DVG, Ray Bradbury & Culture

The noted Kannada writer bemoaned the lack of culture in even the so-called educated classes. They are indifferent to Classical Music & Literature, said he. Only money & prestige are their goals & other things do not feature in their heaven, rued he. He also disdained the lack of reading habit let alone the habit of buying books.

Ray Bradbury's dystopian novel "Fahrenheit 451" (this being the fire point of paper) goes further & embarks on a mass arson of all books, presumably because reading encourages independent thinking & makes people hard to govern. But here again, as in D. V. G. (D. V. Gundappa), a committed minority find a way to keep literature alive.

In the last segment of the film "Red Violin", at the time of the "Cultural Revolution" in China, there was widespread vandalism of cultural artifacts among other human rights violations. But later, they realised their folly & did a course correction, so that many musical virtuosos now are Chinese. Ironically, the nation which destroyed books during the disastrous "Cultural Revolution", is now (for economic reasons) the major printer of fine books for all countries today!