Last night, ah, yesternight, betwixt her lips and mine
There fell thy shadow, Cynara! thy breath was shed
Upon my soul between the kisses and the wine;
And I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, I was desolate and bowed my head:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

Thus begins the poem. Tina says - “The Cynara mentioned here refers to the daughter of a restaurant owner that the poet used to frequent. She has brushed aside his love without consideration and eloped with a waiter.” Heartbroken, he wants to forget his lover and finds his recourse is a prostitute. However, when the prostitute is kissing him, he sees the shadow of his lover. Even in the midst of wine and passionate love making, he cannot get over the familiar warm breath of his lover caressing his heart. He is nostalgia stricken and unable to hold himself.

Tina moves further and says:

The Cynara here can be anything. Every time I read the poem, I have interpreted it in a different way. My childhood, the home town, homes that I have lost have indeed come back to haunt me as Cynaras. Many a time, I feel that the prostitute of the poem is symbolic of the city life-glittering, machine like-that I have chosen. We all have our Cynara, who keeps sauntering in our consciousness causing us pain. […] We hide our Cynaras unlike Dowson who opened up. Time goes by and we remain scared. If she appears before us out of the blue, we get startled. We would have developed so much hypocrisy that we cannot even have a chat with her. Finally, she gets buried with us… [Translated]

A great Kannada writer Poornachandra Tejaswi passed away a few months ago. Today is his birthday. Avadhi has a couple of tributes to him. Jugari Cross is waiting, wishing for his arrival, avadhi says. Jugari Cross is a name of one of Tejaswi's novels, the central location of which is a fictional place by the same name. Kadidalu Shamanna narrates a few anecdotes from Tejaswi's life. Talking of anniversaries, parisarapremi remembers Steve Irvine, who died a year ago.

Hamsanandi tells us a tragic story; he lost his brother recently in a road accident in Bangalore. Sushruta relates a humorous anecdote about his grandmother in which she tricks a friend through blatant repudiation. What is nice about the story is the Havyaka dialect of Kannada spoken widely in Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka and parts of Dakshina Kannada district.

nishu mane is a blog by Meera for her child. She explains the Kannada alphabet (varNamAle), among other things. She also translates some popular English rhymes augmenting them with a Kannada context. Nice. That reminds me of a recent interview of a Kannada poet in which he, quite correctly, mentions how our preschool curriculum (where the language of instruction is English) blissfully ignores the local context. He gave as an example the popular rhyme – rain rain go away. Why would we want to ask the rain to go away in a drought stricken country like India? Our version of the rhyme is – huyyO huyyO maLerAya (rain rain, please pour down!). Therefore, he argued, we should adopt a method of teaching that is more locally observable and verifiable by our kids. It's a fair point.

Shrikant has a very fair and balanced attitude about Kannada in particular and regional languages in general. His thoughts go back to the following SMS he received.

tha briteesh roold avar kantree phaar 200 ears and spaayilt all avar lyanguages… so let us spaayil there lyangyage phar yever!!!

Although, it amused him for an instant, he finds the whole thing to be in a bad taste. Such misguided vindictiveness does not alter the fact that English is very much essential in the modern world. Even the Kannada post he is writing is done using the English alphabet. If people really want to promote a language, then there are constructive ways of doing it like designing good Kannada interfaces.

Sandeepa is fighting to have the Cafe Coffee Days serve him Kannada menus. He has given a certain Cafe Coffee Day in Sampige Road, Malleswaram, Bangalore, an ultimatum of 15 days to get a menu in Kannada printed. The deadline ended on August the 26th and I suppose Sandeepa went to the cafe. No further updates though. If you ask me, it's another example of the narrow business sense that most “new-age” businesses have. Too many businesses in Bangalore focus on the “software engineer types”. Not that they are apathetic to issues like language, but the businesses perhaps think they are the only ones who have the spending capability. Again, it's a question of appreciating the local context in a holistic manner. On a similar note, En guru asks - “Why are Kannadigas being served with Hindi advertisements?“.

The Queen of South Indian playback singing, S. Janaki completed fifty years of her illustrious career. What a voice! S. Janaki, originally from Andhra Pradesh, settled in Madras has sung more songs in Kannada than in Telugu or Tamil. On this occasion Hamsanandi commemorates some of her eternal hits.

Ravi has a rant about a writer/moviemaker, Nagatihalli Chandrashekhar, who, he thinks, is forgetting the immense possibilities and strengths of his roots in an effort to be relevant to the shortlived present. Incidentally, Chandrashekhar seems to have realised that he is drifting away into something that is not real, and has made an attempt to go back to where he truly belongs through his latest movie, mAtAD mAtADu mallige. It is a movie that has a very contemporary appeal, dealing with globalisation and its effects. Prasad Naik reviews the movie and gives it a thumbs up.

Harini has some pithy cartoon about the state of affairs in the state of Karnataka. Perhaps India. Here is a sample. The two characters are the Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka. That's enough annotation!

Several others area also notable: 60th Independence Day, Heights of Vana Mahotsava.

Sindhu writes an intimate post about her village, grandmother, rains and memories of grandfather.

