Bangalore vs Bengalooru: A personal issue?

Get famous, no matter through what route, goes a sarcasm-laced saying in Kannada. I had achieved that - without building anything, destroying anything or even writing anything, when the change of Bangalore's name to Bengalooru was in the news. Those were the days when BBC, New York Times, USA Today and a host of Indian newspapers and television channels called me incessantly. My apologies if that sounds a bit like boasting.

All my interviewers would start with the same question: So was it you who proposed the idea of the change of Bangalore's name to Bengalooru? I could often predict the next set of questions and answered without waiting to be even asked: "Yes, of course, change of name alone will not ensure better infrastructure." Or, "You say Bangalore has a 'brand value' today and it may lose out on all the economic gains that come with it by changing the 'brand name'. But kind sir, why don't we look at it in a slightly different way? Bangalore became a 'brand' because of its great weather. But because it is a 'brand' the weather went bad. Now we have so many people, so many cars, and so much dust and smoke that we can hardly breathe."

A couple of Bangaloreans wrote letters to me in bad English asking who on earth I was to suggest change of name. Why should we learn Kannada, they asked; had I sought the permission for this name change business from 50 lakh people living in the city? My friends Ashish Nandi and H.Y. Sharada Prasada too are asking me questions, without getting so angry, though. "Bangalore is not one city. It is both Bangalore and Bengalooru. Let them both be," they say.

I feel inclined to accepting their liberal line of argument. But I would still like to offer a counter-argument, though tinged with hesitation:

"You see, most people of Bangalore are unaware of even the existence of Bengalooru. They come face-to-face with it when buses are burnt or stones come crashing at their expensive cars when Rajkumar gets kidnapped or dies. But that's a brief encounter. There was a time when people who didn't speak Kannada in their homes learnt the language. Someone like Masti Venkatesh Iyengar or Pu.Thi. Narasimhachar, who spoke Tamil in their homes, became great writers in Kannada. But these are times when you don't need Kannada to even buy brinjal in the market. There are food malls and food worlds where you can buy 'ladies finger' and 'banana' without knowing they are called 'bende kayi' and 'bale hannu' in Kannada. Of course, there is no question of doing a bit of haggling with the seller there on the prices. Small retailers with whom you could haggle, argue and exchange gossip have shut shop. If they own the piece of land on which they have their shops, it is more lucrative for them to sell the plot and sit at home. Those who have rented establishments, of course, find themselves in a pathetic situation. The children of those who buy brinjals in food malls also grow up without a touch of the soil. The schools they go to and the school the Kannada children go to might well be in two different planets. By Kannada children I mean here the children of poor people. The children of rich Kannada-speaking people also, of course, can get on with life without uttering a word of Kannada. They travel one-and-a-half hours every day to go to schools that cost a lakh a year and remain untouched by Kannada children. No, no chance at all of lice from a poor child's head crossing over to a rich child's head!

It was just with the hope that these people would be compelled to learn at least a word in Kannada that I had proposed the name change to Dharam Singh, when he was the chief minister. That's all. No more than that."

Some people ask me if it's not hard for outsiders to get the 'la' sound in the word 'Bengalooru'. That reminds me of how I have spent the better part of my life trying to learn the distinction between the pronunciations of 'e' as in 'ye' sounds in English. Let those who speak English struggle a bit with the world Bengalooru, I would say. Then people give me a warning: Careful, if you start troubling business people like this they will shut shop and go home. It's not a good idea to provoke the noble souls who have opened call centres here to improve our lot. Then I extend my stupid argument without any sense of shame: Tchu, tchu, don't worry. Business people are a very wise lot. They will learn even Kannada if it will add to their profit. If the five million people (50 lakh, as we say in our language) here begin to read and write the language, they will not only have name boards in Kannada but will also start using it in their transactions. They will speak Kannada like we speak English, I tell them. After all it's not as if there is "one" Kannada. Let's add to the already existing variety.

The British, who fancied they ruled an empire over which the sun never sets, did want everyone to speak their kind of English. But see how spectacularly they failed even in their own America, Australia and London! Think of why George Bernard Shaw wrote a play like Pygmalion.

