Did you ever watch how toddlers get their whims accepted by their parents? They shout, they cry, they make unbearable noise with whatever they have in their hands and finally either out of embarassment or out of pity or out of frustration or out of appeasement mom and dad will bow to their kids wishes.
Did you ever know a kid who does not make much fuss about anything and still gets granted everything he asks for? I don't know any.
What is the moral of this story?, unless you make noise, your interests will go unnoticed.
Iam observing the same phenomenon worldwide on various occasions.Some samples
a)Everytime a hindu god is painted on a underwear or on sandals,I have heard instances of cases being filed in courts of US and Europe and judgements being favourable to the petitioners. But these instances keep repeating now and then.
However when Danish cartoon row erupted, worldwide muslims raised the hue, staged protests, conducted marches, some issued violent warnings and everyone took notice of this. People objected this kind of behavior but I bet, anytime in future if anybody plans anything of this nature against muslim symbols, he will think 100 times. Similar situation has developed in India wherein other minorities like christians and buddhists become unimportant when considering policy decisions for minorities.
b)In the fedral structure that prevails in India, by raising hue and cry about the partiality of the central government or by repeated requests/threats some states garner more funds than others. For exmaple Andhra Pradesh it seems garners most of the flood relief declared by central government from time to time. Likewise I read somewhere that Tamilnadu gets about 60% of the funds allocated for new highways. I have never heard a drought prone and cyclone prone state like Orissa either demanding for greater funds or getting allocated with greater funds.
c)In any Hindi movie 99.9% of the time, when you see a south Indian character, it will be a Tamilian.To many northerners in India, as well as to outsiders, a south Indian implies a Madrasi and south Indian language implies Tamil.
Inspite of the distaste that exists towards the linguistic fervour shown by Tamilians Some of my learned friends also pay tributes to Tamilians for being so vehement in upholding their culture and language.You can love them or hate them but cannot ignore them. Why is this? Go and search for material on anti-hindi protests, anti-english protests in Tamilnadu.
What if Kannadigas or Telugus are accommodative of other languages and cultures, they are ignored.
What will happen if everyone starts making noise for everything they want to achieve?
World will not be a nice place to live in. Hence please, please look around for nice people and consider their silent grievences and concerns.
Thursday, 9 August 2007
Monday, 6 August 2007
Mother tongue sins
Being a Telugu speaker and a true lover of the language I had the fortune to read and hear some of the beautiful nuggets of the language. Iam sure, everyone else who has a taste for his/her mother tongue would have enjoyed the linguistic beauty of their mother tongues. All of us would surely relish speaking our mother tongues.
I have also had the misfortune to witness some not so beautiful aspects about speaking mother tongue. Iam not sure if the following ills are totally exclusive to Telugu speakers alone or present in other language speakers also, it is for you all to add.
I have seen two categories of people who do disservice to their native language. One category who speak it when it is not supposed to be spoken, another categeory who do not speak it when it is supposed to be spoken. Iam sure atleast on occasions, I also would have behaved in either way, but no harm in recording my experiences.
There is an old joke which says that when two punjabis meet, they speak in Pujabi, when two tamilians meet they speak in Tamil but when two telugus meet they speak in English. I have been a witness to this recently. I went to watch a telugu movie of the most famous telugu hero of the day. All the punches of the film are in hard-core telugu slang, only a genuine telugu would follow them. I have watched two groups of people enjoying the film in the first half. Each group amongst themselves is conversing in hard-core telugu. In the intermission, one fellow in the first group recognized an old friend in the second group and they chatted infront of me for sometime, in which language??? of course English. Again in the same theatre I saw this telugu family who came with a 5/6 year old boy. The elders themselves are speaking in chaste telugu, but with the kid they are conversing only in English. The kids talk tells me that his English is at a good level, but his Telugu language skills are a big Zero. Come on, if you want your child to develop competency in English, there are numerous other ways and other times to do it, not by converting a telugu boy into an English dude. or is it just showing off....
I also have seen it as a matter of prestige to speak in English, to show that one is posh or more civilized, even though the other fellows native tongue is same as yours.
Is this exclusive to NRIs? Not sure....
That much about the first category of people I have mentioned. Now to the second category. When you are conversing in a multi-lingual group,one suddenly starts speaking to you in your (and obviously his)native language. Others are simply dumbstruck trying to make something out of it. Likewise in a multi-lingual group, I have seen people start conversing in Telugu, just because he/she and his/her friends speak Telugu, but what about other people in the group. If one is going to speak a language just because majority of his friends speak it, how the hell will others can interact in such groups?
This is another form of disservice to the language. This is my take. Over to you..
I have also had the misfortune to witness some not so beautiful aspects about speaking mother tongue. Iam not sure if the following ills are totally exclusive to Telugu speakers alone or present in other language speakers also, it is for you all to add.
I have seen two categories of people who do disservice to their native language. One category who speak it when it is not supposed to be spoken, another categeory who do not speak it when it is supposed to be spoken. Iam sure atleast on occasions, I also would have behaved in either way, but no harm in recording my experiences.
There is an old joke which says that when two punjabis meet, they speak in Pujabi, when two tamilians meet they speak in Tamil but when two telugus meet they speak in English. I have been a witness to this recently. I went to watch a telugu movie of the most famous telugu hero of the day. All the punches of the film are in hard-core telugu slang, only a genuine telugu would follow them. I have watched two groups of people enjoying the film in the first half. Each group amongst themselves is conversing in hard-core telugu. In the intermission, one fellow in the first group recognized an old friend in the second group and they chatted infront of me for sometime, in which language??? of course English. Again in the same theatre I saw this telugu family who came with a 5/6 year old boy. The elders themselves are speaking in chaste telugu, but with the kid they are conversing only in English. The kids talk tells me that his English is at a good level, but his Telugu language skills are a big Zero. Come on, if you want your child to develop competency in English, there are numerous other ways and other times to do it, not by converting a telugu boy into an English dude. or is it just showing off....
I also have seen it as a matter of prestige to speak in English, to show that one is posh or more civilized, even though the other fellows native tongue is same as yours.
Is this exclusive to NRIs? Not sure....
That much about the first category of people I have mentioned. Now to the second category. When you are conversing in a multi-lingual group,one suddenly starts speaking to you in your (and obviously his)native language. Others are simply dumbstruck trying to make something out of it. Likewise in a multi-lingual group, I have seen people start conversing in Telugu, just because he/she and his/her friends speak Telugu, but what about other people in the group. If one is going to speak a language just because majority of his friends speak it, how the hell will others can interact in such groups?
This is another form of disservice to the language. This is my take. Over to you..
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