These non-Kannadiga IAS officers speak Kannada daily

HUBBALLI: A major section of Kannadigas may hesitate to speak their language. But these IAS officials serving in cultural capital Dharwad district have no such issues. Though they are non-Kannadigas, they have been using Kannada in their routine lives.
While it is mandatory for all civil servants to know Kannada, these officers have shown enthusiasm to go beyond the rudimentary learning and become fluent in it.They have been addressing gatherings in Kannada and listening to grievances of rural people, who know only Kannada.
Speaking to TOI, deputy commissioner P Rajendra Cholan, an engineer who secured 31st rank in UPSC examinations in 2008, said he had no qualms in learning the language as his mother tongue Tamil and Kannada belong to the Dravidian family of languages. “As there is no major difference in sentence formation between both, it was an advantage for me. But I took time to learn the script as that is entirely different from Tamil,” he added. Apart from learning the script, Cholan is also reading up a lot of Kannada literary works to improve his vocabulary.
ZP CEO Ramandeep Chowdhary, who secured 84th rank in 2008 and has pursued B Tech from IIT Delhi and ME from Pennsylvania State University, says dialects change every 20-30 km in a nation full of diversities. He has been meticulously learning the language for the past one year. "When I was transferred from Bihar to Karnataka in 2013, I started Kannada learning with the help of nursery books. After learning the script, I concentrated on vocabulary building, and then began to interact with colleagues and public. Later I began working at home on sentence formation," he said.
Cholan is luckier as wife Deepa Cholan, who is also an IAS officer and serves as ZP CEO in Belgaum, hails from Karnataka and knows Kannada very well. "My wife has been my Kannada teacher. My daughter Sanvi speaks Kannada better than I do," he said. However, Chowdhary and his IAS wife Khushboo Goel Chowdhary have been learning Kannada on a daily basis. "Interaction with people is the best way to learn Kannada," Ramandeep said.
When asked about pronunciation of Kannada numbers, both admitted that it was difficult at the beginning. But they said their way of speaking Kannada has been accepted by their colleagues, elected representatives and public at large.: A major section of Kannadigas may hesitate to speak their language. But these IAS officials serving in cultural capital Dharwad district have no such issues. Though they are non-Kannadigas, they have been using Kannada in their routine lives.
While it is mandatory for all civil servants to know Kannada, these officers have shown enthusiasm to go beyond the rudimentary learning and become fluent in it. They have been addressing gatherings in Kannada and listening to grievances of rural people, who know only Kannada.
Speaking to TOI, deputy commissioner P Rajendra Cholan, an engineer who secured 31st rank in UPSC examinations in 2008, said he had no qualms in learning the language as his mother tongue Tamil and Kannada belong to the Dravidian family of languages. “As there is no major difference in sentence formation between both, it was an advantage for me. But I took time to learn the script as that is entirely different from Tamil,” he added. Apart from learning the script, Cholan is also reading up a lot of Kannada literary works to improve his vocabulary.
ZP CEO Ramandeep Chowdhary, who secured 84th rank in 2008 and has pursued B Tech from IIT Delhi and ME from Pennsylvania State University, says dialects change every 20-30 km in a nation full of diversities. He has been meticulously learning the language for the past one year. “When I was transferred from Bihar to Karnataka in 2013, I started Kannada learning with the help of nursery books. After learning the script, I concentrated on vocabulary building, and then began to interact with colleagues and public. Later I began working at home on sentence formation,” he said.
Cholan is luckier as wife Deepa Cholan, who is also an IAS officer and serves as ZP CEO in Belgaum, hails from Karnataka and knows Kannada very well. “My wife has been my Kannada teacher. My daughter Sanvi speaks Kannada better than I do,” he said. However, Chowdhary and his IAS wife Khushboo Goel Chowdhary have been learning Kannada on a daily basis. “Interaction with people is the best way to learn Kannada,” Ramandeep said.
When asked about pronunciation of Kannada numbers, both admitted that it was difficult at the beginning. But they said their way of speaking Kannada has been accepted by their colleagues, elected representatives and public at large.