BENGALURU: In recent years, Sahitya Akademi, the country’s premier organisation dedicated to the promotion of regional language literature, has undertaken an initiative to increase readership – bookstores in metro stations. Originally started with the Delhi metro in 2014, the Akademi launched their first store in Bengaluru at the Nadaprabhu Kempegowda station in Majestic recently.
Explaining the reasoning behind opening bookstores in metro stations, veteran Kannada poet, playwright, and president of the Akademi, Chandrashekhara Kambara feels it makes works published by the Akademi much more accessible to the public, offering near 2,000 books to commuters in 24 regional languages.
Prior to becoming the president of Sahitya Akademi, Kambara was known as a prolific playwright and poet who put northern Karnataka and its culture on the national map, pioneering a genre of plays and poems that tackled contemporary issues interwoven with mythology and folklore.
Despite coming to fore during the Navya (modernist) movement in the early ’60s, Kambara rejected the movement and chose his own path. “Writers of Navya kavya sought to espouse the ideals of writers such as T S Elliot, D H Lawrence, and that of the west in general. But that didn’t sit well for me because our ideals were fundamentally different from the west.
And by espousing the west, we have ignored our own culture, rich with centuries of traditions,” he shares. In recent months, the debate over the use of Hindi as an official language has sparked controversy once again, after a parliamentary committee recommended the language be made as the mandatory medium of instruction in technical and non-technical educational institutions.
Kambara, who is known for his fierce advocacy for native language instruction, feels that while English and Hindi are useful as communication languages, they shouldn’t be the de facto medium for education. “Children should always learn every subject in their native language. It not only helps in sustaining regional languages but helps them grow,” he says.
At the same time, Kambara feels that the need for a common communication language is even greater in these times, given the increasingly interconnected nature of society. “The need to use languages other than our own has always been there. When we needed to communicate with people from regions around us, we learnt those languages.
But what has changed in recent years is the extent of our communication sphere. Most in Karnataka never had the need to interact with someone in Bengal before,” he explains, adding that having to learn multiple languages to satisfy the need to communicate with people from various cultures would be impractical for most. Instead, Kambara believes Hindi should be used as a common communication language. “Hindi has been in use across the country for years.
While there are various arguments for and against its usage as an official language, I feel it’s a worthwhile option as a communication language, and definitely better than English,” he says. Kambara has been living in a quaint neighbourhood in south Bengaluru for many years now. But unlike Shivapura – a fictious and idealised place based on his native village in Belagavi district – which is often the centre of narratives in many of his works, the city is absent from his works.
When asked about this omission, the Jnanapith winner responds with a tongue in cheek remark: “Our childhood experiences tend to shape our adulthood. I’ve seen the world extensively, travelling to over 180 countries. But I am yet to see a place as beautiful as Shivapura. Even as I was mesmerised by the Chicago River when I visited the city, I couldn’t help feeling that the river Ghataprabha back home was somehow better.”
Following the Sahitya Akademi’s first bookstore launch at Nadaprabhu Kempegowda Metro Station recently, the Akademi president, veteran Kannada poet, playwright and Jnanpith awardee Chandrashekara Kambara weighs in on the language debate and more