Ajji was a little ill. I longed to see her. The experienced semi-deafness of her senility that let her gauge my words by my tone of my voice, while talking over the phone. I wanted to sit with her and weave a conversation. I requested aside all the important work that was pulling me behind and boarded a bus at night. She was waiting for me; her ripened face on which a smile blossomed. Whatever be the topic of discussion it somehow seemed to drift towards the courtyard of death. Most of her acquaintances had packed their bags and left. Every time someone one knows departs, there is in instant fear that perhaps it is my turn next. Then the next concern is the nature of death. A death that comes with all its crushing pain in the hospital, alongside the futile intake of the “fluid of life” (glucose); a death that comes when you are unable even to die. Or a death that lets you have your routine breakfast, bath, tea, at home, and catches you unawares when you are done with grinding your betel nut, when you are preparing the betel leaf… Although, she does not spell it out, that is what she wishes… [Translated]

Tina has translated a famous poem by Pablo Neruda - Tonight I can Write the Saddest Lines. And Rashid has translated a poem by Pushkin. Good translations both of them. Venu writes a beautiful poem in an attempt to appease his dear sister who was disappointed since he could not make it on time for Rakshabandhan. Again, Tina has written an excellent poem - paDakhAneya huDugiya mOksha, that I chose to translate as Salvation of the Tavern Girl. And I translate a few lines, rather inadequately.

Salvation is when
after all this
we guffaw away
like joyful children
unwearied [Translated]

The terrific fake news blog majAvAni keeps coming up with brilliant pieces of satire. Some of the “news” they have don't seem unreal given the interesting times we are living in. Can you imagine the communist leader Brinda Karat saying - “Reincarnation is the chief cause for India's population explosion problems!”? Perhaps not, but several of our leaders keep making statements that come close to the above one in terms of stupidity. What is impressive about these “news”, alongside the evident humour, is their pithiness in allusions. This one, for example, alludes to the recent news that Tibetan monks need to seek permission from the Chinese government to reincarnate, and also suggests that the Indian communists have an unreasonable soft corner for China. In fact, Brinda Karat proceeds to say that, “if the government of India bans reincarnation, undoubtedly India will be a developed nation like Soviet Russia within a few years”. Again, see “Soviet Russia”? However, the government refused to confiscate the rights of spirits, citing India's commitment to democracy. Instead, it will consider forming a committee of experts comprising pontiffs and philosophy gurus to help spirits attain moksha without reincanation. The government also proposed a movement called “I am one-One for me” in this regard. In another news item, they report that Kumaraswamy, CM of Karnataka, has released a new perfume called “Boo” to the market. It's a 100% natural perfume that has the fragrance of soil, made in collaboration with Chanel! Amitabh Bachan has welcomes this gesture. Well, remember Amitabh Bachan had legal problems recently because he bought some agricultural land though he is not a farmer? And of course, Kumaraswamy is supposed to be the “son of soil” or whatever.

Restrooms seem to be an eternal source of intrigue to the Indian populace. The toilet is such an integral part of our pop culture. Perhaps nothing is more “humorous” than the loo. The fun element in numerous movies rests solely on the loo. And Guruprasad narrates his experiences with this form.

Vinayaka Bhat has some pictures from Jog falls. Venu does a trek to arisinagundi falls in the western ghats. ganDabhErunDa is traveling in and around the district of Belgaum in North Karnataka. He writes impressive travel essays starting with the worthy train journey from Hubli to Belgaum via Londa, then the ghats of Amboli and the beautiful falls and finally the terrific Gokak falls.

Read. Blog. Travel.

Ananthamurthy continues with his rhetorical questions. “What has changed since independence?” he asks this time. And I do not really disagree with his observations.

After independence we have gradually lost faith in the persuasive ability of language. In England in the 19th century all its great writers used many rhetorical devices to enhance the persuasive capacity of language. Whether Carlyle or Ruskin or Mathew Arnold, they used all the resources of language to persuade their opponents. This is mostly due to the democratic movements of that age. This means that the speaker believed that he or she could change the way that the opponent thought about a particular issue. [..]

[…]The language of advertisement has taken over now in every field of communication. Its intention is to kill our power of discrimination. […]We are second rate as a civilization now for we have lost faith in the power of language to persuade through reason.

Sindhu misses the shlokas and bhajanes (religious chants and songs) of her childhood. She fondly remembers the way the songs and chants instantly transformed the little monsters into nice kids, albeit momentarily! Once the worships were over, their effect soon got over. She longs for those voices today when

Our evenings are filled with the bright lights of shopping malls, honking vehicles, the “reverse gear songs”, title songs of tele-serials, the shrieking rock and pop of reality shows; it’s not even possible to just sit and listen to the song of the birds. The music from the neighbouring houses, the chaos on the roads… [Translated]

Shrikant Mishrikoti takes us back to the origins of the Ramayana. It starts with Valmiki cursing a hunter who kills the male krauncha bird (Egret or Heron) and causes grief to the female krauncha.

mA niShAda pratiShThA.n tvamagamaH shAshvatI.n samAH |
yatkrauJNchamithunAdekamavadhIH kAmamohitam.h ||
(bAlakANDa 2.14) [Source]

This is the first shloka of Ramayana, which translates into: Oh hunter! You, who killed one of the Kraunchas that were pairing filled with great love for each other, shall not progress much through your life. Valmiki realised that his curse was in the form of a shloka only in retrospect. Also, the cursing, which was an outburst due to the momentary anger, caused great unrest in him. Later on Brahma came to him and asked him to use this curse of his as the starting point of a great epic about Rama, because he thought none can understand the nuances and subtleties of the human nature and the world in which they live, better than Valmiki.

