Jai Karnataka!

Dear Dr. Vatal Nagraj,

I was very happy to learn that you and other esteemed colleagues in the Kannada Gadi Horata Samiti have called for a bandh in Karnataka on August 9th. Unveiling Thiruvalluvar's statue is indeed a big offense. Tamil Nadu does not have statues of Karnataka poets so why should we allow the unveiling of a Tamil poet? I am not sure which dimwit high court judge dismissed your plea against the unveiling. These people do not understand that statues are the first step towards converting a state i.e., initially they will want to erect a statue, then they will request for all sign boards to be written in Tamil, their Nalli's and Kumaran stores will invade Karnataka and eventually Karnataka will turn into a mini Tamil Nadu. We have to take precautions to avoid all these nasty so called 'sister' states from invading our territory. In addition to the bandh I also have some other plans to save our Karnataka from being swallowed whole by other states. These include,

1) Ban Tamil, Hindi, Malayalam, Telugu and other non-Kannada movies from being screened in Karnataka. That way people from other states will be forced to learn Kannada if they wish to watch a movie. This will also teach those Imax theatre people a lesson for charging 150 Rps for a stupid Amir Khan Faana movie and just 80 Rps for a Shivrajkumar movie.

2) The medium of instruction in all schools and colleges must be changed from English to Kannada. This way we can protect our Kannada language from disappearing. This move will also prevent IISc from employing those pesky bespectacled Bengali babus in mass quantities. Who cares if they have degrees from IIT or BITS Pilani, if they can't speak and write Kannada they don't deserve to be in Karnataka.

3) All IT company employees must take the "Kannada Gotha?" (do you know Kannada) test. They should be employed only if they score 65% in the test. All conference calls and meetings should be done only in Kannada. Americans and other firangs need to step out of their English shoes and get into the Kannada chappali. One way this can be achieved is by rewriting all the computer codes like HTML, CAS etc. in Kannada, forcing everyone to learn Kannada.

4) I have noticed that the perpetually wet hair-coconut oil smelling Malayalis are invading our Karnaraka at an alarming rate. I am afraid that they will declare puttu- kadala as the official food of Karnataka. I suggest we build a 35 foot high wall between the Karnataka-Kerala border and open a small Shabarimala and Guruvayur in Nandi hills. This way we can prevent our devout Kannadigas from visiting that coconut oil state and the mallu kuttis from invading our Karnataka.

5) People from the land of gongura and pappulu podi have taken over our mess business. Every bachelor wants to visit the Andhra mess for lunch. We cannot be overtaken by these spice fanatics. We can dig a trench 30 foot deep and 45 foot wide between the Karnataka and Andhra border and fill it with our own precious Cauvery water. For recreational purposes boating and other water activities can be held at the site. This way we garner not only revenue but also let those Telangana people know who is the real boss.

6) We cannot build this water filled trench between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, I am afraid those thieving thayir-sadams will install a pipe in the trench and siphon away our precious Cauvery water. We need to build iron gates as tall as the Great Wall of China and open them once a year during Deepavali. This will give the Tamilians residing in peaceful Karnataka a chance to visit T. nagar and Ranganathan street to horde silk sarees.

7) All things chaats and poori-bhaaji is due to those irritating Hindi speaking people who come to Karnataka via Bombay. We need to employ Tamilian and Telugu soldiers to man our Bombay (or whole of North India)- Karnataka borders. If terrorists plan to sneak into Karnataka, these soldiers will defend us. Through this move, we not only give people from other states a job (how generous of Karnataka) but also save our dashing Kannadiga men from being killed in an attack (how thoughtful of Karnataka). This will also prevent Udit Narayan from crossing the border and lending his God awful nasal voice and sickening pronunciation to Kannada film songs.

8) We must replace Jana Gana Mana with Jai Karnataka and make Kannada the official language. We need to have a separate prime minister (a Kannada speaking one at that) and president (again a shudh Kannadiga) for the state of Karnataka.

I know that I should have written this letter in our beloved Kannada, but I have many readers who come from these 'sister' states. They need to know what a great visionary you are and the steps we Kannadigas are willing to take to protect our beloved Karnataka. They need to know that we Kannadigas do not care about disrupting normal life for a statue, we are not bothered that we are a part of one country called India, we do not care about the success we achieve being united, we could care less about failed crops in other states because of us not sharing Cauvery water. Life is too short to be wasted on such petty things like sharing water or being united. If we have to make Karnataka the number one country, I mean state, we need to put our time, energy and money in note worthy causes like bandhs and strikes.

Dr. Nagraj, you are truly an inspiration to youths and Kannadigas like me. I pray to the great Kannada Maathe to give us more people just like you. On August 9th I will be there burning tires and stoning buses all in the name of Kannada.

Jai Karnataka!

Yours sincerely,

SJ