Meet H G Srinivasa Prasad, a retired employee of the Reserve Bank of India who has been teaching Kannada to adult non-Kannadigas for the last 27 years.
‘KUDI, KODI’ CONFUSION
Prasad has taught at medical and nursing colleges. “I usually ask everyone why they joined the class to learn Kannada and the most interesting answer came from a nursing student from Kerala.
The doctor had asked her to collect the urine sample from a patient but she ended up asking the patient to drink it! That is because ‘kudi’ (which means ‘to drink’) sounds very similar to ‘kodi’ (which means ‘to give’). Therefore, she decided to learn the language rather than scare her patients,” he recollected.
SIMPLE MANTRA
So, what makes him popular? “Keep it simple and they will fall in love with the language,” is his mantra.
In the last 28 years, Srinivas has trained more than 5,000 people to talk and understand basic Kannada, including Wipro chief Azim Premji’s wife Yasmeen Premji, and many foreign nationals.
I am writing this mail after reading the article on our Most Respected and Loved Kannada Sir, Mr., Prasad.
I have been fortunate enough to be a student of Sir. And I must tell you that he made learning Kannada the most beautiful part of our week… He was patient with us, and believe me, teaching to a bunch of grownups is the most challenging assignment one can have… and he simply loved it. He loved it because, he genuinely loves the language and most importantly, he believes that thru learning and speaking Kannada, we can have a better society – a more cohesive and collaborative society.
His passion to spread the knowledge of Kannada is immense and people like him make us (outsiders) feel at home in Bangalore and Karnataka. Sir and everything around him welcomes us to Karnataka. And I believe that he is a great brand ambassador to Karnataka.
As he said in our last class earlier this week, language means “Coming Together” and I am convinced that if we have to portray a combined / unified Kannada, learning Kannada is the start… the most beautiful start to being associated with Karnataka.