It was while watching the film Devdas that I felt a thing very odd about the movie. I wondered how come the Director used Bengali words in the film when the film is a Hindi one. My argument is that, had he used the Bengali words in the movie to bring out the cultural flavor in the movie then he has really failed as a director. If he cannot bring out the cultural feeling with the images then he shouldn’t be making any more movies. The movie is being made in Hindi so that the Hindi viewers could understand it. I feel Bengali viewers will be happy enough watching the Bengali version.
The same happened while reading O Chandumenon’s Indulekha translated by Anitha Devasiya. The purpose of English translation is that others who cannot understand Malayalam are able to enjoy the book without much trouble. But unfortunately the book contains lot of Malayalam words. She has made it easy by adding a glossary in the end. So what’s the point in it!! She may have used the Malayalam words to bring out the cultural flavor but still it will only be understood by a Malayalee. Being a Malayalee myself I found the very interesting to read but I strongly feel this may not be the case for a foreigner who will have to time and again look into the glossary which can be such an irritating process and destroys the flow of the story.
I’m not against usage of other languages in the same book or film if it’s consistent. For eg., in the same book Indulekha there’s usage of Sanskrit slokas which is quite right as even in Malayalam version it’s in Sanskrit.
A fine example of such consistency can be seen in the movie Paths of Glory by Stanley Kubrick. The movie setting takes place during the World War I and the happenings going around in the French camp. Not even a single French word is used in the movie and even the style of the dialogue delivery is quite American. Its through images and other ways that Kubrick bring in the French substance. Kubrick could have used a easy way out by dropping French words every now and then.
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Celebrations!!!
It seems we Indians will tend to celebrate more rather than do anything productive. We still celebrate the eight gold we won at the Olympics but forget that the last one won was 26 years ago when more than half of the Indians were still to be born. Name any field and we could find one barring a few.
In today’s budget our FM has allotted a stunning Rs.10 crores for the preparatory activities for celebrating First War of Independence (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1431852,curpg-6.cms).
It’s really pathetic as what we call the FWI was such a big flop, much bigger than Mangal Pandey and then to celebrate it so lavishly is ridiculous. What’s the purpose of such celebration when there are millions out there who still cannot have a single decent meal?
Moreover we call this as FWI because that’s what NCERT had been preaching since it started writing text books. It overlooked other fight against the foreign powers by Southern States like Kerala and that too much before 1857. To me the first war of independence happened about 110 years before the so-called FWI. In 1748 Marthanda Varma, ruler of the then Travancore State waged a war against the Dutch which resulted in the Treaty of Mavelikkara in 1753. With this treaty came the end of foreign powers from Kerala which had started way back from the arrival of Vasco da Gama in 1498.
Even the ouster of Portuguese from Kerala in 1662 can be termed as FWI but it was only possible with help of the Dutch and Britishes.
So what we are celebrating is nothing but a farce. It’s a shame that none of the NCERT books till today has given any detail on this part of history. What NCERT is good at is fabricating the historical facts.
The North has always ignored the South since the independence. We have a so-called National Anthem which calls the South Indians as Dravidians when there is so much argument in this issue. Moreover if Aryan is racist term then Dravidian too is a racist term. Actually Vandhe Mathram should have been the National Anthem but it was not made one because it would hurt the Muslim sentiments because they cannot bow to anyone but to their God.
So instead of celebrating such an event one could use such a huge amount of money in rural development like establishing hospitals, schools etc. or investing in sports activities or just installations of proper toilets and other such basic amenities in cities like Mumbai, Kolkata to keep it clean.
If anyone is going to write a book on misuage of funds then I think FM’s allotment of money for the celebrations will surely be found on top of the list. I wonder how much the FM has allotted for the Lok Sabha elections!!!(I see one sooner than later, of course with a bit of help from the Left). Then we'll see who is going to celebrate?
In today’s budget our FM has allotted a stunning Rs.10 crores for the preparatory activities for celebrating First War of Independence (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1431852,curpg-6.cms).
It’s really pathetic as what we call the FWI was such a big flop, much bigger than Mangal Pandey and then to celebrate it so lavishly is ridiculous. What’s the purpose of such celebration when there are millions out there who still cannot have a single decent meal?
Moreover we call this as FWI because that’s what NCERT had been preaching since it started writing text books. It overlooked other fight against the foreign powers by Southern States like Kerala and that too much before 1857. To me the first war of independence happened about 110 years before the so-called FWI. In 1748 Marthanda Varma, ruler of the then Travancore State waged a war against the Dutch which resulted in the Treaty of Mavelikkara in 1753. With this treaty came the end of foreign powers from Kerala which had started way back from the arrival of Vasco da Gama in 1498.
Even the ouster of Portuguese from Kerala in 1662 can be termed as FWI but it was only possible with help of the Dutch and Britishes.
So what we are celebrating is nothing but a farce. It’s a shame that none of the NCERT books till today has given any detail on this part of history. What NCERT is good at is fabricating the historical facts.
The North has always ignored the South since the independence. We have a so-called National Anthem which calls the South Indians as Dravidians when there is so much argument in this issue. Moreover if Aryan is racist term then Dravidian too is a racist term. Actually Vandhe Mathram should have been the National Anthem but it was not made one because it would hurt the Muslim sentiments because they cannot bow to anyone but to their God.
So instead of celebrating such an event one could use such a huge amount of money in rural development like establishing hospitals, schools etc. or investing in sports activities or just installations of proper toilets and other such basic amenities in cities like Mumbai, Kolkata to keep it clean.
If anyone is going to write a book on misuage of funds then I think FM’s allotment of money for the celebrations will surely be found on top of the list. I wonder how much the FM has allotted for the Lok Sabha elections!!!(I see one sooner than later, of course with a bit of help from the Left). Then we'll see who is going to celebrate?
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