Kannada and its uniqueness

Few weeks ago I saw a video on Facebook that was meant for promoting usage of Kannada in daily life by telling us Kannada names for vegetables and fruits that we use on a daily basis like Tomato, Beets, Carrot and so on. When I learned from the video that the common Tomato is called Goodhe hannu (ಗೂಧೆ ಹಣ್ಣು) in Kannada, I was super elated, I was proud of the fact that while present day scientists were debating till recently whether to qualify Tomato as a fruit or a vegetable, we kannadigas had already done the classification long long time ago and called it a fruit. 

Then came the hard hitting realization, in the language of Kannada, no fruit or vegetable has just names in 1 part (barring a few exceptions), they always have 2 part names. The first part is what we in other languages call their names and second part determines status of the fruit of vegetable like its ripeness (ಹಣ್ಣು , ಕಾಯಿ ) or whether it grows above of below ground (ಗೆಡ್ಡೆ , ಗೆಣಸು ) or its status of lentil (ಕಾಳು ) and so on. Examples are numerous to name a few ಬಾಳೆ ಹಣ್ಣು  (banana), ಬದನೆ ಕಾಯಿ (eggplant or brinjal), ಆಲೂ ಗೆಡ್ಡೆ  (potato),    

Why is such a big deal, it is some what because other languages like English or for that matter our own Indian language Hindi doesn’t follow this rule.

Let me demonstrate with an example, take the fruit Banana 

English: banana it usually means a ripe banana 

Hindi: kela, still means a ripe banana 

Kannada: if you want ripe banana you will have to say bale hannu (ಬಾಳೆ ಹಣ್ಣು)

Unripe bale kayi (ಬಾಳೆ ಕಾಯಿ)

Leaf bale yele (ಬಾಳೆ ಎಲೆ)

Simply saying bale (ಬಾಳೆ) doesn’t mean a thing for a true Kannadiga. 

I am sure the closely related languages of Telugu and Tamil probably follow the same rules. Wonder if there are other languages which follow same rules.

Rangi Tharanga

I had heard a great deal about this movie called Rangi Tharanga and when Sandhya told me that the director Anup Bhandari was her classmate once upon a time, I definitely wanted to see the movie. In general I would Google the movie before hand and would have had an idea about the plot but this time around I made an exception to the rule and went to the theater blank slate.

So, what is the movie about? 

• A horror, romantic, suspense thriller with slight amount of action
• A movie that throws curve ball after curve ball towards the audience
• A movie that keeps you on the edge of the seat from start to end (no, not like Bourne series) 
• A movie that re-defines suspense thrillers
• A movie with some wonderful songs
• A movie which doesn’t add songs for no reason
• A movie that has the fewest technical and logical flaws
• A movie that has the best cinematography along with best story and best direction
• A movie with the original story, last one with this level of intensity was Kahani in hindi
• A movie that for the first time ever in my life-time in Austin had 4 shows in a theater and almost all shows were packed
• A movie that had a good blend of old and new talents
• A movie that had brand new artists who performed like veterans
• A movie that is definitely not a family (I wouldn’t recommend for kids) entertainer
• A movie that in my ratings would be a PG-13    

Great job Anup Bhandari, hope to see more work like this in the future.

If you haven’t seen it and there is a chance to see in a theater do it, its worth the money and time. 

Who discovered America? – satire

They say Christopher Columbus discovered America, I disagree, I think it must be a Kannadiga who first discovered America and Columbus re-invented the same. Here is my argument :)

There is a proverb in Kannada “ಪಾಪಿ ಸಮುದ್ರಕ್ಕೆ ಹೋದರು ಮೊಣಕಾಲು ಉದ್ದ ನೀರು”, loosely translated a sinner cannot commit suicide even when he goes to the ocean for the ocean level never rises beyond the ankles. The ankle may be a oversight and they probably meant the knee.  They say proverbs have deeper meanings as they arise from people’s experiences. So, if you think about it at some point in time some “sinner” must have tried to commit suicide by drowning in an ocean or sea and unable to do so for the water never became deep enough. Can you think of 1 sea where it is possible, Gulf of Mexico where you can keep walking from the beach and rarely see a dip in sea floor level :).

So, Kannadigas knew Gulf of Mexico and hence knew America :)  

Lucia–Kannada movie

One more blog due to the India trip, the movie was discussed big time during my high school reunion and apparently one of my school friends had worked on the movie (don’t remember in what capacity he worked though), Incentive enough to watch isn’t it?, My fellow friends did offer me the pirated copies of the movie but due to lack of time and lack of initiative from my side it never happened.

Now back in USA and alone, I figured lets Google it. Learnt quite a few things about the movie, it is the first crowd funded movie in Kannada  and it has won some awards in the international level, some even call it Kannada’s answer to Inception the English movie. If you want the plot and all such things then there is the Wikipedia, but take my advice and just watch the movie by paying $5(not pirated).

