CULTURE
Language of Independence Day
The native language speakers read it worst
Each of India’s 29 states has its own language.
Not dialect or accent.
Language, with a script.
In 1950 our wise founding fathers decided we’ll all have Hindi as a national language to help unite the country.
It hit a bunch of us.
We stopped learning our mother tongues in school. We learnt Hindi instead.
Here’s an example.
Ram killed Ravana
Ram ne Raavan ko maara[Hindi] राम ने रावण को मारा
Ramar Ravananai kondrar[Tamil] ராமர் ராவணனை கொன்றார்
The structure of the Tamil sentence is different from the Hindi sentence. It isn’t just a vocabulary flip. Or a suffix flip. Or a grammar switcheroo. Oh, and of course the scripts are different.
In 1990 a Hindi exam of mine bombed. Being Tamil, learning from English textbooks in Geography, Mathematics and Science, I had no voice in the Hindi class.
Tripathi sir changed all that. He spoke with me in the language, quoted the greats, recited from memory, and was so energetic at 60 plus years of age that he stoppered the fire-hose and let me drink deep from the Pierian spring.
I was left with a lifelong love of the Hindi language, and the work of greats like Bhushan and Bachchan, who wrote alliteratively and provocatively.
So, Susan Brearley asks, Roopa, where is the rant?
This.
I have an SMS in the Hindi Devanagri script, which I send to my dental patients in my state, Jharkhand.
This is a Hindi speaking state. It borders with Bihar, is close to Uttar Pradesh. It falls in the Hindi belt.
They did not have to jump through the hoops of having to learn a new language. In the language lottery, when the decision was being made, they struck it rich.
Their mother tongue, the language of Ramdhari Singh Dinkar and Maithilisharan Gupt, was chosen as the national language.
My rant is:
They can’t read it.
One out of every four people I send the SMS to, can’t read it.
The proper Uttar Pradesh kids can’t read it.
They say it is too detailed [so whaddya want me to do, skip the mouthwash?]
It is too long [Yeah, I know, let’s tell Coronavirus that]
I wish it was in English [this one makes me boil]
I wish it was in the English script [this is when I gave in and created a voicemail. I want people doing the right thing at my dental clinic’s threshold, I am not a Hindi teacher]
Tripathi sir, come and teach the Hindi to the native speakers of the language. Recite the poems, relate the stories, make them relish,
their mother tongue,
and Our National Language.
Hindi. Jai Hind. Happy Independence Day.
Prompted by Susan Brearley in
- People from Jharkhandi tribes like Ho, Oraon, Munda, Hadiya and Santhal, also have their own mother tongue and different script. They swotted and learnt the National Language, and they do fine with my SMS.
- The kids who are from non-Hindi speaking states do better at writing and reading in Hindi even if they aren’t fluent speakers because they are more familiar with the literature greats.
- The traditional Hindi speaker states’ teenagers are struggling because they don’t read the language in school. In the Hindi belt, taking Hindi isn’t compulsory, and sometimes Delhi kids will take French, not Hindi.
- Think of Henry Higgins’ grand-kids speaking like Eliza Doolittle used to, you’ll get the picture.
- As Coronavirus precautions are vital, we used the most common language in our place-and-task message to patients at our dental clinic.
- We used a Hindi language SMS. It didn’t work well, and we ended up using a voice message.
- India’s got a new Education policy in place, but these kids are already through the school system, it has come too late for them. Confronted with Hindi, they look like someone trying to eat aloo parantha with knife and fork.