Satish Kumar has a not very happy rant about our seemingly virtual living. He is puzzled that even with so many technologies around, we still cannot communicate well. Sanganagowda is worried about karunADu (the land of black soil, Karnataka) being consumed steadily by “outsiders”. What is good about the post though is he gives a set of constructive ideas to revive Kannada and make it attractive so that others learn it. Mahesha discusses the Kannada equivalents of a few technical terms. Keshav Kulkarni shows enough evidence through a very short post, for “our” sense of false prestige and pretense.

On the 15th of August India celebrated its 60th Independence Day. However, there are not many posts about the event. Perhaps it shows a lack of zeal towards our symbols. Perhaps independence is losing its significance. At least, Archana is unhappy about the change in perception towards the Independence Day. It was an eventful affair during her childhood, when the preparations at the school started 15 days ahead; great many competitions, debates, quizzes, dances and plays. And today it is just another holiday. On the other hand, Rajesh Nayak is seemingly unbothered about these perceptions and continues to pursue his passion, traveling. He celebrates the Independence Day in a unique way in the laps of Mother Nature. A nice photo essay.

In fact, he is a tireless traveler. Here’s another nice photo essay about the different water falls in Kodagu district of Karnataka. I lived in Kodagu for about 3 years but still have not seen many of the water falls he talks about! Shivaram has a set of photos he took in Shivamogga.

Joseph narrates a story told by Osho in which God consoles a poor man who is not allowed to enter a temple by revealing to him that God himself is not allowed to enter that temple constructed by the filthy rich! Venkatesh is recollecting Gandhi through old photographs [1, 2]. A realisation occurs to Shamsundar in his effort of digging out the truth. Abdul Rasheed bashfully publishes a short story on his blog that he had written bashfully. b(bhA)ALa kavana has nice little poems. Hamsanandi translates a shloka from Kalidasa’s Raghuvansha.

Shravana has come; and the festivals come, one after the other. nAga panchami just got over. It is a great festival during which people worship snakes. But more importantly it’s a lot of fun with varieties of delicious undes (laddus or laadus) and “popcorn”. Also, it’s the time when people swing their swings. People, especially women, worship the snake god by pouring milk on to the hood of stone snakes. But in Shivamogga, people celebrated it differently by interacting with real live snakes. Kuchela has a small report on that. Sushruta pens a nice personal account of nAga panchami; laddus, henna and the intimacy of the family.

On the day of nAgara panchami, our ebullience had different flavours: it went like rock music from morning till afternoon, and then it took to the tune of Kannda film song, turning into a lyrical song later in the evening, finally mellowing down into the sound of mother’s low hums. That is because, the night of nAgara panchami is the night when henna was applied to our fingers! [Translated]

Venkatesh pays a tribute to Shyam Benegal, who was recently conferred with the Dada Saheb Phalke award. HPN remembers the good 25 year old CD ROM. He started using this thing called CD ROM barely a few years ago and it’s almost obsolete now!

Well, time flies by. Till the next time…

Anivaasi watches Bergman’s Winter Light after learning about his death. He writes:

A pastor of a small village, who has lost his wife four years ago; his school teacher girlfriend, who bothers him with her woos; a soldier vexed with the dingy happenings of the world, and his pregnant wife; a hunchbacked, insomniac sexton, who tries to forget his back pain through pain killers; the happy go lucky pianist. This is all there is to the world of Winter Light. [Translated]

Winter Light is a movie of great existential dilemmas and insurmountable angst. Towards the end, the sexton is seen to trivialise Christ’s pain when he was crucified in comparison with his own back pain. But the pain of Christ’s (at least momentary) realisation of the failure of his God must be at least as great as the pain of his own dilemma about God – the sexton imagines.

Moving on to less (or more) existential movies, Keshav reflects on the timeless battle between the “mass” vs “class” movie makers/watchers. He chooses two movies, both successful in their own ways, and lays down his argument: mungAru maLe (that continues to create a rage in the box office) and dweepa (an offbeat movie by the renowned Girish Kasaravalli). He calls the whole argument unnecessary: each one has its place. Someone who makes a successful mungAru maLe cannot make a successful Dweepa and vice versa. For example, Govind Nihalani, who made a great movie like Ardha Satya, tried his hand making a commercial movie (Takshak) and failed miserably. Arun Hegde, on a similar note, is not too keen about the opposition to successful movies in other languages remade in Kannada. All he wants is to watch good movies. He finds 73, Shanti Nivasa, a remake of the Hindi movie Bawarchi, enjoyable. Ismail is not impressed with T.N. Seetharam on the big screen. T. N. Seetharam has achieved an unprecedented success through his Kannada tele-serials. However, his recent movie Meera Madhava Raghava was not well received. Jeevishivu gives a detailed analysis of the phenomenal success of mungAru maLe. Perhaps the simple plot, without any “moral urgency” or the need to give out a “message”, a familiar but ordinary looking hero, and the lack of expectations that entailed, the freshness in music and choreography, the free form dialogue, good cinematography, contributed in different measures to the success of the movie.

