Today the Times of India has published a story about Atul Kulkarni and his love for Belgaum.
The story quotes Atul, “I was born in Belgaum and though we speak Marathi at home, I also know Kannada.” In fact this national award-winning actor started his career in Kannada flick, ‘Bhoomi Geetha’. Talking about Belgaum, Atul says, “It remains my favourite place till date. It has a certain charm to it, whether it is the weather, culture or history.” Atul says, “There are too many childhood memories attached to this place like learning how to cycle.”
Belgaum, which is a cultural hub, is also known to be home to many learned people. “Many learned people and artists stay here whether musicians or literature writers. In fact, a lot of Marathi writers have studied in Belgaum who have written some big plays,” informs Atul and adds, “We should welcome the multicultural milieu instead of fighting it. Unfortunately a lot of times politics takes precedence and these things are over looked but the truth is that enriches our culture. We should preserve and nurture it.”
Atul makes sure to visit Belgaum at least twice or thrice a year. He says, “I have lots of extended family and relatives there, at least 30 to 40 of them. Half the city is either filled with friends, family or acquaintances. My grandfather was the first chartered accountant of that area and now my cousins are looking after his firm. Ours is a prominent family from Belgaum. And whenever I go there for functions, I can see the pride of the people there.”
We couldn’t let Atul go without sharing something about the food from Belgaum. “Kunda and Mandagi are very famous in Belgaum, in fact there are just two families left there now who can make Mandagis which is like a sweet roomali roti. It’s a delicacy,” says Atul and adds, “Some few Diwalis back I even distributed Mandagis to a few Bollywood acquaintances and got many calls appreciating them.”
Read the entire story here.
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I am very happy to read Atul kulkarnis views. He is so broad minded and understood the problem correctly. I hope every person in belgaum thinks in same way and solve this nonsense matter and focus on the development of belgaum and make belgaum a better place.
Marthigannadanige abhinandanegalu.
http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/we-the-people/the-language-wars/153118
On We The People on NDTV from 9 to 11 mins Atul Kulkarni talks about Belgaum dispute. I am quoting his words verbatim here.
“I think it is futile because we have more important issues to deal than language and all that, but I guess it is politics. Basic formula of a politician is to create insecurity in a particular group and create an enemy and show them and you are going to be destroyed because of this and if you do not want to get destroyed by this group, I am the savior. This is the basic political formula. It could be language, religion, it could be some any other issue. So language now this particular case is the thing. I am not saying that there are no facts, whatever the allegation made by the groups, there are facts, but they should not be blown out of proportion. Secondly the overlapping is going to be there. I was brought up in Solapur, Now Solapur has Kannada, Telugu, Marathi, and there was demand to send Solapur in Karnataka. So how can you divide a country on the basis of language. There cannot be a straight line.”
November 1st is nearing. I wish both the warring sides and their “savior” newspapers think on this prudent analysis and put efforts to better the present and future, rather than cribbing about the past and rubbing the wounds with salt.
Fantastic comment 🙂 worth a salute..!!
Good one
AA Dinagalu ……. 🙂
Kudos , I very much appreciate the views of Atul kulkerni.His views are broad minded and preaches multicultural milieu . Definately Belgaum will be a great and wonderful place on Earth if his views are followed by Belgaum people. More ever I am his great fan. The Blog posted by Uday is Excellent and Significant.
Atul is a proud son of belgaum ! Its very nice to know about him.