how do i reset text coding?

[jindam, vani]

i am on debian testing. i have text "ಉಲ್ಲೇಖಗಳು" [kannada language 
alphabets] on both files: file1 & file2. for some reason it is showing 
text as series of numbers on file1 only. i have copied text from  file1 
and created another file [file3]. even file3 is showing same issue. if i 
hover over "U" [buffer coding system (multi-byte)] on all files [file1, 
file2, file3], it shows: utf-8-unix. i did ask on irc,  but i am lost. 
is there anyway to fix it without using commands? why this is not 
happening on file2?

regards,
jindam, vani

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