Ismail also writes an excellent personal tribute to his father, who showed him the stars. He describes how his father drove his kids on his bicycle and introduced them to different constellations like the Saptarshi Mandala, the beLLi chukki or the Venus, and the celebrated Dhruva Nakshtara. The next stage was books on astronomy, a compass and a home made device to measure angles (probably serving as a sextant), using which father and the kids spent nights together exploring stars! How many times have I read a great personal essay like this and wondered how they just fall short of being a great short story!

Here is another. Rasheed talks about the joy of walking in Shillong.

Shillong is a beauty for people who love walking. There are “foot ways”, there are “step ways”, you can leave behind several new paths as you walk. If you start your walk as soon as a lash of rain stops, you can watch water percolating, shining grass blades, nodding petals, the sunny rain clouds running towards you … all this, before the start of a new lash of rain. [Translated]

Dr. U. R. Ananthamurthy writes about the reasons due to which he finds Gandhi more relevant today than any other leader – Marx, Lenin, Mao, Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt et al. Gandhi said his message is his life. This cannot be said of anyone else. Ananthamurthy chides the so called “intellectual freedom” that we have attained that seems to let us get away doing whatever, as long as we say the right thing. He also argues that Gandhi has always been a challenge to most intellectuals since they could not understand him through any of their predefined frameworks logic and philosophy. Everything was an experiment for Gandhi. So, he even went to the extent of finding solid evidence to his celibacy by spending nights naked with a girl. He realised the his mistake in doing so only when Kripalani pointed it to him, says Ananthamurthy. He also mentions the differences between Gandhi and Tagore. Incidentally, Tagore called Gandhi Mahatma, and Gandhi called Tagore Gurudeva.

Odu janamEjaya is a blog dedicated to Kannada book reviews. Vivek Hanbhag writes his experiences with renowned short story writer and novelist Yashawant Chittal’s short stories. He says there are three important aspects to his story telling: The first one is that Chittal firmly believes that “story telling is a good deed”. A story is something that is designed and is suitable to reach others. This belief has created the overall form of his story writing technique. The second aspect is the (fictional) hanEhaLLi. There is no world in his stories that does not contain hanEhaLLi. It is always there as a part of the ethos that he captures. Even when it is not there directly, hanEhaLLi is present as a conscience, a value system, a measure. And the third is his attempt to establish a relation with an unknown world. He is constantly concerned about going beyond the boundary of human experiences, extrapolating the experiences to involve the unknown, the inexpressible.

Among the etcetera we have Rajesh Nayka who visits tourist places around Bagalakote in North Karnataka, and writes a series of posts with photos [Bagalakote, Aihole, Pattadakallu, Badami-1, 2, 3]. Parameshwar Gundkal reproduces a poem by Vikas Negiloni, a cinema journalist. A very nice rain poem. Sushruta is irritated with his (self-proclaimed) mediocre blog posts and decides to throw away his pen till he learns to write quality posts like some in the blogging community. He later consoles himself due to the realisation that he has to but sing in his own tune, dance to his own rhythm. Navilagari has nice romantic poetry. In one, the poet starts by addressing the clouds: you are midgets compared to my eyes/ you haven’t rained as much as tears flown out of my eyes [Translated]

Well, sarcasm aside, Sudarshan writes an outstanding review of the superhit Hindi movie, Lage Raho Munnabhai. The review puts light on the contemporary social and economical context in India and the world, and talks about how the movie raises some important questions and also hints at solutions in a healthy manner. In fact, much healthier a manner than its predecessor (Munnabhai MBBS). This review of the movie is much more intricate than a lot of other one-dimensional reviews that I have read about the same movie. There are many subtle hints in the movie, Sudarshan thinks, that do well. For example, some “Post Modernist” intellectuals always tend to draw a very simplistic and romanticised picture of Gandhi as a non-modern person who supported some superstitions. Here, “Gandhigiri” vehemently opposes kundalis (horoscopes) and such stuff.

He also talks about Ritvik Ghatak's movie Suvarna Rekha. It is a realistic movie that records the changes in the Gandhian values across different eras, without directly bringing in Gandhi anywhere in the screenplay.

Although Lage Raho Munnabhai is a good movie, Sudarshan warns, unless we are discerning enough about the subtle messages, we would fall prey to media driven sensationalism. As the media is already projecting, the Indian common man is ready to receive Gandhi only if he is adequately comically clad! That is not true. Sudarshan also feels that the movie could have depicted more of Gandhian forward looking ideas.

An epic ought to have eighteen kinds of descriptions. Or descriptions about eighteen fairly distinct and well defined entities.

ವಾರಿಧಿ ಪರ್ವತಂ ಪುರನಧೀಶ್ವರನುದ್ವಹನಂ ಕುಮಾರನಂ
ಭೋರುಹವೈರಿಮಿತ್ರರುದಯಂ ಋತುನಂದನಬುಕೇಳಿ ಕಾಂ
ತಾರತಿ ಚಿಂತೆ ಮಂತ್ರ ಚರ ಯಾನ ವಿರೋಧಿಜಯಂಗಳೆಂಬಿವಂ
ಸೂರಿಗಳಂಗಮೆಂದು ಕೃತಿಯೊಳ್ ಪದಿನೆಂಟಮನೆಯ್ದೆ ಬಣ್ಣಿಪರ್
(ಸೂಕ್ತಿ ಸುಧಾರ್ಣವಂ ೧-೭೬)

The above is a representative example. It says - oceans, mountains, cities, kings, chariots, children, sunrise, moonrise, seasons, watersport, romance, worries, dialogue, military intelligence, journeys, enemies, victory et al. All these are to be detailed through poetry for the perusal of the Pandits.

