The land-locked country sloping down from the Western Ghats to the wave-lashed shoreline in the southern half of coastal Karnataka, lush with waving paddy fields and meandering rivers and streams, alternating with green hillocks and forests, once thick and alive with fauna and flora and chirping birds of all hues is Tulunad, known officially as Dakshina Kannada. In fact, Tulunad extends beyond the present boundaries of Dakshina Kannada and comprises the then Kasargod Taluk in the South. This is the homeland of a proud, tough, yet resilient community, the Bunt's alias Nadavas, (or Vokkaligas) as they themselves would like to be known in common parlance.