I will tell you one of the many stories of my struggle with English. I went to England to study in the early part of the Sixties. When I went to the well-known historian Panikkar, who was then the Vice-Chancellor of Mysore University, to seek permission, he asked me what my area of research would be. Lawrence, I said. He asked me what new perspective I could offer on Lawrence without studying writers like Kalidasa, Bhasa, Bhavabhuti and so many more in my own language. There was a lot I could offer, I argued, with respect but not without the arrogance of modernity. He wished me well and granted me leave.

I left for Birmingham with my family. I got a pin-striped woolen suit, a prestige symbol in those days, stitched and wore with pride. But there I met Richard Hoggart, a brilliant scholar who came from a working class background, wearing a cap typically worn by labourers. The much-respected man would be dressed in a faded coat and never wore a tie. He wore a black gown only when he taught. He would sit and chat with students in pubs. His book, "Uses of Literacy", had won the praise of even someone like Raymond Williams.

Though I wanted to get close to this circle, they sent me to do English composition classes for six months. I put up with it, though I had already done my M.A. After all English is an alien language and there may be many more things to learn, I thought. I passed the exam. Then I had to discuss my area of research with my tutor. A great deal had already been written about Lawrence. I thought I should work on writers like Orwell, Auden and Isherwood who wrote in the Thirties when the entire Europe was in Hitler's clutches. I wanted to especially concentrate on a writer called Edward Upward who had escaped critics' attention. I had the support of Malcolm Bradbury of my own age who was already famous as a novelist, critic and teacher. But the tutor had to agree to my proposal. He was a good man, but an old and an old-fashioned man. He had just then returned from a tour of India. His advice to me went on these lines: "Don't do literary research, do phonetics instead. If you learn the English phonetic system you could even land a UNO job. See how high Rajan, who studied in Cambridge, has risen. You know why? Because if you hear him speak in the dark, you would think you are talking to an Englishman. I met a big professor of English in India. I believe his name is Iyengar. But I could hardly make out what he was saying! Anyway, what do you want to research on?"

I suppressed my embarrassment and said: Edward Upward. The tutor knitted his brows and asked again: who? I cleared my throat and said in a clearer voice: Edward Upward. Running his fingers through the white goaty beard he wore, my tutor told me in a voice dripping with pity: "Do you know why I asked someone as intelligent as you to study phonetics instead of literature? Because you don't know the difference between 'e' and 'ye'. Say 'Edward', it's 'ed' and not 'yed'."

That was the limit. I blurted out: "Sir, you don't know how to say 'Iyengar', you say 'Eyengar'. Then why can't I say 'Yedward'. If I speak as you do while teaching students in Mysore they will call me an ape with silly English pretensions."

I went straight to Richard Hoggart after saying bye to him. He was a senior teacher there. I narrated what had happened and told him: "I would rather surrender my Commonwealth scholarship and go back to Mysore than do phonetics." Hoggart smiled and said: "Your tutor is a good man, I will tell him. I will hold an M.A. exam for you at the end of the year. You take four papers of your favourite Shakespeare and pass the exams. Then you do research on whatever you want. The English I speak in my unselfconscious moments is the English spoken by the labour class. Your tutor could well have told me the same things!"

The same tutor was my examiner in M.A. He liked my paper and praised me to the point of making me feel embarrassed about what I had told him in those moments of anger. He approved my research proposal.

***

During my meeting with Dharam Singh I had proposed many things besides change of Bangalore's name: Karnataka should become a fully literate State; all children should get free and equal education in common schools; English should be taught to all in a way that makes it possible to use it the way we want to without illusions about its superiority; and an engineering and a medical college should be opened with Kannada as medium of instruction.

Surprising how the high priests of globalization are threatened by the mere issue of a name change! Do our IT companies fear that the sensex, that fluctuates at everything from tsunami to farmers' suicides, might be affected if Bangalore becomes Bengalooru?

I hope the name change is a symbolic step towards Kannadisation. By Kannadisation I mean the ability to belong to the world at large even as one is rooted in one's Kannadaness. I hope it does not become a mere publicity gimmick that doesn't rise beyond symbolism.

I went to England to see daffodils celebrated by Wordsworth "tossing their heads in sprightly dance". And I have a dream. I dream of a time when people who visit Karnataka want to smell the fragrant Mysore jasmines, eat the bananas of Nanjangud and read the great Vachanas of Basaveshwara and Allama Prabhu. I dream of a time when those who admire the wanderings of Joyce's hero Dedaulus also open their eyes to the rich Dalit world Kuvempu's character Nayigutti leads us into.

Translated from Kannada by: Bageshree