Murthy talks about an interesting classical gem. He goes further to explain how, for example, seasons are detailed in epics. He talks about how the “arrival of spring” (vasaMtAgamana) is expressed in poems, and how this remains a timeless notion with poets from all eras showing enthusiasm about the spring.

As september ends, Antarangi, who's situated in New Jersey, talks about the beginning of fall. An eventful september it was with the first week consumed by the World Kannada Conference (vishwa kannaDa sammELana) and the last one by the Dasara celebrations. It also reminds him that we are nearing the end of the year. End of september marks the end of the third quarter and there will be increased activity in Wall Street. Perhaps a lot of big and interesting things will happen in the US and the world, but the immediate need is to remember to start using his overcoat to protect himself from the cold.

Mala Rao maintains a nice blog called chitra-durga. Her posts are usually ruminations of some old poems or songs that get linked to a present incident. For example, she remembers some old movie songs and a shloka on the day of Saraswati Pooja during the Navaratris. By the way, Navaratri is the nADahabba (Festival of the Land) of Karnataka. Dasara celebrations here are very famous, specially the Mysore Dasara celebrations.

Manaswini says she can never compromise when the Kannada language is at stake. In other words, she will never follow Bangalore's legendary phrase, swalpa adjust mADkoLLi (adjust a little, please).

Phantom writes a poem expressing his displeasure about people forcing Hindi. Indeed. It is bizarre that people use the “national language” argument to force Hindi down others' thorats. They also want Hindi to be used in banks and other business places. What is even more bizarre to me is - when someone champions regional languages, it is considered to be narrow and retrogressive; but when Hindi is being forced, we don't see much rebuttal.

Saraswathi writes a poetic plea to help in finding “a child that is lost”. The child is lost in the concrete jungle, or among those software machines, or in the various noises of Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Marathi et al.. She's talking about Kannada. A good poem actually.

Srinivasa talks in first person as a crow. A crow from Sollapur (Maharashtra) travelling to Bangalore. The crow does not need a ticket, is unbothered about the border dispute between Maharashtra and Karnataka, and has very simple and natural needs. Unlike we humans.

A few years ago, we used to have nice political satires presented in the colloquial tongues of rural Karnataka, in some Kannada weekly tabloids. I don't know if we still have them as I have stopped following these tabloid magazines for a while now. They all have becomes gossips galore. I stumbled upon a blog that does a good job at political satire - kAlachakra. We live in such times that almost anything seems unreal. So, just add a little bit of humour and vitriol to it and you get a nice satire. I don't even know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Heh.

majAvAni classifieds gives a catchy advertisement. They are looking for people. “An esteemed Protest Management Organisation is looking for fasting experts and experienced suicide experts. Interested candidates need apply along with 13 passport size photographs and a Police Certificate [translated]”. A very sharp, but absolutely necessary, ridicule about some political parties that survive on such gimmicks alone.

Birth, when eyes open
Death, when closed
Isn't blink the only journey? [Translated]

It's a translation to English from Kannada from Telugu. So, everything cannot be intact. Hopefully, you still get the idea. In fact, Sriram has a blog for “Poems that are not mine” (nannadallada kavite), that feature his translations of poems from several poets and several languages. Very good effort.

“Kannadiga” spends a day at the Registrar's office trying to register a site he has bought. His account uses uncany imagery and evokes humour and angst at the same time, and understandably so: the sweat due to numerous people there reminds him of the Vrushabhavati river; the people on the other side of the people look like Vajramuni, an old Kannada movie baddie.

Avi talks about the power of time, kAla. How a minute can change things. Indeed. Why are we so obsessed with the past? Why are we so nostalgic? Asks Sree. She would rather be intimate with the present.

The cool breeze that that blows gently
Would you saunter near my friend a while?
Not a surprise if she renders you cooler.

Soma writes a fairly mushy poem for his friend. The above is a translated excerpt. There is a Kannada Videos blog that has a lot of videos, mainly of Kannda movie songs. Venu has a few good poems on his blog.

That's about it for this time. See you soon. Goodbye!

Unsurprisingly, there are posts on 9/11. Satish Kumar writes about his experiences on that fateful morning. It was a picture perfect day and he was working in his office 5 miles away from the Pentagon. Well, and then, a lot has happened in the world. In America. In Afghanistan. In Iraq. Everywhere.

On a side note, it is interesting that hardly anybody talks about the other historically important thing that happened on 9/11, exactly a hundred years ago: The birth of Satyagraha.

Jeevishivu offers a lot of losely knit, yet very insightful, views on his reading of a short story anthology by the young Kannada writer Vivek Shanbhag. The anthology is called “mattobbana samsaara” (literally, Another Man's Family). He is specially concerned with the questions that one of the stories - “saravana services” - raises in him. He says the story explores the bigger relationship of an “India” with a “modern world”, by engaging the reader to seemingly ordinary contemporary incidents and interpersonal relationships. Although this is not novel in the Kannada (or any other) short story tradition, the story is outstanding due to its completeness in depicting the writer's intent. Since I have also read the anthology a couple of months ago, I can say Shivu is making a lot of sense.

