The movie of the day is "shadows and fog", starring Woody
Allen, Madonna, other notables. Set in a drab middle
european city, where fear and roumor-mongering takes over
the mob, it reminds me of Kafka.

Well, in Bangalore, I hear roumors everyday. My intrepid
local guide comes back and gleefully reports #renDu rOjulu
bandhu saar#. I hear that four people were stabbed near
Majestic. Come morning, the city runs usual, except that
people are heavily suspecious.

On tuesday, I was completely stuck in my room, where I had a
wonderful opprotunity to get some lessons on Indian culture
thanks to the TV. I got to watch Telugu and Hindi channels
here. They have four Telugu channels -- Gemini, ETV, Teja,
and Hyd Doordarshan. It appears that at least two channels
plays Telugu movie songs at any given time. They even had
songs of Krishna dancing!

The shows in Telugu remind me of the Latin American shows I
watch at late nights. They are seriously funny, if you know
what I mean. There is certain charm in such "naive
art". Some shows seem to be straight imitations from some US
shows. All in all, it no longer seems be stuck imitating
BBC, where they leave a camera on a cow grazing in the
pastures for half an hour.

Make no mistake, there a malady in the air striking the
Telugu language right these moments! Dear reader, I am
refering to the usage of plural for the respect. Where does
it start and where does it end? Is it "veerappan gaaru"? If
not, does he not deserve a the appellation of "Mr."? When a
"plural" person comes along with several other plural
people, how does the usage differentiate between the
"pluralness" of various individuals?

My proposal is simple: assign a numerical value for each
person. Under this, say Veerappan gets "1". Raj Kumar gets
say "83". Have a nominal system of assiging numbers (not
unique, by any means), that takes age, money, facial hair
etc into account.

Speaking of R-E-S-P-E-C-T, in the current times, in B'lore,
you don't get away by calling Raj Kumar merely as
"plural". You need to call him Dr. Raj Kumar.

Among the other news, the triumphant return of Lara Dutta to
Bangalore has set off a new frenzy among newspapers. I
learnt that her mother made her favorite dish: beef kheema.
I find the gossip columns fascinating -- in Telugu, they are
the main news.

Finally on wednesday we could move out. Except that in the
middle of the day, self-fulfilling rumors closed down the
city. Yesterday and today, the city seems to be normal
again. When people tell me about the murders, I wondered if
that forces the shutdown of the city. If a few people were
randomly shot down, or even killed by a frezied mob in world
trade center, I wonder what happens to the PATH schedule?

Allusion alert: Remember Ten Commandments? Specifically
passover? Death comes to kill the first born on every
Egyptian house hold. The jews knew how to ward off the death
-- a mere smearing of blood(?) on their doors tells Death to
passover that house. Is it blood? I am not sure. It could
even be "Dr. Raj Kumar Jaya waagaLu".

Of course, my car is decorated with Dr. Raj Kumar's posters.
It expresses the sentiment that he be returned with victory.
Don't laugh: it has been passed over.

--
Dr. Ramarao Kanneganti, Ph.D.
Bangalore, Aug 4th, 2000.