Baithak: Video interview with actor, politician Anantnag (Parts 1, 2 & 3)

First Published: The State | December 2017

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3nmSE9tjxM-Yyq2ZYVMTPg?view_as=subscriber

The Statement: Random notes on the political project of SW. and about a broth-relay across cultures

First published: SouthWord | 26 January 2018

ONE: Why are we starting SW.? An honest answer would be for no particular reason, and with no specific agenda. Normally, manifestos that become either obvious, or implied, when products are launched have either a pure ideological purpose, or forward a technological leap, or quiet simply seek to plug a market vacancy. We claim to do nothing of the sort. We just want the mind to unhurriedly graze a vast tract of land; allow the retina to build its own slow narrative from free reflection of images, and alert ears to construct a semantic string to voices that glide over its drum. This may sound like a slothful, listless, apolitical dream, but it isn’t. To quietly survey complexity and diversity that envelops us in all its forms, and come to terms with it, with a certain poise and peace, in itself is, and should be, the biggest, and the most dynamic political project our times.

TWO: A couple of months ago, we started TS, a first-of-its-kind digital native platform in any Indian language, and we were buoyed by the response we received. Our text was being widely circulated. Our videos were being watched. And more interestingly, our podcasts were being listened to. Podcasts were a pioneering new experiment in the Kannada language, and we should claim a fair degree of success. We have scooped an exclusive rendering of former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda’s autobiography. We have a rationalist-scholar do a show on Baghavad Gita, obviously not for bhakts, but for a thinking person.  We have another scholar do a podcast on the 15^th century classic Mahabharata text by Gadugina Narayanappa or Kumaravyasa, which is on Sheldon Pollock’s list for Murty Classics at Harvard University. We picked up the Jnanpith-winning Ramayana text of Kuvempu for yet another show, and finally, we devised a podcast on ‘the idiom of abuse’ in Kannada by a sociolinguist. As a result, there was an eclectic audience that was directly reaching our site. We were not on the crutches of social media promotion. Even in the age of Internet, the word-of-mouth had proved worthy enough.

This response gave us energy to explore a unique bilingual space, via an English sub domain to the existing platform. Here, we thought of English as an extension with Kannada as the motherboard. Usually, the process is reverse. We think of English first, and then proceed towards a regional tongue. There are many arguments as to why this happens, but anyway, in Kannada, we were situating ourselves, avowedly, in a rootedly cosmopolitan tradition, and we felt a similar experiment in English would add fresh perspective to the political and cultural discourses surrounding us. Instead of just Kannada, amplifying the experiment with the richness of languages that neighbour Kannada, that is Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu (all of them with a written literary tradition of over a thousand years), we thought would enrich English, and would be far more rewarding. That is how SW. was born.   

This worldview should ensure that we are spared the accusation of fostering a culturally provincial, linguistically chauvinistic, or ethnically Dravidian identity project, or even a South secessionist programme, just because we have chosen to geographically demarcate ourselves as SW. There is enough bigotry around us and we do not wish to further tip the scales of hatred.

THREE: Every South Indian is a trilingual. Not in rigid literacy terms, but in a manner of exposure, experience and importantly, expression. There is a seamless transition of ideas happening between these linguistic worlds that inhabit a person living here. The expression of this complex circuitry is unique, and that is what we’ll endeavour to capture in what we publish.

There is so much linguistic variety in the South that besides mainstream interactions between official tongues, the rich harvest of dialects offer an even sharper spin. Each language, and each dialect, is a cosmos by itself and they have their own epics and legends. Say for instance Karnataka: The Old Mysore variety of Kannada and the Kundapur variety never perhaps get to interact at the market place. Similarly, Dharwad Kannada and the Mangalore variety are not extensions of each other. The Kannada of the tribes and the Kannada of certain caste groups may never mingle. They are independent domains and sovereign imaginations. With the dialects changing, the spices too change every 25 kilometers. But all of these are contained in a political idea called Karnataka. Similar is the case with Tamil, Telugu or Malayalam. To conceive a hegemonic play here, and seek to flatten multifarious expressions of these multitudinous worlds would be preposterous and dangerous too. But, sadly, that is what our politics and politicians try to do.

FOUR: SW. may have demarcated its territory, but that will not stop us from seeking South Indian diversity in the rest of the world. To apply the sensitivity that comes from the recognition and worship of plurality to the rest of the world is an immensely beneficial exercise. Therefore we’ll have copies from London, from Mumbai, from Delhi, from Punjab, from Kashmir and every other corner and farthest reach. This is to assure ourselves that the world is similar to the South in only one respect and that is in its diversity. In the same breath, we assume no epistemological challenge if we argue that the humble, ubiquitous South Indian ‘sambar’ is a broth-relay that runs across cultures.