An important “young” Kannada poet turns er.. old. Well, his age. B R Lakshmanarao turned 60. It does seem quite a wonder to Sriram, like it seems to many others. He is known as a romantic poet, a naughty poet, a popular poet, an evergreen poet, a “cassette” poet - a lot of his poems are fairly popular songs, and it is said he mainly writes to quickly convert his poetry to cassettes. An important poet nonetheless.

Sudarshan has an interaction with the renowned Kannada short story writer Raghavendra Patil in Patil's house in Malladihalli, a small village in Chitradurga district, central Karnataka. He, along with Chandrashekhar Talya, a well known poet, talks about many a thing. For example, “why did Allama come to Sharana Movement?”. Patil says this:

“The Indian cultural history has an ongoing process of a dialectic that constrains any argument, say material vs metaphysical, from reigning on extremes. Therefore, in order to bring in a philosophical radiance to the Sharana movement, which under the leadership of Basavanna, could have turned merely a social struggle, Allama had to join the movement.” (translated)

Allama and Basavanna are two of the important vachanakaras who lived in the 16th centure CE. A vachana (or vacana) is a lyric that imbibed timeless philosophical/social concerns and expressed them in layman terms. Vachanakaras helped in unleashing and disseminating knowledge, which was until then mainly confined to Sanskrit or “non-layman” Kannada. Allama was perhaps the most important of them. A brief bio of Allama and a few of his translated vachanas. I wish Allama is extensively translated and read.

They also talk about the unhappy situation of the drift between the fields of literature (arts, for that matter) and technology. Also about post modernist concerns in Patil's works and the new Kannada poetry. Patil won the Central Sahitya Academy award for his novel Teru (literally, The Holy Chariot). Incidentally, he is my uncle and Malladihalli is one of my homes. So there.

Dr. K. Ayyappa Panicker died recently, on 23rd August 2006. He was a Malayalam poet, critic, and a scholar of great repute. Dr. U R Ananthamurthy writes a memoir to Ayyappa Panicker with who he shared a very special friendship. His article gives not just a his personal view of his relationship with Dr. Panicker, but also the flow of creativity and thoughts across Bhasha writers (regional language writers). The likes of O V Vijayan, Panicker, Govindan, Gopalakrishna Adiga, Ananthamurthy belonged to the “creative monority” non-community.

Noteworhty is another English post with a provocative title, India of the Rich & Bharat of the Poor. An excerpt below. A lot of scope for debate here.

These days in expensive private schools the children of the rich don't have an opportunity to expand their experience by coming to know of the rich life and culture of the poor of this country. This will create two countries, the India of the rich and the Bharath of the Poor. I want common schools empowered again so that all the children of this country have an opportunity to share their joy of learning together and also learning from one another in a mixed school. They should learn in the medium of the language of the region and also learn to speak English for it brings about a sense of equality among the children of the rich and the poor.

OLN talks about the language police who want to keep the “sanctity” of a language. He uses the word ‘maDi' in Kannada which has connotations of sanctity, and which also means ‘to die'. So, he says if you insist on a ‘maDi bhaShe' (sanctified language), you are only saying ‘maDi bhaShe' (die, language!). A good sensible article in the face of ignorant language “protectors”.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being in Bangalore. What a fascinating title! Sriram does a detailed review of Janaki Nair's book on Bangalore. He calls it a “wonderful treatise”. The post is in English. An excerpt.

While the book focusses most on the twentieth century as a time period for looking at Bangalore, it is difficult to wriggle away from either the past or the present continuum. Being one of the the fastest growing cities, a city that had intentions of having a planned growth and also being cosmopolitan for ages, the issues that a city like Bangalore throws up are interesting and diverse. Janaki Nair starts off by looking at two parts of the city - Bengaluru and Bangalore - the older part where the so called “natives” stayed and the cantonment area which was a world of its own. Unlike Hyderabad, Delhi and Ahmedabad, Bangalore does not have an “old city” which is in the walled area and a new city that is more modern. It is just that these two areas grew simultaneously.

I think our Kannada dailies and media (other language media also) should regularly visit blogs like nUreMtu suLLu. Among other things, the blog demythifies some things that media claims and gives out incisive comments about Kannada newspapers. A “meta-media” of sorts. As they insist in their subtitle: You may not be a “Dhrutharashtra”, but we want to be the Sanjaya for you! The posts are in English with a judicious mix of Kannada.

On a related note, the Times group has bought the VRL group of newspapers/magazines. What a pity! Pavanaja writes that it in not new that an organisation runs both English and regional language dailies. All these organisations have a seperate editor, reporters and staff for the different language papers. But the way times is going to do this is totally new and hopeless. The Kannada news paper is going to be called “Times of India-Karnataka”, and 80% of the news is *translation* of Bangalore Times “news” articles! No reporters needed. Also, the translator's job is easy. What is there to translate in Times of India? Pictures? We surely live in interesting Times.. er times.

Harishchandra Shetty has a set of funny cartoons. Very contemporary. Like many people, Harsha finds out that Chikungunya has got nothing to do with Chicken. And he finds that out in the US. Heh. Funny post. Here are some smileys that you could use in IM. Well, Kannada smileys. :) Er.. or should I smile in Kannada?

