Will Afzal apologists now campaign for Santosh Singh?

Today's 'New Indian Express' carried an article by Gurumurthy on the subject of the contrasting approaches taken by the media and the secularists towards the death sentences to Afzal the terrorist and Santosh Singh the murderer. Excellent articulation. In our media, its rare to find articles like these, that expose the mindless, outrageous, harmful 'secular discourse' happening in our country. Please, please read this article if you haven't already done so.

Kannada, Kannadiga, Karnataka

Today, is a special day for Kannadigas. This day marks fifty years of Karnataka. Ironically in this fiftieth year, in this state formed to promote Kannada, Kannada finds itself in very miserable situation. Kannada is increasingly being neglected and Kannadiga is facing a big challenge in preserving his identity. But, the reasons for the plight of Kannada as well as the Kannadiga lies in the Kannadiga himself and not anyone else. Unfortunately this realisation has not dawned upon people who can make a difference.

Particularly, a majority of the people(not everyone) among today's Kannada literati, I dare say, should take the major blame for the ills facing Kannada. Whenever they are asked as to what should be done to improve Kannada consciousness among Kannadigas, their one and only answer is to make Kannada the medium of instruction in schools. This response is so inane and lacking in maturity that I, although being a Kannadiga, seriously doubt their ability to produce creative works. In a globalised world of today where good English knowledge has become imperative, making Kannada or for that matter any other regional language the medium of instruction would make children handicapped right from the beginning. Also it does no good to Kannada. Instead, have Kannada as a compulsory language in schools. Not only that, discard the current Kannada textbooks full of same old history lessons and omnipresent Ambedkar stories (the same story about Ambedkar appeared in all the ten years of our schooling) and replace them with textbooks containing chapters that can make students eager to read more of Kannada literature(which , I admit, I haven't done till now but I am determined to change that soon).

Another knee-jerk reaction of these militant kannada activists is to stop theatres from showing other language movies and blame those movies for the sad sate of Kannada movie industry. They are not ready to admit that the Kannada film industry, that once was adorned with men like Rajkumar, Narasimharaju and Balakrishna, is so pathetically lacking in talent that its only resort these days is remaking Telugu and Tamil films with the less than mediocre acting talent available in Kannada cinema today. Despite this, if any good movie is releaased, people have received it well as it was in the case of "Apthamitra" or for that matter "Jogi"(this film had a good story but mediocre cast in my opinion).

Non-kannadigas are also the target of these bellicose self-proclaimed saviours of Kannada. Even in this case it is our fault that we do not market our native language well enough to them. One simple thing you can do to market Kannada to non-Kannadigas is to tell them about BeeChi and Master Hirannayya and give them a peek into the works of these master satirists.

Popularisation of "Kannada Sugama Sangeeta" is another way to promote interest in Kannada.
I haven't read Kannada poems other than those few we had in our schools. But for laymen like us, people like Mysore Ananthswamy have composed music and sung them in the form of "Sugama Sangeeta"(light music). They are not only well composed and pleasant to listen, but they also familiarize us with Kannada poems. If you understand Kannada and you haven't listened to these songs please do listen and enjoy. Thats the least service we can do to Kannada.

And last but not the least, what we all Kannadigas can do is to speak Kannada and do so without feeling apologetic about it. Remember, only we Kannadigas together can save Kannada. Neither the Government nor the bearded-bespectacled men in the Kannda literary world like Anantamurty offer us any hope. The only hope lies in awakening the Kannada consciousness in every Kannadiga in a peaceful, dignifed manner that befits Kannadigas and without antagonising our own countrymen in other states.

Gandhi Pataki

In this great country of ours, we pay tribute to people who have done a 'worthwhile contribution to society' by such gestures as using their names to rename roads, circles, flyovers, garbage-collection-vans, urban extensions and more. But somehow, in this Deepavali season, I feel we have left out crackers from this 'renaming-gesture'. Added to this, is the irony that crackers have been named after animals and not eminent people. I think we should give this a serious rethink. Probably we can have a nationwide discussion on this. It's the need of the hour. I think its practical to set ourselves a goal of completing this renaming process by next Deepavali, so that we can have the previlege of bursting 'Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad pataki'(Pataki is kannada word for crackers. This is for those who do not know Kannada.), 'Gandhi pataki', 'Anil Kumble Kumble pataki' etc next year. Ok, I will stop this piece of jejunity here. Wish you all a 'Happy Deepavali'

Upcoming sequels

Wih sequels to every other film being made in Hindi cinema these days, these are the sequels that you can expect, according to me, in the next few years.