FIVE: RIP monolinguals.

The History, Dilemmas and Dangers of Karnataka’s Flag Debate

First Published: The Wire | 26 July 2017
Link: https://thewire.in/politics/karnataka-flag-debate-congress

'Pickles From Home' in the Book Review

First Published: The Book Review | January 2013
Link: http://old.thebookreviewindia.org/articles/archives-1151/2013/january/1/standing-at-cultural-cross-roads.html

Here's a review of my book by Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr. He writes: "Sugata displays an enviable linguistic and cultural felicity... It is the cultural treasures that Sugata shares with readers who do not know Kannada is the wonderful thing about this collection. The essays show the complex cultural patterns which are interwoven while remaining distinct and separate. Srinivasaraju sets a good example for journalists and writers from other Indian languages to write in English about the cultural riches of their respective languages. Yes, this is a lesson that only a Kannadiga can offer."

Washington Post Reco | What Our Correspondents are Reading

The India correspondent of the Washington Post recommends my book 'Pickles From Home - The World's Of A Bilingual'.

Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/what-our-correspondents-are-reading/2012/07/30/gJQAHCbYMX_blog.html

Pickles From Home: The Worlds of A Bilingual

PICKLES FROM HOME 

The Worlds Of A Bilingual

By SUGATA SRINIVASARAJU
 

-- 

PICKLES FROM HOME - THE WORLD OF A BILINGUAL is a book of essays that deals throughout with two linguistic worlds and the perennial gliding that takes place between them. Of the two, what is embedded and constant is the author's native world. It moves inside him and he compares it to the borderless travel of pickles.

Pickles follow recipes handed down across generations in a family, and they are prepared in pristine and ritualistic environments. That's the secret of their longevity and our palate often remembers and seeks the formulas we have been used to since our very early days. This is the book’s grand metaphor. To whatever the author perceives in the wider world, the native view is like a homemade pickle that adds a tangy, sharp tickle. In the multi-course meal of experience, the pickle is the most unassuming, yet essential and defining accompaniment. Tasted along with a finely cooked dish, it is a raw delight. Moreover, for what are seemingly a collection of assorted essays, the binding of this book is like a pickle jar that holds them together.

Among the plethora of books being written and published on India currently, this book represents an alternate narrative. It does not try to make sense of the country's diversity and complexity by travelling over a wide terrain and skimming the surface. Instead, it digs deep into one culture, or one particular cultural transaction, to assimilate and clarify the confounding mass.  

--

BOOK BLURBS:

The phrase ‘local knowledge’ tends to suggest that non-local knowledge is somehow superior. But what does the non-local amount to other than airline timetables? Sugata is firmly embedded in his locality, which turns out to hold as many human complexities as an entire continent. His clarity and sympathy make him a wise guide to the intricate individuality of modern Indian life.
IAN JACK, British writer, editor and a columnist for the Guardian

--

Whenever and wherever I find Sugata’s writings I read it with great interest and care. He is doing a very important job by working on Indian languages, particularly Kannada, which is not only his mother-tongue, but also the centre of his world of thoughts. He captures the cultural and social complexity of issues he writes on with a refined ease. I think this book is a delightful success.

SUNIL GANGOPADHYAY, Bengali poet, novelist and journalist

 --

Sugata's essays provide a nuanced response to the bewildering linguistic situation of contemporary Indians, torn between the pressures of moving towards a cosmopolitan lifestyle and the deep craving for preserving what is perceived as 'one's own culture.' His essays bring home the truth that 'local' and ‘global’ can both be 'universal' and 'particular.' Their dynamics is to be read not in terms of displacements or replacements, but in terms of entanglement and mutual colouring. These essays should be a must for everybody who speaks a language that feels threatened even remotely.

G N DEVY, literary critic, linguist and activist

Keeping Faith With The Mother Tongue

KEEPING FAITH WITH THE MOTHER TONGUE
The Anxieties of a Local Culture
Navakarnataka, 2008

With a Foreword by Jeremy Seabrook

On the Deccan Herald  BESTSELLER list (4 May 2008): http://archive.deccanherald.com/Content/May42008/books2008050366142.asp

Book Blurbs: 
In this stimulating book, Sugata Srinivasaraju explores the clash between local cultures on the one hand and the homogenizing impulses of globalisation on the other... his sweep is broad, his tone by turns empathetic and polemical. He acquaints us with the different dimensions of this conflict - economic, political, moral and aesthetic. Through his reports and analyses, Sugata makes a case for a rooted cosmopolitanism that I for one found deeply persuasive.
~ RAMACHANDRA GUHA, Historian and Columnist 

 Spanning across centuries from the earliest extant Kannada literary work of the 850 to today's Lankesh and Karnad and unblurred focus on the invisible and visible expressions of the cultural consciousness of the great Kannada community, the book is an exemplary discourse of an extremely well-informed, reflective, liberal and committed mind. Though the author's reference point is Kannada, his concerns are the concerns of all languages of India. 

