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Pickles from home

I have been reading "Pickles from Home" by Sugatha Srinivasaraju. I felt nostalgic.

Funny. Feeling nostalgic about home, while staying in home land for the past 15 years. We the readers of English newspapers, and viewers of Hindi and English TV channels do not hear most of the events of our "Kannada nadu."

Many articles -  be it about A pontiff writing about how it is wrong for "maths" to appoint children as swamis or about the communalization of coastal districts or even the controversy surrounding the 300 Ramayanas by AK Ramanujan are sparsely heard in namma Bengaluru - and more so to English reading populace.  Do we live in the same state?

We don't read Kannada papers saying they don't go beyond our state. We don't watch Kannada channels saying they are substandard. So it is more our fault. Not the fault of English papers who concentrate on more important issues - around the world.


Coming back to the book Pickles from home - an English book about Kannada, some of the essays are  good. And the topics are multi faceted. Not just Kannada and its literature.

What got started me was the essay about Ramayanas. Each state of our country and even other countries has one or more versions of Ramayana. And the stories are not exact copies of Valmiki Ramayana.
 

A good read for all (English speaking) kannadiga and kannadathi s

P.S. : After reading the book, I have started reading Prajavani frequently. So I am having my own "ghar vapasi"?
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