When I met Dr U R Ananthamurthy..

Dr. U R Ananthamurthy prominent Kannada writer and thinker

When I went to Bangalore in July 2011 I had the great pleasure of meeting the eminent Kannada literary figure and a great thinker - Dr. U R Ananthamurthy (URA).

Having read his works such as Samskara,  Bharathipura, Avasthe and many of his short stories and essays, I had become an ardent fan of his and so naturally wanted to meet him.  More over the fact that he had experienced being an NRI student like me had developed in me, his thoughts and writings appealed to me. His stories were drawn from personalities and life around us in and outside of Karnataka and also had the benefit of his exposure to western thoughts and culture. When I read ‘Clip Joint’ I was fascinated by the conundrums of a foreign student in UK. Earlier to that I had written a story inspired by Dr. B R Lakshmana Rao’s poem ‘Gopi mattu Gandalina” (Gopi and Gandalina). Later I learnt that this poem itself was inspired by Clip Joint. So one of my stories had been influenced by Dr. Ananthamurthy without me knowing about it.

As soon as I reached Bengaluru I called URA and expressed an interest in meeting him. I had not seen him before and he did not know me. But a friend of mine is his relative and he had given an email introduction. URA readily agreed to meet me and suggested a time when I should go to his home in Bengaluru. On that day I telephoned him but he told me he was in Mysore as a member of a VC selection committee. So he asked me to call the next day. When I called the next day he had gone to attend a book release ceremony of Kaushik Basu, the noted Indian economist.  But the next time I spoke to him over phone he was ready to  meet me and gave me his address and detailed directions. I reached his home at 4.00 PM.

When I went in I was welcomed by his assistant. He asked me to wait since URA was taking a shower. I sat in the veranda, where, against the walls, there were a series of shelves which contained hundreds of books. The book shelves were cataloged. In a few minutes URA came out looking fresh and greeted me with a smile and took me with him. We went and sat inside in the living room. I was still a bit nervous.

I introduced myself and mentioned that I had seen and heard his speech when he came to US in 1998. We talked about this and that and before I knew we were conversing freely.

I asked him about the mining scandal involving the ministers in Karnataka government, which was raging at that time. The Reddy brothers had become very rich by selling large quantities of iron ore to foreign countries notably China. He said "I have always been telling that we should never export minerals to foreign countries. That is like selling our own land."   URA said we should sell value added goods not raw iron ore. He said with pride "There is one thing I am very proud of. I stopped the mining of iron ore in Kuduremukh."  He then explained how he appealed to the chief minister S M Krishna to not renew the lease and succeeded in that effort in 2002.

Author with Dr. U.R. Ananthamurthy

Then we talked about the current state of India. As a visitor I had witnessed changes of a large magnitude in Bengaluru.  I asked him what he thought of the new found wealth of some Indians and what was his opinion on the many malls that have sprung up in Bengaluru.  He put it very well when he said "It is good that many people can afford a good living. But I think we should not celebrate this new found ability for consumerism".  He said that the malls and shopping complexes are affecting the individually run small stores. I told him that I too felt the same and seeing the malls and the crowds in them, made me very depressed. How ever when I went to the malls I saw a lot of people employed by the stores allowing them to earn a living. I also mentioned that we now see a lot of employment opportunities in food catering, transportation and other such services. He responded by saying "We should think of what would have happened to these people if there were no such employment opportunities. They would have been entrepreneurs themselves. Now by giving them this way out, we are killing their confidence and entrepreneurial spirit. Apart from that, if you go to the mall it is very impersonal. On the other hand I have a relationship with the guy in the local stores. When I go there, he says Rs 10 for a vegetable and I ask him to make it a rupee less and we argue about it and finally do a transaction. I need that social interaction. This kind of social interaction is being lost with the arrival of the mall culture."

At that time URA was in the news for making the statement "Byrappa's works are  rahugrastha (Jinxed)  kritis. Kasarvaalli rids the works of the jinx and makes his movies." I was not sure if I should bring it up since I was meeting him for the first time. But until then he was so nice and cordial that I felt comfortable asking him what he thinks about this issue. He laughed and said very cheerfully "I just said that a work should not have preplanned point of view. The writer should be willing to let his characters lead the way. That is what these people (press) are talking about".