The book contains some perceptive biographical pieces which are moving, original observations of those personalities. Sugata Srinivasaraju's scholarship and his natural restraint makes the book one of the most illuminating and stimulating commentaries on contemporary Indian society.
~  ASHOKAMITRAN, Tamil Writer 

This book is grounded in a precise locality and a particular culture. This gives it great resonance for people all over the world, the bearers of ‘minor’ or ‘limited’ languages, who see the recuperation of their identity as bound up in the survival of the language and tradition, which formed them. It deserves to be read wherever cultures are threatened; and that means everywhere; and also in translation, not least in the Kannada of which Sugata is such a powerful and loving advocate... Sugata is indeed an exceptional ambassador between cultures.
~ JEREMY SEABROOK, British Writer and Columnist (from the Foreword)

Review Lines:
A book of profound insights.
~ CHIRANJIV SINGH, India's former Ambassador to UNESCO 

The book is rich and crisp in its details, in its evocation of persons and personalities of the past. It makes deft connections between seemingly unrelated aspects of politics, economy and culture.
~ M S PRABHAKARA in the Economic and Political Weekly
The author navigates swirling currents determined to find a gentle, liberal way to be conservative, a way to be rooted without being parochial or insular.
~ SUNIL MENON in the Outlook

Regional writers, Sugata reminds us, not only constitute an important segment of the intelligentsia but also have a foothold on the global literary scene.
~JYOTI NAIR BELLIAPPA in The Hindu

There is a refined intellectual balance in Sugata’s writing... We have to be grateful to him for having written this book.
~ C N RAMACHANDRAN in the Prajavani

This is an eminently readable book.
~ Deccan Herald

Report of the book launch in The Hindu on 31.03.2008:
Saving Local Cultures in a Globalising World
Jeremy Seabrook launches Sugata Srinivasaraju’s book

Staff Reporter

Bangalore: “As irrational as it may be, I feel strangely disturbed by India turning to the value system of the United States. But then again, is one really in control of his or her identity?” asked Jeremy Seabrook, eminent author and columnist, at the launch of a book, “Keeping Faith with the Mother Tongue: The anxieties of a local culture”, by writer and journalist Sugata Srinivasaraju, here on Saturday.
Speaking of the inevitable impact of globalisation on local culture, Mr. Seabrook said that his sentiment was, perhaps, “absurd”, if not absolutely “untenable”.
“After all, we in Britain have also been partly refashioned by the U.S. — 70 per cent of expressions in our media and in customary usage now have an American origin,” he said. “Those who think that we are agents in our acculturation are wrong,” he added.
Introducing the book, which explores the clash between local cultures and the homogenising impulses of globalisation, Mr. Seabrook posed some questions, tongue firmly in cheek: “If Kannada is the mother-tongue, what is its relation with the national language? Does Hindi then become the step-mother tongue? And English the mother-in-law tongue?”
Mr. Srinivasaraju said he sometimes wondered if, through the book, he was avenging his father’s “humiliation at the altar of English.”
“The world did not open up to my father because of his limited access to English… English extracts regret from the most marvellously accomplished,” he said and added that Nobel prize-winning Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez is also known to have expressed regret over not being taught English.
The book came out of his personal need to “reconcile the best of the two worlds — the global and local, cosmopolitan and provincial, the inside and outside. I did not want to have to choose — I wanted to be a good bilingual,” said Mr. Srinivasaraju.

Phoneix & Four Other Mime Plays

PHONEIX & FOUR OTHER MIME PLAYS
Navakarnataka, 2005

A translation from Kannada to English of mime plays by Chi Srinivasaraju

Winner of the KARNATAKA SAHITYA ACADEMY TRANSLATION PRIZE (2005-06)

Book Blurb:
Srinivasaraju wrote most of his plays in the seventies; a radical period in Kannada theatre. His plays are small. As opposed to the individualistic full length plays written during those times, Raju tried to make his plays small and socially accessible. By doing so, he was probably sending a message to the younger playwrights of his times, against self-indulgent experimentation. Raju also tried to write for a different audience. Thirty years later we have realised the folly of both self-indulgence and of not cultivating an audience. We have lost our audience.
I am happy that Srinivasaraju's mime plays are now getting published in English translation.
~ Prasanna, Heggodu

Ekushey February

EKUSHEY FEBRUARY
2004, Sanchaya, Bangalore

With an Afterword by K V Narayana

An edited volume on the Bangladeshi language movement and UNESCO's International Mother Tongue Day.