Canada & Kannada!

Thinking has to be a human brain's favourite pastime. It loves to wander even if you don’t care to join it. Likewise, a human mouth’s favourite pastime is talking (read: gossiping). But when a person is busy thinking, a lot of factors conspire with each other and form a pattern of thoughts. It’s like a canvas filled with unexpressed words. Unfortunately, very few are able to transcribe what the voices in their head dictates. Fortunately, I’m not one of them. But to my credit, I was the first human ever to figure out that African Lion is an anagram of Californian. At least I like to believe so! And to add to my inglorious accomplishments, I achieved this *feat* when I was in eighth grade.

I fully understand whatever I just said doesn’t make sense (and nor will the stuff I’ll be blathering hereafter!). What I’m trying to say is we often stumble on ideas that are unique in a way we never imagined before. It could be anything from how to hold a pencil while writing to tying shoelace in a less time-consuming fashion. Or keeping one eye closed at work to ensure sleep as well as demotion at the same time. In my case, it’s all words. I love words and literally live in them. I keep playing with portmanteaus and homophones and desperately try to coin new words.

Coming back to the title of this post, I recently realized that Canada and Karnataka have a lot of resemblance. Canada, with its significant land area and equally insignificant population (at least, density-wise) is spread out on the continent of North America whereas bang on the other side of the Earth lies the southern Indian state of K’taka located where Kannada is the predominant language.

Ottawa, the capital of Canada is located in the southwestern corner of the country. Similarly, Bangalore, the capital of K’taka state, is also located in the southwestern fringe of the state. Like Canada, the economy and logistics of K’taka is also located primarily in its southern region. Both have better infrastructure in their southern region compared to their northern counterparts. Canada finds its chief external port at Vancouver which is also Canada’s 3rd largest city. Karnataka’s 3rd largest city, Mangalore houses its chief port. Both these cities are located in their southwestern end [Vancouver on Pacific Ocean bordering USA and Mangalore on Arabian Sea bordering Kerala state].

As you can guess by now, I’ve obviously lost the plot here. The title was supposed to be Canada & K’taka instead of Canada & Kannada. Nonetheless, the differences eclipse the similarities in more ways than one. Canada is a sovereign nation whereas K’taka is a state in the Republic of India. Area-wise, Canada is the second largest country in the world with a meagre population of 33 million whereas K’taka has more than 52 million people. Also, Canada has two official languages namely English and French (primarily spoken in Quebec and New Brunswick provinces) whereas Kannada is the sole official language of Karnataka although it constitutes of varied linguistic/cultural domains namely the Tulu-speaking Udupi and Dakshina Kannada districts, Kodava-speaking Kodagu/Coorg district as well as the prosperous native Konkani community spread across the K’taka coast and not to forget the indigenous Marathi community spread inland and many more. But they all are bound by their shared adherence to Kannada.

P.S. I acknowledge the fact that this sincere analysis on such an obscure (and utterly useless) topic wasn’t the need of time. But then I can’t help those trying to find a cure for cancer, either. Besides you don’t need to be meticulous all the time (which I’m not any which way). I just thought of it and decided to indulge in usual trumpery and free geography class to y'all!