Bangalore: 'AKKA' Delegates Busy Shopping Sidelining Cause of Kannada
Daijiworld Media Network - Bangalore (SP)
Bangalore, Sep 2: The legislators, who made a beeline to the Association of Kannada Kootas of America (AKKA) convention held at Chicago behind the chief minister, have proved their detractors right! Instead of working for the cause of Kannada and wooing prospective investors, they spent time shopping for electronic goods.
On Sunday August 31, they engaged a bus to visit 'Best Buy', a stall of electronic equipments selling laptops, cameras, i-pods, video games etc., in terms of their weight in kilograms. They might have saved a lot of money in buying goods at a discount here, but they were neither followed by fans nor treated with the respect they expected from crowds in their home state.
Mukhyamantri Chandru, self-styled champion of Kannada cause, was highly disappointed as he was not given an opportunity to be seated on the dais at the said convention, let alone allowing him to read out the eight-page speech he had prepared for the occasion. In the past too, he had faced similar situation at the Kannada Koota organized at London.
"What can I do? I was not given an opportunity to present my speech, educating the people the way in which they can teach Kannada to their second generation children settled here? Instead, mining barons were allowed to hog the limelight and deliver speeches," an exasperated Chandru fumed.
The state government had sent nearly 20 boxes containing Kannada novels and works, to enable 'AKKA' to auction the books and collect funds for its service activities, by spending huge sums on transportation. However, the organizers had no time to sell them. They instead, invited the audience to pick up from the stack of books on a few tables there and deposit their donations in a nearby box. All the books were picked up by the enthusiastic audience, but the donation box remained empty!
At the same time, 'AKKA' organizers had set up a stall to sell Kannada books there. But the people gathered there did not show any enthusiasm to visit the stall.