Shyam Kishore remembers his father through a sentimental poem and asks his father to come back, as his child. Adige Mane (cooking room or kitchen) gives you eclectic recipes. Recipes are in English. Benaka writes a series of posts on his Japan tour.

Shiv Shankar writes about Ganapa (Ganesh, Vinayaka et al.) and his “phase transitions” - a traditions confined to homes, public celebrations, calenders-cassettes-”collections”, “shows” using latest technology, well, and so on. But still Ganapa is timeless. Triveni is intrigued by the notion of “drushti taaguvudu” or “nazar lag jaana”, as it is called in Hindi/Urdu, for cute kids. And wonders about the fate of so many cute kids that come under the scrutiny of so many eyes in our shopping malls. I rather wonder about the fate of the er.. cute girls that are ogled at by so many incisive eyes at these malls. ;)

vnag writes a post on his denture. I recall Ogden Nash's famous lines: Some tortures are physical others mental; One that is both is dental. Although the post is amusing to the readers, vnag is not at all amused with the long painful process it takes just to cleanse one's denture despite having made much progress in the medical field.

That's about it for now. Till the next time, good bye!

Shekhar Poorna makes a mention of my last post in his editorial at kannadasaahithya, and gives his own insights about Kannada bloggers. He categorises them, and talks briefly about the nature of each blog. Well, we need voices. More of them, whatever be their nature. Meditative,
thoughtful, provocative, clairvoyant, silly or “othervoice” (er.. sorry about the pun ;) ). Blogs entice you to exercise your freedom. And people get out of inhibitions. Perhaps, that is why, Shubhaprada, who does not know how to read ot write Kannada, attempts a poem in Kannada, about “The time for Dinner”, which is eesentially a time for the family gathering, chinwag, and flow of memory. So what if the script is English, the cuisine is Kannada!

In Rujuvathu, about which I mentioned last time, Jnanapith (pronounced, dnyaa -na- pee- tha) award winner, U R Ananthamurthy writes about the “Modern Civilization and the Fate of the Cow”. He uses the cow as a highly utile metaphor to build his thoughts about cultural differences, effects of modernization and our shortsighted selfishness.

In that era, our disposition that everything that surrounded us was pure, was innate, in the village life. Indeed, the needs of our day to day engagements nourished this feeling. At the centre of this consciousness was the cow; the dwarf cows which were aplenty in the whole of the malenADu [region of rainforests]. Let me proceed after a brief digression. If a cow from our household was sacred, a cow from the neighbourhood was evil. So it seemed. They represented the cows born with ardent hunger that were resolute of leaping over any kind of fence. When we could not any longer endure the annoyance caused by the cattle belonging to the people we were not in good terms with, chances of shunning them to the [community] stable were also counted. The owner should pay a penalty to bail them out from the stable; he should then contrive a time for retribution, so that he can rout our cattle to the stable. [translated]

Through his excellent phrase and colloquial intimacy, he narrates his experiences. He then asks several questions that are important to him and others, like: “We want modernization; at the same time we want the cow to remain sacred. Is that possible?”. You may not agree with a lot of his conclusions, but we all are looking for more arguments, and not more conformance. The site has many other interesting articles, and a section for his English writings too. You may be interested.

Sriram writes another great essay. This time a personal tribute to Kurien, the architect of the Indian White Revolution, or the Milkman of India. Sriram, one of Kurien's students at the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA), gives a first hand account of Kurien, the rebel, Kurien, the whimsical, and Kurien, the paradoxical. He also has the same piece in English, on his English blog. If you are interested in Kurien or the cooperative movements in India, you will get useful insights there. An excerpt below.

We as a country needed Kurien in his role at the time he performed his role to perfection. His book gives a peek into how he kept the interests of the dairy farmers as central and played a game of chess to foster their interests. The game of chess could be in competing in the market, and it could also be in preventing the competition through means that were exclusively available to him. During his entire life it is clear that he played a tom and jerry with the government, largely criticizing the government for its policies, making fun of bureaucrats in public, and a posturing of autonomy. At the same time, he used the government, the bureaucrats and all machinery in ways that would keep putting hurdles in the competition.

I want to draw your attention to the first sentence of the excerpt. Very true. We as a country should also learn to accept our icons and heroes as real people. Kurien is representative of all non-fictional heroes, anywhere and anytime.

Dakshina Kannada (or South Canara, a coastal district in Karnataka) Police maintain a blog- spdk, with the purpose of disseminating authentic police news of the district to those who are interested. Though we would not be too amused by Police news, such efforts towards transparency are noteworthy.

Vishwanath rants about “spoilt kids”, dAri tappida makkaLu, of rich and powerful parents, citing several examples. This is, of course, in the wake of the recent “Pulp Fiction incident” of Rahul Mahajan's drug overdose. They are all kids of our “rulers”. What can we say?

Although I am not much aware of other regional language blogs, I can still safely bet that antarangi is one of the most prolific regional language bloggers, at a rate of one fairly long post everyday. He is a self confessed “sinner” (aka NRI), who writes from the US about a variety of topics - the “sickness” of the wall clocks at his home, the insecurity about his immigration status and also gets worked up by debates in the Kannada literary world. Interesting, all in all.

