Indians have been forced slaves to the queen's language since the British East India company conquered India. The freedom movement saw us throw off the yoke of British Imperialism-physically at least.
Mentally we remain slaves. I, for one, can think and write in English with greater ease than in my mother tongue.Our generation was exposed to the spoken language since we grew up in a state that did not teach my mother tongue. Today's generation of parents have taken slavery one step further.
As I travelled to Hyderabad with a young couple and their 4 year old kid the appalling state of our slavery could be seen in the way the couple spoke only in English to the kid. Right! Mr. Technocrat your kid stammers and stutters through English. You want him to 'whine' and 'dine' in English,but I shudder to think of the scene 10years hence.
Now the conversation went as follows:
'Oh! mommy I am bored.'
'Look there is an engine is that Thomas?' (Thomas being the name of some engine in a story book.'
'Can I have some shoup?'
'Not shoup its soup.'
'shoup' went the kid. Mommy started feeding the child some soup.
'Its hot.'
'Is it hot or spicy?' Mommy was quick to put in a lesson on the difference in meaning between the two words.
The parents spoke to each other in Telugu but always in English to the kid. The kid also had a first name, second name and surname pattern which is very alien to us Indians. They probably wanted to jettison the kid straight from the creche to the' land of opportunity.'
I wonder what happens when the peer pressure sets in and the talk becomes 'Hiya Machaan'
'Whathcha doin'
I felt sad that the kid was being cut off from his roots. Can a tree blossom and bloom without roots? Something to ponder about. In another few generations our rich culture and heritage will be lost forever to the world if we stick to English and forget our mother tongue.Indian children being brought up in other parts of the world are taught their mother tongue along with English. My brother and my sis-in-law, who were bringing up their children in the USA made a conscientious effort to speak to their children only in Tamil[being the father's spoken language],
and Bengali[being the mother tongue] and the children automatically learnt English. Hats off to such thinkers who plan well for a problem free tomorrow.
The point to ponder about is whether we are missing the forest while concentrating on the trees.
Let us not deprive our children of their rich heritage and make them, 'Dhobi ka kutta, Na ghar ka na ghat ka.' Learning to speak only English from birth does not make one a Britisher.
8 comments:
that was a very funny anecdote!and yes you have a valid point there...but as always there are various sides to every story...now though it IS true that learning English doesn't make one a Britisher it might ease the way for the child in an increasingly competitive world,where the way people dress and speak can either make or break them...also though it is an extreme to teach only English the other extreme of sticking to your mother tongue and going so for as to kill one another over it is a more unacceptable madness....people must remember that language is just a tool and putting anything on a pedestal is never a good thing!
there you asked for it! i shouldn't have a written a post in the place of a comment! i should have stopped at "well written piece"...but what to do ,its in the genes....
Great post,I agree with the both of you :)
Language was not the only thing the child lost out on he also lost out on the cultural exposure to the things that the Indian language would have exposed him to.Music,mythology et all.
hello maam,
this is nidhi yashavanth,former student of VII A2...can i just hav yr email id...its prety urgent!
Nice post Lali. Have inherently believed in this and subconsciously tried to practice it, nice to see in print. Thinkers recognize the value, sadly most think for today. Mandating through formal education addresses some of this, however often done with fanaticism rather than pride in cultural heritage hence does not have the desired effect.
One thought - when I was conversing with a grandmother and potential caregiver for Rish and I used the word 'kid', she said, 'kids are baby goats, ours are children'. That stayed with me and I never used it again....another liberty taken with simplification of language I suppose...
Ya Jhumkee your post does make me think of the word 'kid' we have probably got used to the word so much so that the original meaning is lost forever. Something else to ponder about.......
Very nicely put. I see this more in India than with Indians in US. Here we make some effort to teach them something Indian, whether it is the language, cuisine, art, etc. However, when I restrict my children to speak to us in either Kannada/Tamil, I face the dilemma when people in Bangalore speak to them and each other in English. In our last visit, my 7 year old son nailed that point to me when he said "Look appa, you said you want me to speak in Kannada/Tamil, but all our relatives speak in English to me.". Thus, I am more worried about Indians in India loosing the language rather than Indians outside India. Of course, we can always find examples of both extremes as couple of the comments show, however, as you have said we (my wife and I) also think the same way that we have to teach our children our culture to make them strong and confident.
BTW, are you from Kadaba or related to Ananthachaar maama?
Regards,
Uday
Hi Uday,
My mother is from Kadaba, she is Ananthachar's daughter. Ananthachar was my maternal grandfather. How are you related to Ananthachar?
regards
Chandrika.
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