Its not too long, just 2 hours and a few minutes and packs enough punch to keep you engrossed the whole time. Not as complex as Inception but in the bigger picture it is sort of inspired by Inception.

Its truly an edge of the seat thriller and one of the best Kannada movies ever made. The actors are not some hi-flying stereo types in Kannada movie but the ones who were famous for playing the side kicks and comedian roles in Kannada movie. The songs are just out of this world. The story line, direction, casting, acting and pretty much every aspect of the movie is done to perfection and one will be hard pressed to find fault in the movie. I would say almost a perfect movie (I am sure if looked hard enough one can find a fault here and there).

I definitely recommend it for my Kannada speaking friends and for those who can’t the movie has subtitles too. Still with me, you can find the rental here. Please don’t pirate its not just another run off the mill movie.  

Kannada rhymes DVD by infobells

If you were born in Karnataka in the 80's or 90's and your parents were not too sold out on “convent” culture, you probably grew up hearing some of these Kannada rhymes 

• ನಮ್ಮ ಮನೆಯಲೊಂದು ಚಿಕ್ಕ ಪಾಪ 
• ನಾಯಿ ಮರಿ ನಾಯಿ ಮರಿ ತಿಂಡಿ ಬೇಕೇ
• ರೊಟ್ಟಿ ಅಂಗಡಿ ಕಿಟ್ಟಪ್ಪ 
• ಆನೆ ಬನ್ತ್ಹೊಂದ್ ಆನೆ

Now imagine these rhymes and much more like this being beautifully animated and made into a DVD. That's what infobells has done. I must say, they have done a wonderful job. The DVD flows as a musical narration of songs and is captured as an interaction between a small girl “Chinnu” and her pet dog “Pappu”.  

Thanks to my sister-in-law for introducing us to this. My 2 year old daughter just loves this DVD. Its one of her favorites and she calls it “Chinna – Aane”, referring to the pictures on the DVD.

The company Infobells seems to have a YouTube page and looking at the same, looks like they have translated the rhymes to multiple languages (Tamil and Telugu).

I do consider buying more DVDs from the company and will keep you posted on those when time permits.     

Naanu nanna kanasu

Naanu nanna kanasu (translated Me and my dream) a movie in Kannada by Prakash Rai. I had avoided the movie till last week when my wife forced me to watch the movie with her. I believed I had good reasons to avoid for I believed that the movie is a depressing and sad movie. Boy! was I totally wrong, and I am thankful to Sandhya for making me watch it.

The story is simple and I can positively say it is the story  of every parent. It is the life story of a girl from her birth till the day she gets married, told from the point of view of her loving, caring and devoted father. What captures the attention is the narration and the acting by the lead stars. One can relate to a lot of events described in the movie.  It has its tender moments and laughing scenes but doesn’t have much of forced comedy. Couple of scenes are worth mentioning, the scene of parents preparing for an interview to get their kid to the school and the way dad reacts when he finds out that mom knew about daughter’s love matter before him.

If I remember right, it has couple of songs which were ok, not worth mentioning, but at the same time weren’t bad enough that I couldn’t sit through. I was so sold on the depressing story line of the movie that through out the movie I was waiting for the mother to die, thankfully nobody died in the movie.  In the end it turned out to be a comedy than a depressing and sad movie. 

As with any movie, this has its sets of exaggerations, specially the story line of the son-in-law or the altruistic nature of the girl or the way that the family friends doesn’t age at all. Most of it can be ignored for the movie is really well done.

Definitely worth a watch once. If interested one can see it legally on YouTube. Sorry guys, no subtitles.

One word of caution, the movie as expected is dominated by Prakash Rai and there is not a single scene without him.

How honest are we?

Back in India, we keep crying “politicians are looting our country”, “we need selfless and honest leaders”, “Our country would be great if had good leaders” and so on. While all of the above are true, I wonder to what extent the common man is honest. You don’t get my thinking, here is the list I compiled.

• The property we buy in India gets registered to half the value and the other half is paid for in cash. This is so rampant that one will be hard pressed to find a seller willing to quote the actual sale price of the property and pay tax for the same. 
• We never believed in paying for the software we use, we believe in hacking an OS and pirating the same than paying the full price.
• We love our pirated DVDs of movies, practice is so organized that one can find an illegal camera print copy of a movie within a day of its release.
• I don’t remember the last time I paid full price for a musical CD
• We negotiate with the food caterer to see if he can give us a discount for paying in cash. Of course he does, deduct the sales tax from the order and offer it as a discount.
• We believe in registering properties and opening accounts in our non working spouses to save on taxes.
• We rarely believe in reporting rental income on our taxes.
• We believe in opening multiple accounts in multiple banks to avoid tax mans interest.   
• We blame the government official of not working but how many hours in an actual 8 hour working day we spend in doing “work”?          

The list can go on, I will be first to admit that I am guilty of quite a few items in the list.

The motivation for this blog post came from this Kannada song.