ALTER IDEM

Check out this half-a-minute video, folks... There's this neatly turned out 6-7 year old boy. His teacher, asks him to tell the two times multiplication table (in Kannada). He gets it right till '2 x 3 = 6'. After that, he recites pure gibberish..... in the right tone!! Does he think he is telling the table correctly? Or, does he think he is hoodwinking his teacher? From the most innocent expression on his face, I think it is the former.... A couple of months ago, this video was widely shared on local Whatsapp groups. Recorded by this boy's teacher and her colleagues, I'm sure the intention was to spread some laughter..... but, somewhere along, for me, this video stops being funny! Could be because around the same time as I saw this video, I had read an article in the newspaper. Apparently, the education minister of Karnataka, during his tours of state-run schools throughout the state, discovered that the knowledge levels of high school students were disapp...

Some days ago, the National film awards were announced. Quite unexpectedly, Sandalwood- the Kannada film industry- had fared well.... especially, a largely unknown actor called Sanchari Vijay. Vijay won the National award for best actor - for the role of a transgender in a movie called Naanu avanu alla ... avalu (Not a man.... a woman). The best Kannada movie, Harivu (Flow) - about a rural man who brings his ailing son to big city for treatment - has the same Vijay playing the role of the helpless father. Well.... I had never heard of this man! As a Kannadiga, I was doubly interested (a little guilty too!)..... Google, of course, knew something.  And, the newspapers told us what google knew!! Last week, I chanced upon the latter half of an interview with Vijay on a Kannada TV channel - with some clips from both movies. From what I saw, the actor has been outstanding in both the movies....... Of course, the Kannada media has given him due credits.  But, you know, none...

For ages and ages, all students of Kannada have had to mug up the Govina HaaDu in primary/ high school. For kids of my generation, it was no big deal. Because, this folk song was set to music in an award-winning Kannada film called Tabbaliyu neenaade magane (You are now an orphan,my son). The song was very popular and was played regularly on our main source of entertainment - the radio. For those of you who are ignorant, here's the Govina HaaDu.   The movie opens with this song. Some villagers are staging a dance-drama and if you watch carefully, you'll catch Naseeruddin Shah (in the role of a Hindu priest).... among the audience. A nice song, isn't it? The song tells us the story of a cow called PunyakoTi . One day, while grazing in the forest, a tiger confronts PunyakoTi and threatens to eat her up. The cow pleads for some time - to go home and bid farewell to her loved ones. Half-heartedly, the tiger grants her leave. When PunyakoTi comes back as promised, the ...

About an year ago, I had introduced an acquaintance - someone I used to meet every evening. Over time, we had graduated from being nodding acquaintances to talking acquaintances. We had even begun to explain our absences for the evenings we missed seeing each other! Though our conversations revolved around plants/ gardening, I had learnt that he was a farmer from North Karnataka, had had differences with family members and had come here to spend the rest of his life - far from the madding crowd...... Earlier this month, I was away for a week. After I came back, I noticed that my friend was missing. I assumed that he was visiting his daughter (with whom he was on good terms).  It's been about 10 days since I returned, and still, no sign of him. Though in full bloom, his garden is looking a little weedy. I decided to make enquiries about him with the all-knowing watchman. 'You don't know, Maydam-avre (How I ABHOR that address!)? The other day, a group of Ma...

Road - widening hits home : ( When the announcement had come two years ago, all of us had accepted the fact. Yes, our roads were too narrow to accommodate the sudden increase in traffic - both local & tourist.... and, widening them was necessary. Proposed & approved way back in the 70s, financial shortcomings had post-poned the widening works till now! Those of us along the proposed widening path were hoping that the financial crunch continued & the proposal would remain just that! Alas! it didn't happen that way. Today, the dreaded moment arrived and was gone within a couple of minutes, leaving all of us sailing in the same boat ...... Most neighbours have lost old, high yielding coconut trees, mango trees, etc. Some have lost a portion of their verandas. We have lost about 8 feet of our garden. My favourite corner would look like this at this time of the year. Now, it looks like this ..... Soon, it will be tarred and be called 'road' .......