Before I knew we had spent a little more than two hours chatting. I was amazed at his friendly and easy going demeanor and interactions. I thanked him for spending time with me. I asked if I could take pictures. He readily agreed and I took some pictures in my small point and shoot digital camera. When I showed it to him on the camera, he called his wife and exclaimed “ Did you see this small camera. It takes really good pictures”.

Then he went in and came out with two of his books. At the same time he asked “Do you take sugar with tea” for which I said yes. As he autographed the books he said “If it does not burden you I would like to give you these books.” (I am not sure if he was referring to the weight limit for flight travel). He gave me signed copies of two of his books.

Then as we continued talking his wife Mrs. Esther brought in 3 cups of tea and we all continued to talk as we drank the tea. Even Mrs. Esther was very hospitable. She spoke to me and inquired about what I do and life in general. When I mentioned that I am involved in Kannada dramas URA said a few encouraging words. When I mentioned that I had taken courses in theater in US and performed parts of Girish Karnad's Tuglak in English during that course he seemed genuinely happy. He called out to his wife and told “Did you hear this. He is involved in a lot of activities” and urged me to continue with it.

Mrs. Esther and Dr. U. R. Ananthamurthy

It was around 6.15 in the evening and time for me to take leave. When I left I was very happy for having met him. I felt good that I had overcome my trepidation about meeting a celebrated and high profile personality like Dr. U. R. Ananthamurthy.  It turned out to be a very memorable experience.

(Foot Note: I met Dr. U R Ananthamurthy almost an year back. I am writing this from memory. So I might have paraphrased some of Dr. URA's comments. We talked mostly in Kannada and so I had to also translate some of our conversation to English)

Traffic mess on the railway parallel road in Malleswaram:

I cannot believe the messy state, the traffic in Bengaluru has come to. Yesterday when I spoke with my mother over phone, she mentioned this. When she tried to cross the railway parallel road (Photo above) near Malleswaram railway station, the traffic was so heavy that even after 15 minutes she could not cross it and had to go back home.

This street has now assumed the burden of being the main access road for traffic going from Rajajinagar towards the city centre and beyond. The reason is that the actual main road that connects Rajajinagar to Malleswaram circle is a mess thanks to Metro construction. (Photo below)

Back in our school days (late 70s) the railway parallel road was a very quite and lazy road with more pedestrians and bicyclists than vehicles. Only one BTS (Bangalore Transport Service) bus would ply on this road. (# 52 Yeshwanthapura to NR Colony).  Starting at Cluny convent near Subrahmanya Nagar the road would slope down towards Malleswaram Railway station for about a furlong. That was where I and my friend would pedal our bicycles hard and speed down the slope. After we had achieved the maximum speed it was fun to take our feet of the pedals and lift up our legs in the air and cruise down full speed, now screaming. Some cool dudes would let go of the handle and balance the bicycle by guiding it with their bodies.

It was even more exciting when we would race alongside the Hubli - Bangalore Passenger train. Even though we rode bicycles, we always reached the railway station before the train did.

Now this road (extreme right in above photo) which evokes such childhood memories is so crowded, that crossing it is not guaranteed even after 15 minutes of wait. It is just beyond any redemption. All we can do is sigh and wring our hands.

Public Radio Zindabad

Public radio in US is a great source of information and discussion forum for arts, literature, politics and everything else. There is nothing that can start a day well like listening to an interview with Kenneth Branagh on Forum on KQED in San Francisco or Sasha Barron Cohen on NPR's Fresh Air while driving to work. Public radio has a reputation for high quality programs from unbiased and reputed journalists and commentators. So I respect what I see there.  You can go to their website  http://www.kqed.org or http://www.npr.org and listen to live or previous programs on their archives.   Most of the radio programs are available for downloading. So it is a podcast and not like watching youtube.  I personally cannot sit through an entire video or even a song on Youtube. I like to listen than to watch. I guess it is hard for me to sit passively. But if it is audio I can download the mp3s to my cell phone and listen to them on head phones while doing other work. Listening to interviews with accomplished personalities or to highly entertaining news quiz program 'Wait Wait Don't Tell Me' with Peter Sagal, is a great motivator to do the dishes or laundry or treadmill.

