Pickles From Home

Last few days have been celebratory times in Karnataka. To put it chronologically, the first celebration happened when Aravind Adiga was awarded the Man Booker prize. The second eruption happened with the announcement of the Bharat Ratna to music legend Pandit Bhimsen Joshi and the third was to mark the birth centenary of Indian-English novelist Raja Rao. You may stop me here and tell me that these three events did not propel celebrations in just Karnataka alone, but elsewhere in, and perhaps even outside,India too. That's true, but celebrations at 'home' are always seen as 'special', with an extra bounce of joy and deeper significance.

In Karnataka, Mangalore is seen as Adiga's home; Gadag as Pandit Joshi's home and Hassan as that of Raja Rao. Although these three men migrated away from their respective hometowns many years ago and made another place their home orkarmabhoomi, these three towns of Karnataka want to claim or reclaim them as their own. To what extent Adiga and Joshi respond to this reclamation or whether Raowould have approved it at all is altogether a different question, but the point isthat the people of Karnataka have become indulgent with the success of these three 'sons'.

Adiga accompanied his father to Australia immediately after his matriculation; Joshi went away to neighbouring Maharastra in search of greater encouragement for his music and Raja Rao went away to France for his literarysojourn. In the busy part of their careers, they were rarely in touch with their 'original homes' or 'native places,' but yet the homes they left behind have not forgotten them. This sentiment has been at the centre of all the frenzy and celebration in the local media. Their relatives, friends, teachers and classmates have been plucked out of nowhere to comment on their success; their preference for the local food; the jar of pickles that accompanied them in their long journeys across the world; their love for the Kannada language and of course, their pining sickness for home have all been reconstructed and recorded.

"Whenever he calls, he wants to know everything that is happening here," would be a typical statement of a relative. If it is a classmate, the recollection would invariably veer around how 'studious' and 'focused' the person was and how they always knew that he would climb great heights. If it is a teacher speaking, the narrative would circle around the person's 'humility' or his 'naughtiness.' The scores of friends, relatives and townsmen would never opt for sagacious anonymity, but chase their own few seconds of fame. Perhaps thathas something to do with fame and success itself -- they electrify the human chains linked to you in every odd way. Also, it appears there are ready templates in a local culture to handle such expatriate success.

All of it came to the fore on the occasion of the recent three events.

It is not just in Karnataka that one observes this phenomenon. It happens all over the world. Sonal Shah who has lived in Houston and has been appointed in the transition team of Barack Obama is being seen as the daughter of Gujarat. Similarly, sometime back, Sunita Williams with a distinct American accent was celebrated for her space travel in the 'gallis' of Ahmedabad. Whyjust Sonal and Sunita, the biggest illustration of this phenomenon is the reclaiming of Obama byKenya. A group of Bedouins Arabs living in the Galilee area of Israel too are said to be claiming genealogical links with the president-elect.

These reclamation narratives and expressions derive authenticity if the person being celebrated responds in an 'appropriate' manner, like the way Adiga did recently. He donated Rs. 15 lakh of his Booker prize-money to the St. Aloysious School-- his alma mater in Mangalore. He has also decided to keep his Booker trophy in his school, so as to encourage more students to get into great pursuits. It doesn't really matter that he dedicated his book to the people of Delhi and spoke about his anonymity in Mumbai, where he lives, but it is the hometown that will share his prize-money. It will be the place that will getthe tangible benefits of his success. It will be the place that will forever keep his success and memory alive. It is his hometown that will constantly look for a bride to rid his bachelorhood. Even after the sheen of the Booker has gone,whether or not he slips on the international radar, he will continue to be a celebrity in his hometown.

What Adiga has done now, Bhimsen Joshi is said to have done decades ago, during the peak of his singing career. He apparently gave enough free concertsand slashed his professional fee when he came to Dharwad and never missed his singing appointment in Kundgol, the home of his guru Sawai Gandharva. The locals speak endlessly of his love for the 'jowar bakri' (maize roti), as if its dusty existence and crispy undulations were the most apt definition of his 'kadak' voice.

Raja Rao as a novelist belongs to another age and to a slightly esoteric category and hence relatively removedfrom the public eye. Yet, the old-timers never forget to mention that his first wife was the sister of Kannada cultural icon A N Krishna Rao. They also remember the long conversations he had, or letters he wrote to clarify hisdoubts, on Indian philosophical precepts. But their crown-comment is that 'Hasanada Raja Rayaru wrote English like a Kannadiga' and therefore the distinct flavour in his prose. He is always addressed with his hometown 'Hassan' preceding his name ('Hasanada' would mean from Hassan) and the surname 'Rao' morphs into a local honorific 'Rayaru'. The Sahitya Akademi in Delhi chose Bangalore as the venue for its three-day international seminar on his works for the simple reason that he was a local man. There could not have been a better reason. As humans we perhaps never stop drawing the kinship map.

All this leaves us with a set of questions: Is it true that whatever may be our success in the 'outside' world, the final celebration and preservation happens only in ourhome -- or hometown? Why do we often hear people say they want to get back to their roots? Does it finally mean nothing if you cannot connect with 'your own' people? Is this a great civilisational formula to provide security to human beings? Why do we always think that the final resting place should always be one's hometown? At times, haven't we seen even old graves in alien lands being shifted to 'secure' homelands? How much ever we may globalise, can we really escape the local? Why is it that your pickle is always from home?