11 June 2025
This book, Chandan Gowda's 'Another India: Events, Memories, People,' has been living in the ‘cart’ for so many days and four days ago, I pushed the button, and it came home yesterday. I started reading straightaway and by evening I had read more than half of the essays.
The first essay, ‘A People without a Stereotype,’ caught my attention immediately. As a nomad, having lived in 6 different states and being married to a person having stakes in Bihar and Bengal, this question had always tickled me. The term ‘Kannadiga’ was met with some kind of incomprehension most of the times. I used to feel ‘Kannadigas’ always flew under the radar. My father was posted in Sultanpur, UP, when P V Narasimha Rao became the PM. His UP-based colleagues came to congratulate him, ‘Raosaab, aapka aadmi PM ban gaya’ ... when my father explained to them that the PM is a Telugu and that he is a Kannadiga and that there is a difference, it didn’t make any difference. Aap sab log Madrasi hain na ...
As Chandan says, we never travelled and settled elsewhere in large numbers to create this stereotype. Tulu speakers from Dakshina Kannada have settled in large numbers in Mumbai, Pune and other cities. They are called ‘Anna’-s there. But Kannadigas don’t have a pan-Indian referent like Mallu, Bong, Thambi, Golti, Gujju, Bhaiyya, and so on. I remember a discussion some of us had in the CIEFL hostel dining hall a long time ago, “hey, what are you people called? We are called ‘Mallus’ ... she is a ‘Bong’” ... “I don’t know ... nobody notices us I think ... you should find us a name,” I said. We tried different names and the one which came close to acceptance was ‘Kannus.’ But that didn’t take off and the discussion remained there. Chandan’s essay made me think about this topic again.
For a nomadic Kannadiga like me, this book is a treasure trove of stories, ideas and information. The essays filled a number of gaps in my understanding of Kannada culture, literature, local myths, urban myths, politics, popular culture, etc. Chandan Gowda has employed an engaging style, interlaced with wit and humour, and at the same time one can perceive a solid intellect working behind the scenes to make it all happen.
