Read in todays HT about Bal Thakeray challenging Lalu to perform Chath at the Marina beach in Chennai. This retort to Lalu's challenge supposedly came after Karunanidhi govt.'s announcement of making tamil compulsory in schools.
My POV, i'm surprised it wasn't cumpolsory till now.My experience having been born and brought up in assam was different. I had to change a lot of schools due to my parents regular movement within assam. From the 1st to the 5th grade i was in an assam board school in guwahati. There both Hindi and Assamese were considered major languages - Hindi because its the national language and Assamese because its the state language. Therefore, from the 1st grade i had to learn reading and writing in Assamese along with Hindi. Then onwards i was in ICSE as well as CBSE schools where in you had to choose between Hindi and Assamese as your 2nd and 3rd language and study both. 3rd language being Hindi or Assamese would essentially be taught from the 5th to the 8th standard and you would be kept back for the year incase you failed in either of the lang's.
Result : makes me fluent in 4 languages, 4th one being a bonus. English, Hindi, Assamese and Bengali (Bonus :-)). Since Assamese script is very close to bengali therefore i can read bengali as well to save my life. And also speak because of a lot of bengali friends i have grown up with.
My point of Contention with Mr. Thakeray would be if he expects only Marathi to be a part of the language tradition apart from English, deleting hindi completely. Inspite of all the regional wars assamese people are intelligent enough to understand that hindi is a one point lang. of communication across the country cuz u cant be learning every language that the people of this country speak in. Hindi has become increasingly acceptable across the country and specially due to the length and breadth of media exposure, media specifically using hindi as the most common language on the nationally broadcasted channels has caught on and therefore people have even learnt hindi through media.
An amazing Example : Nagaland : 23 different major tribes amogst others with 23 different languages constituting the state. None of them understand each others languages and therefore cant communicate with each other. 23 culturaly different tribes, part of the same state.
SOLUTION : NAGAMESE a language used as a one point of communication for the state to understand each other, English being the official state language. Imagine what would happen if each of these tribes started fighting for their own language to be made the official state language? Image the country then which is sooooooooo diverse that even thinking of dividing would make countries and states the sizes of few kilometers. Hindi is the same solution to the countries diverse linguistic assortment like nagamese is to nagaland.And even naga's know hindi very well as they are increasingly geting out of their state for business purposes and even within the northeast since there is so much diversity they either use english or hindi as their languge of cmunnication with the rest of the northeast. This stands equally true for the other northeastern states as well who follow the same manner of communication with their neighbouring states.
Technically my father's language is Bhojpuri and mother's Angika.. two different languages from the same state of bihar because they both hail from different parts of bihar. well do i know the languages .. nope !! i understand them completely but no i cant speak to save my life. Hindi was always the main language of communication i was brought up with.
I think Thakeray needs to take a lesson from the nagaland example, or atleast marathis should, instead of supporting any nonsense the thakeray parivar speaks.
To confess, i can't speak or understand most of Marathi in my 8 yrs of stay in Mumbai except for some stuff i have heard the BEST bus conductors use. Reason, marathis have always been very guarded according to me. They don't invite you to learn or are not interested in teaching you the language. They seem to be always guarding it as theirs, happy to use it whereever possible whether the other person understands it or not (prime eg. all mumbai police stations.). But it is still expected that non - marathis catch and learn the language from thin air by just listening to marathis speaking in it like i did in the best buses. Well all of us are not so intelligent are we?
The reason why i leanrnt Assamese and Bengali because assamese and bengali's are proud of their culture and like to share it with you and therefore it gives you a happy and wanting push to try and learn the language out of sheer respect for them. I don't even seem to know much about maharashtrian specialities in terms of folk and other cultural aspects because its just not as strongly prevelant or exposed to the world unlike the kind of culture i have been brought up around. There the diversity in the culture is very mighty proudly displayed and therefore you know it all.