The other evening, my friend and I were in her veranda - talking about this and that - and her farm hand walked in. He had finished his day's work. As my friend got him his tea, she told him, "Heard that your son's post has been made permanent. Now, you should think of getting him married". That was all the opening he needed - to pour out his opinions, quite oblivious to the presence of a stranger. "What 'permanent' akka . With his Rs.7,000 per month income, I'll have to look around for a girl who earns at least that much. Otherwise, how can he manage? Just see...both of us leave home at around 8.15 in the morning. While my work place is at a walkable distance, he spends Rs.20 one way as bus fare.Then, amidst work, I have proper lunch, tea,...& walk back home, in time to do some chores there. For this, I earn about Rs.6,000 per month (Farm hands in these parts are paid Rs.200 - Rs.300 per day, plus meals). I save whatever remains after spendin...

My mother was the only person in the family who could and would tolerate P . The rest of us would acknowledge his presence and then, go about our ways. P , in his early 20s then, belonged to my parents' hometown near Kasargod. He had come to B'lore in search of employment. He ended up as a peddler - of different products at different times. If it was pure honey at one time, it was banana chips, kokum products, tickets to cultural events (that nobody would attend),.... at other times. Since he would refuse to leave until she bought, my mother ended up being P 's permanent customer :( It was when P was selling leather bags that my mother bought this brown bag. I thought that it looked more like a bus conductor's bag than a college girl's! And so, for a long time, the bag stayed in a corner, unused. I don't remember when & why I used the bag for the first time, but, once I discovered the convenience of the multi compartments, the bag became my perma...

According to Indian Animal Welfare Laws, it is illegal to transport animals in any manner that will cause them suffering. It is perfectly all right to complain/ take the transporter to task. But, how many of us have the time and the inclination to go to the nearest police outpost and complain/ exchange words with the transporter? During a recent journey, this pair of young buffaloes were travelling ahead of us.It was impossible to ignore them - especially, the difficulty they had with maintaining their balance. A couple of times, the tether seemed to be pulling at their necks, adding to their discomfort. Obviously, the driver preferred speed to the animals' comfort. Disturbing, no doubt, but, we were definitely in no mood to pick up an argument. Soon, we passed them by and the buffaloes were out of our sight (can't remove them out of my mind though :( ). Some years ago, I had read an article by Menaka Gandhi. She had written that if animals could sue us for defamation, th...

In the Udupi - Dakshina Kannada - Chikmagalur region of Karnataka, Dr.Veerendra Heggade of Dharmasthala has been setting up and promoting women's self-help groups as part of his rural development programme. It is an initiative meant to make semi-literate/ illiterate women economically independant. Women's self-help groups in other parts of the country are not unheard of. A lot of them have been started by & spear headed by men. I think, initiatives like this bring more power to women, than, say, reservation of seats in the Parliament. The basic principle of these area- based, self-help groups is some sort of a fund that is set up from which loans are handed out for small- scale industries (chiefly food items like pickles, squashes, chips), dairy/ poultry farming, etc. Easy repayment schemes & money- saving schemes have successfully lured a large number of women, irrespective of caste/ community, to these groups. Thanks to this, there is a BIG shortage of domestic help...

A farmer is someone who 'grows food' - everyone knows that. Food is one of our basic needs- everyone knows that too. Farming is therefore, a profession on which the very survival of human beings depends on. Inspite of that, it isn't the chosen profession for the vast majority of us..... All these thoughts came to me as I was reading http://www.civilsocietyonline.com/jan10/jan101.asp . Adike Patrike ( http://www.adikepatrike.com/ ) is a magazine in Kannada written by & of agriculturists for everyone. As a regular reader, I am often in awe of the agriculturists featured. These men and women defy all the common, negative perceptions of a farmer as illiterate/uneducated/ someone who is forced to take up the profession because he isn't fit for anything else. Thanks to the magazine, I know that a lot of people have come up with their own ideas to face hurdles like water shortage, labour shortage, lack of marketing support from the government, etc. What's more, th...