‘If they don’t know Kannada, teach them’

‘If they don’t know Kannada, teach them’
An ex-RBI employee who has been giving Kannada lessons to non-Kannadigas for 27 years feels locals have made them comfortable by trying to speak their tongue
MANASI PARESH KUMAR


There have been many angry noises in the recent past about the non-Kannadigas not making an effort to learn Kannada. While some big names suggested those who did not know the language not be given water, others threatened violence. Amidst all these ugly words, one man went about quietly doing something about the matter instead of just issuing useless threats.
Meet H G Srinivasa Prasad, a retired employee of the Reserve Bank of India who has been teaching Kannada to adult non-Kannadigas for the last 27 years. The man has a different take on the language issue and says the fault lies with the local people who make so much of an effort to make the non-Kannadigas comfortable that they get complacent.
OUR FAULT
“What is the point in telling them to learn Kannada if you do not teach them the language. The fault is entirely ours because when they come to Bangalore, we talk to them in their native language and don’t challenge them to learn ours,” he says. Prasad always had an interest in teaching languages, because of which he chose to pursue his Masters in Kannada after graduating in Science. “There were not enough teaching jobs and I also had a family to think about,” he said.
But his wish came true when the Department of Kannada and Culture held a special course to teach Kannada to the adult non-Kannadigas in 1982. “I started off with teaching people within the bank and then expanded to teaching their families. Now, I also teach people in corporate houses.”
‘KUDI, KODI’ CONFUSION
Prasad has also taught at medical and nursing colleges. “I usually ask everyone why they joined the class to learn Kannada and the most interesting answer came from a nursing student from Kerala. The doctor had asked her to collect the urine sample from a patient but she ended up asking the patient to drink it! That is because ‘kudi’ (which means drink) sounds very similar to ‘kodi’ (which means give). Therefore, she decided to learn the language rather than scare her patients,” he recollected.
In the last 28 years, Srinivas has trained more than 5,000 people to talk and understand basic Kannada, including Wipro chief Azim Premji’s wife Yasmeen Premji and many foreign nationals.
SIMPLE MANTRA
So, what makes him popular? “Keep it simple and they will fall in love with the language,” is his mantra. With a combination of translation, direct and indirect speech and body language, he has most of his students picking up the language easily.
“It is myth that non-Kannadigas do not have the interest in learning our language. But if we insist on including more English than Kannada in our sentences, how will they know the difference? We need to love our language the way it was meant to be spoken and only then can we teach it to another person,” he says. “It certainly makes more sense than threatening someone to learn our language,” he adds.