Friday, July 25, 2008

Marathi Sahitya Sammelan in San Jose, California

I guess the title itself is more than enough to express some ironical angst.

Why in the world a Marathi Sammelan is to be held in America? I mean Marathi is not a language which is spread over the world in various areas like French / Spanish / German / Portuguese!

Some elitist people with a lot of money to spend on touring under the name of Sammelan wish to travel to California. Maybe spend some time in LA and then go north to Las Vegas and gamble some! They can definitely improve the Marathi vocab of the bouncers at the casinos! Tujhya Aaila... and so on!

Back home, people are not speaking Marathi! English is taking over as a language most widely used in the world! Small town folks are taking a lead and pushing their kids to English Medium Schools! Marathi literature fans are dwindling by the numbers. English is replacing Marathi words more n more. Like, 'Arrey, You carry on, mi tula nantar join karin!

And the solution to all this a Sahitya Sammelan in San Jose!

Can't these guys save money and donate it to needy rural schools?

3 comments:

Gaurav said...

Hi, i would like to differ in opinion on this particular topic.
It's right that state of Marathi in her own homeland is not very promising. And you said about people prefer to send their children to English medium schools and not Marathi is because, as we all know, English is the language the world speaks ( and we have to accept that we are not as strong as French or German or Japanese are in when it comes to business, the main reason being we are largely dependent on America for foreign investment).
But the main point here is Marathi Sahitya Samelan!! I would say it is kind of maintaining identity or to say retaining or remembering that we come from Marathi land. And here i am not saying that it is the only way to go back to old days but this is especially for people who still believe in Marathi culture and try to inculcate the same in their children. This is for people who still are attached by some invisible thread to this Marathi mati. Again this can be business for somebody. And why not, if they are going to earn some money out of it, it's justifiable for them to arrange such an event. But think about those people who would be attending this and would be going back few years and this would definitely help them to remember from where they come. Their origin. And i think this is the only way for some local languages to survive in this world.

Mandar said...

Let people do what they wanna. U can continue ur charitable work. The poor & the needy need u....All The Best....

k said...

Thanks Mandar! India needs latecomers like you!