VALLUVANAD DISTRICT

valluvanad was one of the early administrative divisions of the Chera kingdom.it once stretched from the Arabian sea to the attapadi hills and from nila up to melattur.the area passed through various hands including samuthiri and tippu sultan,intermingled with years of self-rule. under the british most of the region came under valluvanad taluk of madras state.post independence and with the creation of the malappuram district the region was split up among the palakkad,malappuram and thrissur districts.

a new district of valluvanad could be carved out of these district owing to the following reasons:

1 the immense size of palakkad district.to get to palakkad one have to travel nearly 70km from the western most parts of the ottapalam taluk

2 nearly 36 lakh population of malappuram district

3 cultural similarity of ottapalam,perinthalmanna and mannarkkad taluks and their differences with the rest of palakkad district.

4 ottapalam taluk in itself has a population higher than wayanad district,and the fact that nearly 40% of palakkad district resides there . but this region is far away from the district hq

the district of valluvanad will be composed of as i said earlier – ottapalam,perinthalmanna and mannarkkad taluks, together with parts of talapally taluk and parts of ponnani taluk. the proposed district will have a population of over 20 lakhs and will be financially viable as the region has many important towns like

ottapalam(pop 50,000)

shornur(pop 45,000)

perinthalmana(44,000)

which are municipalities

and others like

mannarkad(pop 44,000)

cherpulassery(pop 30,000)

pattambi(pop 24,000)

the district headquarters could be either at perinnthalmanna or ottapalam ,though ottapalam have better infrastructure including a kendriya vidyalaya.

the mannarkkad taluk must be partitioned so that attapady region remains with the palakkad district and the subsequent creation of an attapadi taluk, can bring about development to the region.the border regions of talapally taluk like thiruvilluwamala and cheruthuruthy  could be added to the district .this is mainly because of the cultural affliction of these areas to the erstwhile valluvanad.

the bifurcation of malappuram and palakkad districts is the only way forward as malappuram’s population explodes and palakkad remains far away from its most populous taluk.

NATIONAL LANGUAGE

the topic of national language have always been a raging topic especially here in south for the past century or so.the imposition of an alien language or a culture is always detested by those on whom it is imposed . the world outside the hindi heart land is no exception. hindi which is our national language is spoken by 40% of the population,which again is of different dialects and sub languages.hindi in its present form is one of the youngest languages and in literary content one of the least developed,but many of the regional languages like Tamil or Bengali is rich both historically and in language.even the youngest of the regional languages – Malayalam had evolved into its standard form centuries before Devanagari was adopted for Urdu. the imposition of such a language over these well established ones was one of the greatest mistakes done by the post independent india.hindi after splitting from Urdu started to adopt words from Sanskrit so that it can mask its persianness .but the hindi used in daily life was more or less same as Urdu which is alien to most parts of the country.

english on the other hand is the language of the world.every one needs to study that to succeed in life,its like the modern persian. but the adoption of english as the national language will affect india’s future position as a global power. our use of english as a medium can only make us inferior to the Anglo saxon power block. their  attitude towards india is more evident in the british media and legalization of english can only legitimize their colonial mentality.

in this scenario i would like to propose the use of Sanskrit as the link language between the indian populace .it is the bed rock of all languages including the three of the four southern languages.moreover every one need to learn a second language and there will be a level playing field for all.even tamil have 20-30% of its words from Sanskrit.the use of an indigenous language can act as an advantage when india develops and can act as its soft power as english is doing for america.the use of sanskrit can decrease the fear of extinction or inferiority that may languages face as they can flourish in their own ways.

the religious tone of Sanskrit is the main disadvantage of the language. this can be overcome by developing the language in the secular front , new secular literature can be written in Sanskrit or many of the best secular literature of other languages could be translated to it. this can give an added advantage as people in different parts of the country can get to know about each other. think about this – parts of thirukural being studied in a school in Punjab  or geetanjali taught in Kerala, that too  in Sanskrit.

there will be oppositions to my view but adoption of english can only make us colonial puppets and that of hindi will be a crime done to other  languages which have a huge literary history.

TAYLOR SWIFT

the graph showing my interest in american music have always had its highs and lows(most often).during my early teens when mtv used to show english videos i liked to hear the BACKSTREET BOYS,BON JOVI and to a lesser extend JLO and BRITNEY SPEARS.then suddenly MTV became all hindi,so i lost touch with the western pop scene and Bollywood music filled its space. i became a Bollywood junkie

taylor swift.

last year we started getting vh1 , zee cafe and trendz.while changing channels i stumbled up on a country song called love story .this was by TAYLOR SWIFT the melody in the song caught hold of me.as our internet connection switched to broadband i  heard other songs of her  including tear drops on guitar and you belong with me.she is such a talented singer ,it is soothing to hear something like that when every one is turning rock.it is a misconception these days that we the young people in their twenties only like rock and hip hop. so,INDIAN movie  music is trying to copy from the west (its hilarious to hear MALAYALAM songs with yo and yea) to please its so called target audience .

i recently read an article about the revival of country music brought about by singers like ms.swift and CARRIE UNDERWOOD in america,why can’t we have such a movement in india.the sufi tunes (like the one from kurbaan)and Carnatic based songs which was the signature of  south indian must be given more importance.i certainly think that there is space for every genre of music and opportunities must be given for all to flourish.