If you want to blog in Kannada, and also want to be a part of a interactive community, create a blog at sampada. You cannot compare it to huge services like blogspot, of course. In fact, H P Nadig, the force behing the sampada drive does not want anyone to do such a comparison, and clearly tells you “what sampada is not”. There are several interesting blogs there. Benaka writes a series of posts on his Japan tour. HPN reviews Media Player 11 beta, and is not amused. He calls is “stale food on a silver plate”, since it only provides new interfaces, and not much else.

taLuku Shrinivas continues with his experiments with the poetry form. Alpazna scripts a “plagiarized but customized for my lover” poem for his lover. Again, we would not talk about the merit of poetry here. tale haraTe is yet another fake news blog. Jeevishivu has a detailed review of Girish Kasaravalli's- an excellent Kannada movie maker- dweepa.

By the way, I should apologise for the delay in posting this round up. Hopefully, I have, at least partially, redeemed myself by pointing to some interesting voices. Till next time then…

If we, taken over by extremist attitude, endeavour the search for the pure breed [Kannadigas], a sample of what we would miss could be: Masti, Bendre, Karnad, Chittala, Devudu, TaRaSu, Puttanna Kanagal, G V Iyer, C V Raman, Sir M Vishweshwariah, Rahul Dravid.. Thus, if we want to exclude them all, what will we be left with? The search for a Kannada identity is like peeling an onion. As we go on excluding the layers, what we will be left with are tears alone! [Translated]

The latter part of the essay in quite upbeat since Sriram does not find any reason to be unduly alarmed about the state of Kannada. He concludes the essay with flourish by quoting Isaac Bashevis Singer's Nobel banquet speech where Singer explains why he writes in a “dying language” (Yiddish). A must read!

On a related note, Kannada Sarathy has a set of complaints about people's outlook towards Kannada and Karnataka, especially in Bangalore, which are not invalid either. And he is not at all amused by the blatant negligence of Kannada by FM radio channels, and their “cosmopolitan” line of defense. Well, although I don't want to get into any of these, it's true that the concocted potion that the RJs serve as “cosmopolitan Kannada” (or whatever), is pesky.

Taluku Shrinivas exudes similar feelings, albeit poetically. He is nostalgic about the legacy and is not happy about “invaders”. However, he does realise that nostalgia won't take us too far, and we all have to unite and strengthen. Fair enough.

Shyam Kashyap thinks aloud about globalization, patriotism and the questions of identity. In the contemporary world you can get a “feel” of your country anywhere, because the symbols of our (pop) “culture” are accessible, especially when there is a huge diaspora. But still there is something very nice about the notion of nations and nationality, he believes.

Rujuvatu at Sampada, regularly records some of U R Ananthamurthy's thoughts. You can find the transcript of a radio interview of Ananthamurthy at Churumuri. The interview is in English.

Vinayak Pandit at Agaseya Angala shares his joy after watching eight of Kurosawa's movies. He has a detailed and meditative essay on them. He talks about Kurosawa's empathy towards Samurais, his theatrical sets, his stunning protagonists and his social sensibilities. Indeed. I can vividly recollect the high I had got due to watching Rashomon, when I was a young lad.

Jeevishivu writes a series of posts on Pier Paolo Pasolini's cinema. A nice series of posts on Pasolini's “poetry in motion”.

sRujana-kannaDiga has an excellent essay on mathematicians. He talks about mathematicians of yore who were passionate about abstractness and aesthetics: Hardy, Nash, Ramanujan! He says each one of them is an artistic masterpiece, and ponders how well art can capture them. Books, plays and movies about the mathematical geniuses often fall prey to populism, reducing them to mere mortals. He hopes the new movie on Ramanujan and Hardy by Dev Benegal will consider this caveat.

If you are a budding poet, then Hosa Chiguru welcomes you. You can publish your poems there, and check out others' poems. And if you are looking for a place where you can find some critically acclaimed Kannda literature, kannadasaahithya.com is a great place. Great initiative; nice to see it growing at a steady pace.

Blogging in Kannada is fine, but can you program a computer in Kannada? Indeed, says Dr. Pavanaja. He had developed a version of Logo that supports programming in Kannada a few years ago. It is a good language for young kids to learn programming. It only needs to be used. Incidentally, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja of VishwaKannada is a well known name in the Indic community.

Among other things, Vishwa Puta pays homage to Janab Naushad Ali. Tulasivana has a post on home, neighbourhood, narrow streets and memories. Nice. Like a lot of people are doing, Ismail urges you to look “beyond reservations”. Ahoratra gets poetic about Dose! Well, it's early morning and I am trying to catch up with a few deadlines. But the poem reminds of the Dose at Vidyarthi Bhavan! Pavvi narrates some anecdotes about late Kannada writer a na kru.

Sanjevani, a Kannada news paper claims to be the first Indian news paper to podcast. The podcasts are pretty good, actually. And there are very good podcasts at Sampada; interviews of Kannada litterateurs.

There are a few fake news blogs (inspired by The Onion, perhaps) that do quite a good job at satirizing news and newsmakers. The “news bureau” at Bogale-Ragale, for example, reports the “Bar-King News” of Manmohak Singh and Large Bush hatching a plot for the Third World War while having a good time in a Bangalore bar. They also report a story on how a scientist accidentally invented an “Aunty-Mosquito” software, while trying to invent a software against some women [aunties?] that constantly stalked him.