Konkani - My Mother Tongue

Konkani, my mother tongue is not a very well known language. It got the official status in the Indian constitution in 1992. Hence, I thought of publishing some facts and figures around this.

The language is spoken all along the Konkan coast spanning the coasts of Maharastra, Goa, Karnataka and Kerala. There are about 7.6 million konkani speakers covering all major religions i.e Hindus, Christians and Muslims. Each region has its own dialect, tone, vocab and grammatical differences.

As the Indian culture, the Konkani language has gone thr' a lot of transformation and localization. The Konkani community has Aryan roots (wait for my next blog on my community GSB's), the community came into India and were in the north on the banks of River Saraswat (600BC). A drought there forced them into Goa. During the Porutguese colonialization was the time when the community was forced to fled from Goa for the fear of conversion to Christianity and the community spread to differnt parts especially along the western coast thr' the sea ports of Goa. The communities started at this time (15th century) started gettting local accents and words into the Konkani languages and hence resulted in the various dialects that exist today.

Konkani is a language having its roots from Sauraseni Prakrit which is also the root for Bengali and Assamese.
If one has to see the diversity of today's Konkani language, one should travel the Indian west coast. In Bombay, they speak in Marathi accent whereas in Konkan, they stretch the words so that no outsider can understand!. The Hindus of Goa liberally use the Portuguese words whereas the Christians use it as if it's a Portuguese dialect. In Karwar and Ankola (locate), they emphasize the syllables, and in Kumta-Honavar, they use consonants in abundance. The Konkani spoken by Nawayatis of Bhatkal is very melodious with smearing of Persian. People of South Kanara do not distinguish between nouns of Kannada and Konkani, and have developed a very business practical language. They sometimes add Tulu words also. The Konkani of Kerala is drenched with Malayalam, and the Konkanis of north Karnataka add Kannada verbs to Konkani grammar. The city-bred use a plenty of English. To write Konkani, Kannada, Nagari, Roman, Arabic, and Malayalam scripts are used and this way, Konkanis declare themselves as members of world family (Vishwakutumbi). There is no other language with a possible exception of Sanskrit that a language is written in so many scripts.


The communities that speak konkania are:
Hindus
Marathas
Bhandaris
Gaud Saraswat Brahmins
Chitrapur Saraswat Brahmins
Daivadnya Brahmins
Konkani Lower Castes
Muslims
Kokani Muslims (Costal Maharashtra)
Navayath Muslims (Bhatkal, Karnataka)
Christians
Goan Catholics
Roman Catholics (Mangalore/Canarite)
Others
Janjira Siddis
Yellapur Siddis

References
Wikipedia
Kamath.com
http://www.gsbkonkani.net/

Don - The Remake or Remix

Don ka remake karna muskil hi nahin, na munkin hain

When I saw the New Don, a few months earlier, I felt it was kinda different from the Don I remember; So I spent the weekend watching both the Don movies; the 1978 Javed Akhtar and 2006 Farhan Akhtar versions. I would classify this a remix rather than remake. Farhan is obviously INSPIRED by a lot of movies and has made a mdeley into the original plot of Don.
The main plot has been inspired by DOn (obviously) as well as Face off. The stunt scenes have been inspired from The Matrix, Rush Hour and XXX(the action movie.. don't get any wrong ideas here).
Some salient differences are
1. In the original movie Don dies, but in the remix version, he is replaced.. call it the face off twist.
2. In the end, Inspector D'Silva turns out to be the Vardhan as opposed to the Interpol Malik ... playing the public mindset i guess
3. Jasjeet has been promoted from a small time treasury crook to the upscale computer expert aka hacker.
4. The seventies slogan was Hum Do Humare Do, the new slogan is have a single Kid. This idea is promoted by Jasjeet having a single kid as opposed to 2 kids.

Now the bigger question, Whoz the Don of the Indian movies Big B or SRK... seems to have been the buzz with media a few weeks back. Although am not a mega fan of the Big B, there is no denying that pretty boy SRK is nowhere close. While Big B plays Don and Vijay with 2 different personalities; SRK does a cliche job at it.
As far as acting is concened, I believe Aamir and Ajay Devgan are much above SRK's rank. Abhishek bacchan has been evolving a lot and his versatile acting in the Bunty n Bubli as well as Bluffmaster shows an evolving star.. SRK... face it... You can't do a stereo role and try to call yourself the Baadhshah

Opening Statement

It was a Monday morning and I was out on the road on a long drive to orlando, except that it was not for disney land but to work :( . On a typical long drive I spend an hour on a conference call with my team and then the rest of the time goes pondering over stuff discussed. But today was different. It was a holiday in India. So here I was on the road driving for about 200 miles with nothing to do.
Empty mind is a devil's workshop and I started thinking over my to do list and so on... The radio was playing Pink Floyd's Keep talking
Why won't you talk to me
You never talk to me
What are you thinking
What are you feeling..........
I then started to think of all the times I've wanted to blog. I had registered here over a year or two ago...... Did I blog... The answer is obvious.... I'm the king of procastination when it comes to these things. So I decided that I was going to start blogging ...
My topic for the next few months is going to follow 2 different series.
First would be dedicated to the people who've shaped up India's economy. This would not be limited to Industrialists but would span across Politicians, Technocrats, Literary gurus and visionaries.
Second, would be on topics that come as general issues ailing us.. which is general tp stuff

Then came the topic of the site. What should I name it .. I thought of a lot of names that rhyme with the most fav talk shows going around; but in the end I thought why not name it after something that we used to call our late night discussions back in the college days... Bakwaas Mandli.
As casual as it might sound, bakwas mandli can be very informative.We've had many a good times over hours of hearty discussion. It could start with gossip and then get into debates over politics, life, future, economy.. sky is the limit.... Actually this idiom doesn't make sense here coz there can be trippin' sessions where sky is not the limit ...LOL Anywyz... All this thought is making me nostalgic and that might be my first topic of the blog or should I say second.
I guess I stretched it too long.. adios for now..