Literature : Local or Global?

Thought of writing something about literature. And this post talks about whether literature can be global or local. Read more to find out.

Which do you enjoy most - story of Bangalore guy(if you are in Bangalore) or of some unknown guy in the streets of London or New York? Whatever may be the arguments, I feel that when you read story which involves the characters and environment of your home town or village, you will appreciate it much better. That's why Goruru Ramaswamy Iyengar's Naani makes more sense to us than Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer.

As such every literature is local. Author tries to explain his experiences in the local context only. In this era of globalization, literature is one area on which it had less impact. Though this is changing with the global internet connectivity and this virtual world changing people's lives across the world. People sharing their experiences in the web nowadays can make more sense around the world now.

So it was hard to identify Charles Dickens's David Copperfield among us whereas characters in Dr.Kota Shivaram Karanth's novels were easy to identify. When I say literature is local, language can not be a barrier. So it is more joyful to read R K Narayan's English novel Swami and friends and even imagine the imaginary town Malgudi. When it comes to humor writings, this is more prominent. There would be hardly anyone who had not enjoyed Padukone Ramanand Rao's Kodeya Vichara(if you had read that lesson in the school days).

Even when a Indian author travels to a foreign country, there too he sees it through the eyes of an Indian. So when you read travelogue of a Indian author, it is more convincing. So you will sure enjoy Goruru Ramaswamy Iyengar's humorous travelogue Amerikadalli Goruru.

But there may be exceptions. Urbanites who would have grown in different environment may find convincing and make more sense out of the writings of a foreign author.

Your comments are welcome.

other news : Sad to see Cricket tri-series in Lanka, first becoming bi-series and then a monoseries (with Lanka at home, just kidding). But rain disrupting the series is nothing new to the series played in Lanka. But this is one of the few occassions when the entire series had to be called off.

Raveesh

Heroes in the End

You feel immensely happy when you see the hero winning in the end of the film fighting against all odds. Anybody remembering Revanth in the movie Beladingala Baale when at the end of the movie solves the puzzle to find the Beladingala Baale's address when he is in a chess tournament.

We are like that. We wait till the last minute to do our work. Let it be the paying of bills, finishing the assignment in colleges or planning for a trip. And its more joyful when finish your work in the end when the pressure is mounting rather than you do it in the beginning itself. Out of the chaos you find the solution and it is better. You are more happy to see Indian cricket team winning the final against Australia after losing all the matches against them in the league stage rather than winning all the matches including the final. Strange isn't.

Remembering a incident in the school days. Our teacher asked that how many of you would like finish the homework much early before the submission date. Hands raised were few. But when asked how many of you would like to finish the homework on the day before the submission date many hands were raised. Many of us still would remember the last minute assignment completion whether in school or in college. In college that was different, come early in the morning to college finish the assignment work just before the lecturer arrives. And how can I not mention the day or night before the exam when you yourself are tensed and get calls from all of your friends for those extra tips for the exam. Even remember some of my friends saying proudly 'I read all in the last 2 days and still able to finish and write the exam'.

Our movies reflect our attitude and sometimes it influences the latter. We want happy adventurous endings in our films. So for all, the title suits the best "Heroes in the End".When success comes to you on a daily basis you are obsessed with it. So when greater challenge comes before us, we would enjoy facing it.

What's In A Name

Time and again this question has been asked and it has never been easy to answer the same. As far as individuals are concerned, their name is the word which is used more by others than by themselves.

Movie names are always interesting. There, gimmick is part of the game when naming a film. Kannada film star Upendra started the trend in Kannada film industry, of using unconventional names for his films. Look at this titles : Om(Symbol and not the word here), 'A', 'H2O' - unique in its own sense.

When we talk of names I remember a story heard in my childhood : 2 students were quarelling in the class, so the teacher gave the punishment of writing their own name, 100 times. But again there was trouble with one of the guys name being Shiva Kumar and another being Somanahalli Somanna Gowda.

Movie names are interesting to observe, as they are the ones which grab the attention of the viewers first. And there are often disputes over the name of the film with one producer already registered that name and another trying to look for the same name. Thats why the caption we see at the bottom of film titles to resolve any dispute. For example Deewar - Let's Bring Our Heroes Home was named so to avoid any clash with Deewar the Amitabh block buster of yesteryear. In Kannada, Namma Basava was renamed so because Basava was already registered. But in the posters, Namma was too small and Basava was prominent.

Origin of company names is very interesting. Look at these : Reebok - is the alternate spelling of rhebok(changed to Reebok in 1960 from a original name Mercury Sports), Adidas - from the name of the founder Adolf(Adi) Dassler, Cisco - short for San Francisco, ESPN - Entertainment and Sports Programming Network.

There are instances when a newcomer to the city get confused to get into the wrong place, because there are two areas in that city by the same name. If somebody's name matches with that of some celebrity he/she gets unexpected honours and what not. Thats how the world is, when you here a catchy name you are sure to have some impression about the person you are going to meet.

Comments are welcome.

Raveesh

referred links for the info in this post
- Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_company_name_etymologies
- Answers.com
http://www.answers.com/topic/reebok-international-ltd

Kanglish

With back to back articles on cricket in the last two weeks, now its time to look upon the new topic, Kanglish. By this time you must have guessed it, ya its about the influence of English upon Kannada and the dialect hence formed, especially in namma bengaluru.

When Radio Mirchi was launched few days back in Bangalore, its punch line said sakkath hot maga, an example of what now has become prevalent, Kanglish(Kannada + English). Kanglish is everywhere, from new age bangalore youth gossip to foot tapping numbers from Gurukiran music. One song from Puneeth's movie goes like this : classalli lectureu boraadre pictureu or another one from Gurukiran's music goes like, ee kanasina highwayali nooraaru turning ide.

