People living in Mumbai must be well aware of the Sons-of-the-soil issue. Now with the state assembly elections’ coming up this topic is again under focus. The topic, as we all know very well, is that the Marathi speaking population feels that the others in the city are disrespecting them and their culture. The migrant population don't even make an effort to understand or know it.The smart but utterly selfish political parties act as if they will champion this cause and just for some show they go around streets and whack and slap a few toothless taxiwallas. As if this is the ultimate solution to the problem.
Also there were reports in the newspapers that marathi will be made compulsory in all schools. This gave rise to sharp reactions from both the marathi and non-marathi speaking population. Marathis giving a positive one and the non-marathis a negative one. Me too personally thought that marathi being the local language should be made compulsory.
But then the other day when my parents were watching the marathi singing talent show Sa Re Ga Ma Pa I came across a face which was familiar and it was of Rahul Saxena. If anybody remembers Rahul Saxena, he was there in the first year of Indian Idol and was eliminated early in the Gala Round despite him being one of the best singers. Now how come Mr. ‘Saxena’ , an out and out north Indian, ends up in a talent show which is purely marathi. The answer is simple. It is because of the way the show is conducted. If you happen to be in a marathi household in the night during Mondays and Tuesdays don’t be surprised if the family just ignores your presence and sits glued to their TV sets. Such is the popularity of the show. The major reason is, unlike all other so called ‘reality’ shows this show concentrates only on the subject of the show that is the singing. Fights between judges, cooked up emotional stories are a complete no for this program. The judges are fair and give valuable inputs. So what must have happened is this fellow Mr. Saxena must have thought that his singing talent would be judged and nurtured in this virtuous show. In short all of this must have got Rahul Saxena attracted to this program because of his liking of the marathi culture displayed in the program.
In the above video Rahul Saxena has sung a marathi song which involves repeated use of the marathi letter ‘la’, the pronunciation of which is peculiar to marathi. Even some maharashtrians themselves fumble when faced with the challenge of singing this song. But Rahul Saxena did exceedingly well without going wrong even once in the pronunciation of the song. Such dedication is highly appreciable.
Taking a cue from the show, what I personally feel is that instead of forcing Marathi culture down anybody’s throat first its richness should be exposed to the non-marathi public. Even people like me and many of my friends who are Maharashtrians themselves aren’t much aware of the rich culture. I am sure those who are sensible like Rahul Saxena would definitely be interested in knowing more about the culture and eventually respecting it. Anything done by force will always give rise to protest.
But how do you go about doing this? One effective way will be to show the recent spate of marathi movies. Right from Dombivali Fast to Pakpakpakak, Valu to Harishchandrachi Factory can be shown in schools, colleges etc. An interesting Audio-Visual is always more effective than boring text-book lessons which are taught by disinterested teachers. The beauty of these movies is that alongwith being highly entertaining the essence of marathi culture is on wide display. Given the short attention span of the current generation, a movie, I feel will be the best way to make them aware about cultures and traditions. Also, its high time we should stop treating cinema only as a means of light entertainment. Cinema as a medium has huge capacity which terribly untapped in Indian society.
Also India being a democratic-liberal country anything by force is not going to work.This I believe is a sensible way to go about this sons-of-the-soil issue. I hope it is adopted.
