Kavitha S. has been staying in the city for five years now, but could not learn to speak Kannada. “As there was hardly anyone who knew Kannada in my circle, I learnt it to the extent of understanding it, but not speaking. However, since the lockdown, I have slowly started to pick up words and sentences,” she said.
Knowing Kannada, she says, makes her feel at home. “To understand the city better, one needs to know the language of the city as it is one of the most important vehicles to understand and interact with the culture,” she said.
The COVID-19 lockdown has seen people take up unique hobbies, lost interests, or learn something new. For an increasing section of the people who have made Bengaluru their home in the last decade, this period is seeing them transition from “Kannada gottilla” to “Kannada gotthu” through online classes.
Various individuals and groups are already teaching basic spoken Kannada, but have seen a steady rise in the number of people enrolling for their courses since the lockdown. Once such is the Kannada Gothide WhatsApp group created and administered by Deepak N. and Vidyashree B.L., both MNC employees.
“We started the first batch in November last year in which there were around 70 participants. Since there was good response, we started the second batch in the second week of March. Soon the WhatsApp group was full and there were many more who wanted to join. Hence, we created the third group, which was also full within a few days. and we had to create another group,” said Mr. Deepak, who is overwhelmed with the response to the free classes.
According to him, the lockdown and people working from home are the reasons for the overwhelming response. “People want to be productive and are interested. We just provided them a platform at the right time,” he said.
Anup Maiya of KannadaGottilla, another popular Kannada learning platform, said that they were preparing to start online reading and writing class as a lockdown special, adding that many people who had enrolled for spoken Kannada classes showed interest in reading and writing.
Charulatha Varadarajan, who has been staying in the city since 2006, says that previously she has been part of many such Kannada classes. “They have all helped me. Through the new class now, I am also getting to learn about verbs and tenses. As many people are working from home, they want to spend their time judiciously and productively,” she said.
Ms. Vidyashree said that apart from teaching, what is more important is continuous practice. “Once people start relentlessly trying, they will easily pick up words and sentence formation structure,” she said adding that they hoped their efforts inspire people to go beyond learning Kannada only for interacting for daily life or for professional reasons, and also help and inspire them to engage with the language and its culture.
Interested people can WhatsApp Deepak on 8892177465 for free classes.