One thing about this lingo is to add an extra 'u' at the end of english words in most of the cases, to make it kannadaized, say roadu, pictureu, wasteu etc. This must have come from the fact that most of the Kannada words end with a 'u' in the end.

Nowadays, it is a transformation of another type, invention of new words. while in conversation with my friend, happened to hear the latest invention nodable(worth watch). He was telling "aa filmu nodable alla maga".

"Swalpa adjust maadkolli", can be said as the epitome of this lingo or dialect which you can hear, when you are in a crowded BMTC bus or in any queue. This lingo continues to grow in its own way with the young brigade of Bangalore and of course Gandhinagar, the epicenter of Kannada film industry contributing bulk of it.

Raveesh

Cricket In The Time Of Football

Ok, now that it is all settled in football world about who the champion is, it is time to look back at the cricketing world and see what happened during World Cup Football. One change was prominent as far as the newspapers in India were concerned, that football was given wide coverage in the back pages and even in the front pages which predominently belonged to cricket news at any time in India. Not only national newpapers, even regional newspapers were not far behind in this. With this, cricket news shifted to more inner pages with photos in black and white.

Important records were made, broken during this time. Waise bhi cricket me records ki kami nahi hai. Most importantly, it seems that 400 is no longer a run everest in an ODI which no team dared to climb in 35 years of ODI history, with already 3 teams scoring above 400 runs this year. Latest addition to this is Sri Lanka, scoring 443 for 9 against Netherlands. Australia climbed the run everest 434 for 4, March this year proudly. But joy of Australians was short-lived with South Africa outplaying them scoring 435 for 9 with a delivery left, thus the Australian record not even lasted for 4 hours. And now it is the turn South Africans with their record lasting not even 4 months. Cricket is like that, a game of glorious uncertainities.

Partnerships in ODIs is one aspect of the game where Indians have built upon their own records, with wicketwise 5 of the partnership records are in the name of Indians out of 10. But this time their record 1st wicket partnership came under threat and broken again by Sri Lankans Tharanga and Jayasuriya putting on 286 runs for the first wicket against England. Previous best was between Ganguly and Tendulkar for 258 runs against Kenya.

Coming to the impact of football on cricket, England team escaped big media bashing for their dismal 0-5 loss to Sri Lanka in the ODI series with most media covering more football news than anything else. Sachin's exploits in England gained mileage only in cricket sites like cricinfo.com but in otherdays he made news everywhere he went. Jayasuriya became the second highest in number of hundreds scored in one day cricket, a place jointly held by former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly.

I bought Sportstar last week to get to know more about India's series victory in the Caribbean only to find out that only 4-5 pages dedicated to this, which covered the last two tests between India and West Indies. I thought sab football ki mahima hai.

Raveesh

Historic Win

Can't wait to write this post after the historic win of Indian cricket team at Kingston. This was the series win all of the Indian cricket fans have been waiting from more than three decades. Finally the jinx has been broken and India have registered their first series win in the Caribbean after 35 years. Not to forget that this was the long awaited overseas series win after 20 years, last one being at England in 1986.

Caribbean tour has not been the pleasant for the Indian team in the past. Last time India came close to clinching the series was in 1997 in the Barbados test when it was chasing a target of 120. Sadly at that time team was allout for a mere 81. And in 2001 India was leading the series 1-0 only to be outplayed by Windies 2-1 in the last 2 tests.

After the ODI series loss 1-4 to West Indies nobody would have expected Indians to do well in the test series. Kudos to Rahul Dravid and team for their efforts to make sure that they win the test series. Though the score line may say the series win as 1-0 it would have been 2-0 or even 3-0 if there was some luck and little effort from this team. But win is a win and it has come at the right the time to boost the team morale after the ODI series loss.

Though the win was a team effort, 2 persons stand out with exemplary performances, Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble. Dravid kept his cool when the wickets were tumbling at the other end to make sure India did not bundle out for mere 100 runs in the first innings. Support he got from Kumble is tremendous, with the duo adding 93 runs for the 7th wicket. India were in dire straits with 91-6 then. Dravid's contribution of 81 and 68 will go as the best test innings he has played so far. Not to forget the contribution of Kumble of 45 in the first innings which was vital at that time. Harbhajan's 5 wicket haul certainly deserves mention here. And in the second innings it was Sreesanth who set tone for the historic win taking 3 crucial wickets of Gayle, Ganga and Sarwan. Munaf took the big wicket of Lara. Then it was Kumble all the way taking 6 wickets for 78 runs. For a man which may be his last Caribbean tour it was performance to cherish. One still remembers him coming to bowl with the broken jaw in 2001 to get big man Lara out for lbw and to get pat on the back from umpire David Shepherd. Kumble has been doing well in the overseas contrary to the notion of the critics in past couple of years. He has proved that once again. Kudos to Kumble.

Next series ahead is the triangular ODI series in Sri Lanka comprising India, Sri Lanka and South Africa starting from 14th August, 2006 with India taking on Sri Lanka on 16th August. Though this series win may have hidden the cracks, but India have to work on the teams weaknesses such as some of its players playing below par and regain their one day form. Since the series is played subcontinent itself, there should not be any difficulty in doing that. Sri Lanka are upbeat with 5-0 ODI series victory over England where in the last match they scored 324 in just 37.3 overs. South Africa and India were tied at 2-2 when these two met last time in India. So lot of exciting cricket in store for the cricket buffs in the coming days. So series promises to be a close one.

This historic series win in the Caribbean would go as one of the golden moments in Indian cricket. Indian cricket fans will remember this win for a long long time.

Raveesh