Nanna Kathe - College Days - I

This autobiographical narrative of mine moves on to college days. Like a long drawn out boring soap opera, this too is turning out to be too long for a story that really doesn't have a story. Anyway, much like the self-laudatory 'creative' directors of our soap operas, I too continue this narrative( although with a slightly modified title) with a strong belief, albeit a false one, that this story is interesting. Enough said about the length and the quality of this 'literary work'. Let me come back to the story.

As I said, Harish the Guru - that is me, the proud chronicler of this 'could-be award winning non-fiction magnum opus' - enters his college life. This story, not surprisingly, has the same lazy, easy going theme. Guru encounters another Guru, meets a certain Aravinda, who, much like his name, shared a lot in common with the man who named the author of this 'could-be award winning non-fiction magnum opus' as Guru, had a lecturer who shared the second half of my name and came next only to God, had as classmates boys who made their desks their guide to answering questions well in tests and many more. That there is no mention of anyone belonging to the female gender so far in this post, should not be construed as anything against my heterosexual nature. Its just that the girls, just like in PTA and Vijaya High School, didn't match up to the boys in any respect whatsoever to deserve a prominent mention in this story.

After successfully completing tenth standard education in a manner that is worthy of mention in the next generation of textbooks that will be read by the school-goers of 21st century, I enthusiastically joined National College Jayanagar(NCJ) for an education that was promised to prepare me for the challenges of university education ahead of me. So, if you assume this would be something that I am going to tell in graphic detail, you will be as wrong as you are in thinking that I wont attain literary glory from this work of literary marvel. Whatever the last sentence means! Simply put, there is not much to write about from my days in this college with a hyped up reputation. The reasons for that are many. One, the stay too was for a brief two year period. Two the college was too near to my house to attend the classes daily even for that short period of two years. Thirdly, and more importantly, there weren't any who came close to the entertaining and special characters of PTA and VHS - the ones I have introduced to you so far. This might hurt the NCJ classmates of mine if they happen to read this blog(which is a highly improbable event) , but this is the truth. Truth, say men of wisdom, is always bitter. But there were quite a few really good lecturers, whom, I should say, we were really fortunate to have. Rare gems they were, be they K V Ghanshyam, K S Ramprasad or the inimitable K S Kannan. But in the second year most of them didn't handle our classes due to administrative rejig. At the end of two not so fascinating years of my life, I ended up in an engineering college called Bangalore Institute of Technology(BIT). And the four years I spent there were as eventful, as memorable, as comical and as entertaining as my school days. Its those days at BIT that will form the remaining part of this narrative.

Singing National Anthem Might 'Embarrass' Foreigners

According to one of India's greatest 'patriots' (according to some sections of society), singing national anthem in front of foreigners will embarrass them. To avoid such an 'embarrassment' to the foreigners, what the 'patriot' did was to play an instrumental version of the song. But the infinitely wise 'patriot' - whom the Indian media and a certain section of our society exclusively credit for India's progress in the last decade, could not anticipate the 'embarrassment' even this ingenuity of our 'patriot' would cause to foreigners when people start singing the anthem alongwith the instrumental version. How frivolous the "patriot's" argument was!

When such a simple thing was beyond our "patriot Guru's" comprehension, how can one expect him to have some worldly knowledge which would have told him that singing your own national anthen infront of people from other countries isn't an 'embarrassment' even in the lands of those 'foreigners'.

You might say that why observe the protocol of playing the anthem at all if it's so irksome to you . But then our 'patriot' would not do that being a person "who prides himself on being an Indian". "Heights of hypocrisy" says the true Indian.

Well, why blame the 'patriot'? Probably our 'patriot' is blinded by corporate success and badly afflicted by the disease of being the fashionable global citizen at the cost of one's own nation and national identity. I personally feel that this nation is headed for doom and gloom if people like our 'patriot' are the role models for a young nation like ours. God save our nation!

Dr. Raj - A tribute

It has been a year since Dr. Raj left us all on that fateful day last year. But as with great men, he continues to live on, in the hearts and minds of every Kannadiga. He has immortalized himself through the innumerable good films he gave us, through the pure and pristine Kannada that he spoke in those films, through those evergreen melodies that he rendered that continues to enliven us. His humility despite his stardom is something that everyone of us can learn from. He truly was a great Kannadiga. Our salutations to thee, Dr. Raj! May this land be blessed with more souls like you!

Who's responsible?

Cricket, yesterday, became literally a poorer game with India's quick exit from the world cup. A nation that is quite literally running the game world over with its amazing revenue generation abilities, is rendered helpless by two nations whose combined contribution to the 'growth' of the game is not even a fraction of India's. And ICC looks on helplessly. Such overwhelming irresponsibility!

