March , 2006
Kannada vs Tamil, English vs Hindi
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Ever spoken in Kannada when asking for a film ticket in one of the theatres in Bangalore's M G Road area? If you have, you might have experienced what I did; a slight sense of embarrassment resulting in an immediate switch to English. I think this is part of the Tamil vs Kannada, English vs Hindi syndrome in Bangalore, and it affects just about everyone. You probably have felt something like this too; if you've lived in Bangalore for a while. You've probably either been the initiator, or have been at the receiving end of a sort of parochialism, like in the Oscar-winning film Crash. Let me put down something before I proceed further - I'm a Bangalorean in the sense that I am a Kannadiga and grew up in the city until I left at the age of 21. That was about....
More about H R Venkatesh
H R Venkatesh is News Editor-Anchor at CNN-IBN. He has just returned from the University of Oxford where he completed an M Sc in Contemporary India as a Shell-Chevening Scholar. He has 9 years’ experience in TV news having worked in several positions. He began as a Business Correspondent at CNBC India in Mumbai where he was asked to report on – hold your breath – the cement, steel and shipping industries. Numbed by two years as an ‘old economy’ reporter, he moved to cover sport at Headlines Today in Delhi. As cricket correspondent he travelled with the Indian cricket team for two years. Highlights from this stint include watching Sachin Tendulkar complete his 10,000th test run, interviewing Sourav Ganguly 18 times and Shane Warne at least 15 times (not so much due to his persistence as to the fact that the duo were contractually bound to do the interviews), and watching Australia conquer the final frontier. Numbed yet again, by the realization that the best way to appreciate sport is to NOT report on it, he moved towards covering politics. Along the way, he began presenting news and moved to CNN-IBN as it was preparing to launch in 2005. He spent the next few years anchoring news & special shows, and occasionally foraying into the field, before taking a break to study. Although nobody’s given him a prize for it, he is proud to have been the first Indian to present a podcast – the News Junkie Podcast – online.
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