One of the two books I finished last year was Neil Gaiman's American gods. The basic idea of the novel is, Gods exist because we believe in them. When people migrate, they'll take their gods and demons with them to the foreign lands. Thus elves, dwarves, leprechauns, pixies and other gods/demons all came to American soil.
Now leaving the plot aside, this idea of people taking their gods to the foreign lands really made me interested in the book.
I've never been one of those people who worries about this country's cultural degeneration. After all, its happening to every culture. Trying to fight the changes to superficial aspects of the culture would make you a mere fundamentalist, like those VHP and Bajarangdal guys :)
But I did care about the linguistic and artistic heritage. I grew up with Ramayana, Mahabharata, Bhagavata stories and learnt Telugu grammar from "Pedda Balasiksha". Studied in Telugu medium till high school, read enough Telugu books to call myself a "Pustakala-purugu" :) (Which I gladly renounce, I am nothing compared to some of the folk here).
I just felt sad that the future generations wouldn't know anything about these things. The only culture they'll know about is dancing in these reality shows.
But a couple of the things I witnessed in last two days made me connect to the plot of American gods. I went to this event "Thyagaraja Aaradhanotsava" conducted at my Music teacher's and surprised to see People from Western hemisphere attending it via Skype. Apparently, Sir is taking violin classes to them on-line :)
The other one is, a youtube video of a 4-something girl reciting Sumathi Sathakam.
It hit me, Culture may change into dancing in reality shows here, But people who leave the country are taking the real culture with them and nurturing it. Atleast, Its alive somewhere :)
On a related note: This girl I know described a typical Telugu guy like this. "Zero class, No hobbies, A total dud" :)
Unfortunately, She is right. All the generation-X cared about is grades, ranks in competitive exams, MNC jobs or US Visas. Where' the time for Class or Hobbies :)
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A very interesting post! Liked it!
ReplyDeleteToo many points:
1. The book seems to be interesting. Will give it a read.
2. You needn't renounce your book worm tag! entha chettuki antha gaali type maata idi koodaa :P
3. Hmm.. I'm never too worried about culture, language or anything else. I'm lucky to be here, this moment.. all I know is this.
4. Typical Telugu guy may be with zero class, no hobbies and a total dud! But whatever else he is, a Telugu guy is *passionate* and creative about what he does! Whatever! Missing him is missing a world in itself! :)
Hmm, Its high time I renounce it because, I abandoned the last 4 books I started last year. I simply lost the will to read, too much on my mind these days (Might come back in future though ;))
ReplyDeleteAs I told, I don't lose my sleep over this, but its mildly disturbing that, in a future not too far from now, children might do recording dance as part of their school's annual cultural program. (C'mon, I think it must already be happening some where in AP)
N coming to last point, Thanks for defending us :) I couldn't :(
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