And as always, the blame has fallen on the wrong people. What can the poor Indian team do? Why should some of them resign? They should not. Instead, a committee should be formed to probe why Jayawardene went on to win the match despite knowing the grave fiscal consequences such an action would have on the "gentleman's" game.

And, even more arrogant was the behavior of the Bangladesh team. How can they be allowed to beat a nation that is cricket's lifeline? What will Bangladesh gain by going to next round or even further? On the contrary, India's exit will cause huge losses to the Indian corporate sector. With rising inflation and with fears of an economic slowdown, this is the least India would have wanted. For their reckless attitude, Bangladesh team should be severely punished.

And finally, ICC should take more responsibility and make all teams sign an agreement that will ensure no more early exits for team India. If these precautions are not taken soon, unprecedented disaster is in store for the 'growth' of the game.

Nanna Kathe - VI

Writing a historical narrative is a difficult task. While writing about the past, sometimes, certain characters, the events that they shaped and the parts of history that those events defined, happen to be left out unintentionally. But such omissions, be they unintentional or otherwise, do not do justice to the past that has brought us to the present. That being the case with this narrative, I decide now to go back in this story to the PTA school days to tell you about those, as yet untold, stories and the people around whom it revolved.

In PTA school, we had a prayer assembly everyday before the school-day started. But what made this prayer assembly stand out from the ones the not so privileged non-PTA kids attended was that it was anchored by our music teacher Radhakrishna. Acting as an accompaniment to the singing was the harmonium of Radhakrishna. Instead of a soothing sound that a harmonium generally produces, Radhakrishna’s harmonium sounded more like a broken drum. For these reasons, he was called by us, the students of PTA, as MJ – Michael Jackson. And alongwith MJ we sang songs from the school songs-book that had everything from Cardinal Newman’s Lead Kindly Light to songs like,
“Namma mane idu namma mne
Ee Hindu Desha Namma Mane”,
(This is is our home; This Hindu nation is our home) which many from the secular establishment now believe was the prime reason for this school producing so many people who in their time of exercising franchise voted decisively for the lunatic, communal right. Well this is just hypothesis; more research needs to be done in this regard to be more cautious in the future about selection of songs to be sung in schools.

Coming back to MJ, he had this habit of calling people by names to which those people generally did not answer to. So, for MJ, Kartik became Bappi, Pradeep turned Latin. And another non-Narasimha Raju became Narasimha Raju. Since he used to do this in the school prayer assembly, these names of Bappi, Latin (these two were in our class itself) became popular across the length and breadth of our school.

And Latin - a reticent, bespectacled young Pradeep - became the character of a hugely popular story, albeit an imaginary one and a product of the imaginative minds of seventh standard C section having story-tellers of the likes of Arjun. Latin, according to that story, would go daily in the evenings to a bar; sit there with his hands holding an alcohol bottle and his legs resting on a table. And there, inebriated, he would, according to the story, sing songs about life, lost-love and many more.

Another person who became famous among students with a name that was not his name was CountryFace. Who was he? Was he the face of the nation? Was he the arbiter of national destinies? Or did he have a face that mirrored the geographical silhouette of the nation? Far from being a man connected with national destinies and geographical boundaries, he was a man who kept vigil at a small library that housed, mainly, loads of kids’ magazine called Misha(This was the only relevant result I got when I googled Misha.).Yes, he was the PTA school librarian. But why such a name? As I told you, this was a name that was not his name. It was the result of translation of his actual name – Deshmukh - to English by Ramakanth(of 20 questions fame).And despite being given such a powerful sounding name, he was dejected(as his face suggested), helpless, incapable librarian who could not even properly manage a library that housed such books as Misha (He would give us Misha for reading even in seventh standard. Probably, in doing so, he said to us symbolically, “Nimma mental level-a ishtu”. And we had no choice except for accepting what he gave because there was nothing else in the library that he could issue). This was amply demonstrated by the fact that Arjun and Sai-Sharan – a man with a great sense of humor – getting a few Misha books in their bags without ever being noticed. These books have not been returned as of this day. But why did they have to steal Misha, of all the books? “Just to test how efficient the system is”, one of them told me. Why didn’t they return? “It was not worth returning”, is what another of them said(I shall not take names here.). Despite his incapabilities and inherent inabilities, Deshmukh - The CountryFace - provided great entertainment as did so many others in this school.

In retrospect, its these characters like Meshwar, Deshmukh, Latin, MJ who made our childhood not just strikingly different from that of kids in other schools, but they also made it profoundly memorable.