Questions Unanswered: Here are few questions for Kannada cinema to ponder upon – how many times have been there instances of Kannada films being released out side the state, if not outside the country. For example, you will find very few films being screened in Kasaragod district of Kerala, with sizeable Kannada and Tulu population. Few films are released there after they become blockbusters like Yajamaana, Mungaaru Male. Big cities like Mumbai, Pune and Chennai too have good number of Kannadigas and what about border districts of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu where Kannada is spoken. Why can’t we screen our films there? In Bangalore, a cosmopolitan city, there are shows of 6 different language films everyday. Can’t we screen Kannada movies in places where there is a significant presence of Kannadigas? Tamil and Telugu films travel to places where there is little presence of Tamilians, Telugus or not even that. Marketing would have made sure that it reaches places unheard of in mainstream media. Can we have the same marketing for namma Kannada films too?
Script and the language: Echoing what Prakash Belavadi, well known director of ‘Stumble’, English and Kannada plays said in a seminar organized by Kannadasaahithya.com, we Kannadigas are lot more emotional about the script we follow. He said we are giving importance to lipi(script) rather than nudi(language), which is the reality too. Have you observed that Hindi ad punch lines are always written English? Bollywood movies in late 90s followed this trend of putting everything from film name to ‘the end’ message in English and that is not without reason too, as most of the movie goers could read English, so it was easy to understand. Can we have the similar thing for Kannada cinema? Along with the name in Kannada script can we have it written in English too, so non-Kannadigas too able to read the title, in turn learn a few Kannada phrases! Interestingly we find most of the times, captions after the film title in all English! Big hoardings in Bangalore now have Kannada written in English sometimes. If only they could be more meaningful it would serve the purpose. I am making it clear that it is not to replace the beautiful Kannada script but it is a temporary solution to ‘don’t know Kannada’ problem.Recent Developments: Few days back, I was asked by one of my non-Kannadiga colleagues to translate ‘Ninnindale’ song from the movie,‘Milana’ to English. Good things are always appreciated devoid of language barriers. ‘Beduvanu Varavannu’ from 'Jogi',’Anisuthido Yaako Indu’ from ‘Mungaaru Male’ and most recently ‘Jinke Marina’ from ‘Nanda loves Nanditha’ was liked by every Bangalorean no matter whether he was a Kannadiga or not. Well, FM stations sudden rush to play Kannada songs also played its part here. Having said all that we have to make more good movies and market lesser popular but technically good movies, one Mungaaru Male or one Duniya is not enough to make a huge difference. Firstly filmmakers have to come out of their Bangalore centered approach while making films. There should be good marketing strategies to explore new markets and in turn spreading the language of the land.
Passing Note: Well known faces in film world like Maniratnam, Anil Kapoor(debut as director and hero respectively in Pallavi Anupallavi) and Juhi Chawla (debut in Premaloka) started their film careers in Kannada cinema.
Regards
Raveesh











Songs: Songs are important ingredients of any film to become hit and Om had it in plenty, thanks to the lyrics by Upendra and music by Hamsalekha. If ‘Om brahmaananda omkaara’, ‘O Gulaabiye’, ‘Collegeu Kumaru’ became hit among the masses, ‘Mehabooba’ was for the front rows crowd. Dr.Rajkumar had lended his voice to songs ‘Om brahmaananda omkaara’ and ‘O Gulaabiye’, which even today sung in orchestras in Bangalore. To get the full lyrics of the all the all songs of Om click 







