struck |
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| Koravanji is a woman belonging to a nomadic sect Korava among tribal people in Karnāṭaka, who generally is a fortune-teller on traditional lines. |
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| Beesu Kamsale - Folk dance performed by devotees of Lord Mahadeshwara |
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| Rangada Kunita - This dance form is found mainly in Mandya district and performed during harvest season |
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| Bhoota Kola - This dance form doesn't needs any explanation. Thanks to "Kantara" movie |
Honestly, I didn’t know that there are so many dance forms in our state. I was asking my dad to understand more about them. Kudos to H.L.Nagegowda for conceptualizing this.
You will also find some interesting puzzles during your tour
Lokasiri – This is another interesting museum where you will find interesting costumes, masks, dolls, games, and musical instruments. Photography is not allowed inside the museum.
Malenadu Mane (Maland Homes) – You will find some traditional model homes here which will help you understand how they live in such a tiny space with all the basic amenities made of purely natural products like cow dung cakes, bamboo, wooden vessels etc. Floor itself was so cool. We could see large earthen pots hanging from roofs and my dad told that mostly they would store butter in these. This model is artistically done it brings back memories of your grandma’s rural home which used to be our summer home during holidays.
We were not allowed to click pictures inside the homes here.
There is also a beautiful depiction of Village Panchayat. My god, each one of these looks so real. At times you tend to miss them thinking they are real humans .
Ayagaramala – This is an open yard where you will find many activities that are done in typical villages for their living like pottery, baskets, blacksmiths at work, sugarcane crushing and oil extraction and many more.
There is a lake “Lokasarovara” which allows activities like boating for families. You will find some artificial bear and crocodile installed around the pond.
Shailamala – This is a sculpture yard where many ancient stone sculptures are displayed. You will find many hero stones as well. In fact very well preserved.
We also saw some ladies singing folk songs at the open area which was adding to the rustic vibes of this place. There are several benches installed around this area for people to relax and enjoy the folk songs.
If you are an art and culture lover, then you will easily require 2-3 hours to cover this entire place.
As you complete your tour, you will find some shops that have an entry both from inside the campus and outside. Most prominently these shops sell toys and handicrafts from Channapatna. You will also find a millet or organic food store. refreshments and ice creams which is much required after this long tour.
Overall, it's worth taking a pit stop here and spending some time to soak into the rustic vibes of our very own state Karnataka.
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