An old hand at new things

Annasaheb Udgavi never had any formal education,but that didnt stop him from innovatingfrom making a clock that runs on water to a rotor sprinkler that uses very little water

Annasaheb Udgavi does not have the shuffling gait of most octogenarians. Instead,he rides a motorcycle and flaunts the Ray Ban that he pairs with his Gandhi topi. Always dressed in a spotless white dhoti-kurta,the 82-year-old innovator,farmer and grandfather of four prefers fiddling with tools and machines than talk about anything metaphysical or spiritual. Last month,Udgavi won the National Innovation Foundations lifetime achievement award for grassroots innovation.

Udgavi lives with his two sons,daughters-in-law and grandchildren at Sadalga village in Chikodi taluka of Belgaum district in Karnataka. Back in the 40s,a young and curious Udgavi,bored with his erratic school hours,simply looked around to satiate his curiosity. Udgavi must have been around 10 when he was playing with his friends near the river and saw a local variety of a touch-me-not plant. The pink-purple flower revolved and shrunk as the boys hand grazed it gently. The rotating motion of the flower got me thinking8230;and that is what resulted in my first invention,a clock which ran on drops of water, explains Udgavi. The clock ran on water with the seconds-hand moving forward in a rotating motion when a drop of water fell on it from a timed dispenser. For this innovation,Udgavi later received a certificate of appreciation from then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

And thus began a series of innovations: a foldable,horizontal charkha to a machine that moves the motor in a well up or down,making it easier for the user to turn it on. When he realised that he was wasting seeds during the sowing process,Udgavi decided to invent a device that when attached to the bull,drops seeds one by one,with a specified distance between two seeds. Another invention is the Chandraprabha,a rotor sprinkler that can irrigate large tracts of land with very little water. It only takes about an hour and one spray of the water gun to irrigate one acre, says Udgavi,adding that the cost of the equipment is only around Rs 5,000.

I do what I do because it inspires and motivates me. Everything else acts like a dessert after a fulfilling meal, he says.

Udgavi has had no formal education. He can barely read or write and speaks a dialect of Kannada thats mixed with Marathi. When I was a child,there was no school in the village. I went to schools in nearby villages for a few days,but they were too far away and the teachers didnt show up most of the time, says Udgavi.

A Gandhian and a rationalist,Udgavi says he has no time for superstitions and local folklore. As he arranges the folds of his dhoti,he casually mentions that the land on which his house is built was considered haunted after a murder 50 years ago. But I bought the land more than 30 years ago. That is how I got the property cheap, he says,adding with a roaring laughter,It is only good that a lot of people dont visit our house after dark.

Apart from being an innovator,Udgavi is a self-taught sculptor. He has visited several temples across the country and in countries such as Nepal and Bhutan,restoring old and worn statues of Buddha and other deities. Outside his house in Sadalga,Udgavi has built a monument for Jain tirthankar Mahavira. The shrine also has statues of his parents on one side and Mahatma Gandhi on the other. Isnt it a beautiful likeness? Udgavi asks about the Gandhi statue.

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Now,surrounded by his family,his farm and two cows and two buffaloes,Udgavi says he is content with life. Im worried about my failing eyesightI cant see minute things anymore. That is why I cant use my machines either, he says,showing us a warehouse full of his half-invented treasures. I will work for as long as I can,but I wont push it too far. I have had a good life, he says.