Film: Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara
Sequel 1: Maine Nehru Ko Nahin Mara
Sequel 2: Maine Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad Ko Nahin Mara (English title: MMAKAKNM)
Seqeul 3: Maine Mujhko Nahin Mara (English title: I did not commit Suicide)

Film: Don, The Chase Begins
Sequel 1: Don - Chase In Progress, Please Maintain Silence And Remain Seated
Sequel 2: Don - This Chase Will Definitely Go Down To The Wire
Sequel 3: Don - Chase Completed, No Threats Found.

Film: Anthony Kaun Hai?
Sequel 1: Anthony Woh Hain?
Sequel 2: Nahin. Anthony Bhagwaan Hain.
Sequel 3: Anthony Kaun Hain? Mujhe Kya Maloom Hain?

Film: Krrish(This, infact, was itself a sequel)
Sequel 1: Krrrish With 3 R's
Sequel 2: Krrrrish With 4 R's
Sequel 3: (Sequel 3 will be kept as a mystery without releasing it.)

Film: Rang De Basanti
Sequel 1: Dubaara Rang De Basanti - Another minister's assasination? Another radio station taken over by assasins?
Sequel 2: Teesra Rang De Basanti - Radio station renovated
(Fearing that it would be impossible to repeat the success of these 3 films, Mehra decides not to shoot the third sequel, "Kahaani Har Radio Station Ki").

Film: Mangal Pandey - The Rising
Sequel 1: Mangal Pandey - He Has Risen
Sequel 2: Mangal Pandey - The Curtains Come Down
(Sequel 3 would not be shot. Reasons will not be divulged.)

Fim: Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (KANK)
Amused by the abbrevaition KANK, Karan deicides to makethe following sequels with similar acronyms.
Sequel 1: Tum Alvida Naa Kaho (TANK)
Sequel 2: Hum Alvida Naa Kahenge (HANK)
Sequel 3: Bhai, Alvida Naa Kaho (BANK)
All these 3 films by Karan, will deal with 'complex relationships'. This is very obvious.

Well, that's it for today. Any other ideas for sequels? Do tell me.

No Magic, Only Pure Logic

As I have told time and again in this blog, many problems world over are nowhere near a solution mainly because of a complete lack of innovative thinking. Narrowing down the scope of the above statement, makes it applicable to the boundary dispute between Karnataka and Maharashtra that has been the central news-item over the past few days. It was complete lack of common sense, let alone innovative thinking, on the part of our leaders of the Nehruvian era that led to creation of states based on language. This has time and again raised many totally avoidable controversies between various states. "Belgaum Boundary Row" is the latest in that list. But all these controversies can be solved only if some creativity is invovled in the thought processes(if any) of our 'esteemed leaders'. As always I will give my solution despite the knowledge about the infinitely insignificant nature of this blog.

As is cliched, you need to get to the root of the problem to solve it. In this case it is the language. Only because people of that region speak either Marathi or Kannada , all these problems arise. So what if the people of Belgaum had spoken the Zulu language? Then they would have demanded that they be part of South Africa (where it is spoken). Since geography, which we can all agree is very cruel, wont allow that, this demand will be a non-starter(unless there is someone like the erstwhile Nizam of Hyderabad who wanted to join Pakistan sitting in the middle of India). But the problem is majority dont speak Zulu in Belgaum. Having identified this we move on to the next step.

Now people should learn Zulu, speak Zulu, write Zulu but be Indian in their hearts. But for people to learn Zulu they should be given incentives. We can give them money, land, forest, talktime, simcards, free television sets, free access to cable television that feature Rani Mukherji, Preity Zinta in peppy item numbers all day and has no programs that have anything to do with Rajdeep etc. Also we can have up and coming tennis players from Belgaum improve their rankings by making them play against Sania Mirza continuously. Sania will agree if she is monetarily rewarded well. We can also have some tax incentives(like zero tax on incomes between 0-1 billion, above it 0.97%) worked out provided they agree to speak Zulu and forget about any other language. If these were the conditions, I would have agreed to speak Zulu even in my sleep. This being the case, people would switch over to Zulu. No more border disputes. But Karnataka retains Belgaum by default. Maharashtra can also feel happy that these people do not have the previlege of watching their proud son Rajdeep. Win-win situation for both.

See, I told you no, idu tumba simple anta? What do you say?