Thirst for Kannada has been stoked

It was a very good Sammelana. The response was very good. Thousands of people visited it. No politicians could have brought in such crowds. It was very well organised, although a few problems do tend to crop up when you bring in large numbers of people to one venue. I do wish, however, they wouldn't spend so much money and would do it in a much simple manner. For instance, food distribution was cumbersome, I heard. I would suggest that food at subsidised rates should be made available at food stalls and people should be encouraged to buy.

The sessions were laid out well. I attended a poetry session and enjoyed it. The Sammelana has done a good job of reminding people that it is important to learn Kannada. Sensitive people would respond to it. You could hear people speak only the local language at the Sammelana and it was good to see people thirsting for it.

It is not enough do a Sammelana. We have to follow it up with other initiatives like running classes in spoken Kannada. Very good teaching methodologies have been developed by the Central Institute of Indian Languages in Mysore. We have to make efforts to access, stay in touch with the language too. One of the ways to do so is to buy vegetables from local markets, not in malls or supermarkets. Of course, for this we need good footpaths to walk on and enable these markets to flourish.

I would say visit villages, interact with communities that keep the language alive. In my younger days, I used to attend harikatha sessions. The oral tradition should be preserved, too. Big cities have become unliveable, hostile to language, too. The challenges to nurturing the local language in mega cities are too many.    

Prof UR Ananthamurthy

The writer is a Jnanpeeth award winning litterateur.