Also I come to know about movies and books which do not get popularized in the main stream media but still deserve to be recognized. Here is one such list titled
Top Ten Overlooked Movies of 2007
http://www.kqed.org/arts/movies/article.jsp?essid=21106

If you have watched any of those movies, please share your thoughts here.

Movie Review: The Drive (2011)

"The Drive" : Luckily I heard about this movie on KQED public radio in San Francisco. Public radio programs like 'Fresh Air' and 'Forum' are my sources for good but overlooked movies. I watched it on Netflix streaming last night. Boy is it good! It has action, crime, human relations and complex characters. And the icing on the cake is Ryan Gosling. That dude looks good and can act very well in emotional or action scenes. I had heard how movies should use silence to say more. I see it in this movie. There are lots of scenes where the characters just look at each other and say nothing. It was interesting to see this. The movie has a kick-ass start with a car chase sequence. It is a gritty realistic crime movie and not a good v bad bang'em up. It has good character actors like Ron Perlman (Hulk) and Cary Mulligan. You can watch the trailer here.

Review: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

Title: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
Starring: Gary Oldman, John Hurt, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy,
Director: Thomas Alfredson

Genre: Suspenseful spy movie. This review only gives an introduction to the plot. It does not spoil it.

Verdict:  It is a well made movie and has good acting. It is engaging but a bit slow. If you are looking for James Bond, this is not it.

Score:  6.5 out of 10

I watched this movie with a lot of anticipation. It was announced to be a film version of an excellent BBC serial by the same name. It is about MI-6 the British Intelligence agency during the seventies when the fear of a cold war hung over the western world.  The top layer of MI-6 is referred to as the Circus and it is led by a weary looking old man called Control played by John Hurt. He has five top notch spies as his closest team members and it is their job to gather intelligence to discover and thwart any gains the Russians are trying to achieve. The Russians are not just watching. They have a spy agency and it is run by someone called Karla whose name the British agents keep mentioning in an ominous tone.

In this situation, Control learns that the Russians have succeeded in planting a mole at the very top of MI-6's  'The Circus'. Accordingly the whole movie centers around identifying who among the five is the one working for the Russians. One of the five is agent George Smiley played by Gary Oldman, who is given the task of finding out who the mole is.

The movie is very atmospheric and at some times has a lot of intrigue and suspense. The movie is a bit slow but that was not what disappointed me. It did not give any thrill of watching a spy movie. The fact that most of the spies were old men - some beyond retirement age, also did not help. OK I knew I should not be looking for Jason Bourne or James Bond but still the whole story had the atmosphere of a boring government office. I think that part was realistic but did not offer much in terms of entertainment.  It is well made and has good acting. But it did not give me any kick. I will give this movie a 6.5.

Why watch movies?

Since members in this group are avid movie watchers (movie goers in olden days) I would like to bring this up. Watching too many movies in quick succession gives me an overdose. Even if I am watching good movies I start feeling that it is pointless. My disappointment comes from this thought 'What is this? All I am doing is being a spectator. What have I learnt after watching so many good movies. May be my knowledge has widened. But what have I learnt about film making. Even if I have learnt something, what am I doing with it? Answer - nothing! Well I do learn about acting and directing and that is useful to me when I act/direct dramas to be viewed here in Kannada Koota events. But that is theater. Movie making seems very daunting - not just the artistic process - even the logistic matters. I feel it is very challenging to visualize a 2 hour final product and go about doing it in hundreds of 1 minute or 2 minute shots. It is like a thousand mile journey that requires walking only one feet at a time.

Facebook IPO

Regarding the low key debut of FB share, lots of people are in the 'I told you so' mode. Hype apart this is what I think. Of the 900m users let us say only 200m are real people. FB's value prop is not how many of these people click the ads. Instead FB is a media outlet reaching 200m people who are availabe to hear any message. When products are advertised on paper, radio, TV, bill boards, the biggest benefit is not neccessarily how many buy. Instead it create familiarize the product to as many people as possible. FB is giving that value prop to current and future products. Think of youtube. If they can force you to watch an adv, why not FB? In the worst case if FB gets shallaced to a humble valuation of 1 or 2 Billion, it will become an attractive buyout target for another media company that wants to compete with google.... Yahoo anyone? (For full disclosure: I executed a trade this morning. Sorry could not resist)