Marathi Manoos still has a long way to go in terms of learning from their own fellow countrymen and i would also like to add that respect is earned and deserved not forced. Maybe they should give it a thought and then they would find the solution to make people automatically respect their culture. Even though i guess that wouldn't help Thakeray parivars political ambitions much :)
My POV, i'm surprised it wasn't cumpolsory till now.My experience having been born and brought up in assam was different. I had to change a lot of schools due to my parents regular movement within assam. From the 1st to the 5th grade i was in an assam board school in guwahati. There both Hindi and Assamese were considered major languages - Hindi because its the national language and Assamese because its the state language. Therefore, from the 1st grade i had to learn reading and writing in Assamese along with Hindi. Then onwards i was in ICSE as well as CBSE schools where in you had to choose between Hindi and Assamese as your 2nd and 3rd language and study both. 3rd language being Hindi or Assamese would essentially be taught from the 5th to the 8th standard and you would be kept back for the year incase you failed in either of the lang's.
Result : makes me fluent in 4 languages, 4th one being a bonus. English, Hindi, Assamese and Bengali (Bonus :-)). Since Assamese script is very close to bengali therefore i can read bengali as well to save my life. And also speak because of a lot of bengali friends i have grown up with.
My point of Contention with Mr. Thakeray would be if he expects only Marathi to be a part of the language tradition apart from English, deleting hindi completely. Inspite of all the regional wars assamese people are intelligent enough to understand that hindi is a one point lang. of communication across the country cuz u cant be learning every language that the people of this country speak in. Hindi has become increasingly acceptable across the country and specially due to the length and breadth of media exposure, media specifically using hindi as the most common language on the nationally broadcasted channels has caught on and therefore people have even learnt hindi through media.
An amazing Example : Nagaland : 23 different major tribes amogst others with 23 different languages constituting the state. None of them understand each others languages and therefore cant communicate with each other. 23 culturaly different tribes, part of the same state.
SOLUTION : NAGAMESE a language used as a one point of communication for the state to understand each other, English being the official state language. Imagine what would happen if each of these tribes started fighting for their own language to be made the official state language? Image the country then which is sooooooooo diverse that even thinking of dividing would make countries and states the sizes of few kilometers. Hindi is the same solution to the countries diverse linguistic assortment like nagamese is to nagaland.And even naga's know hindi very well as they are increasingly geting out of their state for business purposes and even within the northeast since there is so much diversity they either use english or hindi as their languge of cmunnication with the rest of the northeast. This stands equally true for the other northeastern states as well who follow the same manner of communication with their neighbouring states.
Technically my father's language is Bhojpuri and mother's Angika.. two different languages from the same state of bihar because they both hail from different parts of bihar. well do i know the languages .. nope !! i understand them completely but no i cant speak to save my life. Hindi was always the main language of communication i was brought up with.
I think Thakeray needs to take a lesson from the nagaland example, or atleast marathis should, instead of supporting any nonsense the thakeray parivar speaks.
To confess, i can't speak or understand most of Marathi in my 8 yrs of stay in Mumbai except for some stuff i have heard the BEST bus conductors use. Reason, marathis have always been very guarded according to me. They don't invite you to learn or are not interested in teaching you the language. They seem to be always guarding it as theirs, happy to use it whereever possible whether the other person understands it or not (prime eg. all mumbai police stations.). But it is still expected that non - marathis catch and learn the language from thin air by just listening to marathis speaking in it like i did in the best buses. Well all of us are not so intelligent are we?
The reason why i leanrnt Assamese and Bengali because assamese and bengali's are proud of their culture and like to share it with you and therefore it gives you a happy and wanting push to try and learn the language out of sheer respect for them. I don't even seem to know much about maharashtrian specialities in terms of folk and other cultural aspects because its just not as strongly prevelant or exposed to the world unlike the kind of culture i have been brought up around. There the diversity in the culture is very mighty proudly displayed and therefore you know it all.
Marathi Manoos still has a long way to go in terms of learning from their own fellow countrymen and i would also like to add that respect is earned and deserved not forced. Maybe they should give it a thought and then they would find the solution to make people automatically respect their culture. Even though i guess that wouldn't help Thakeray parivars political ambitions much :)
4 comments:
Nice to read your post among all these negative publicity Assam and Assamese normally gets as a place/community that are killing the Hindi speaking people in their state.
The situation that you have mentioned is not peculiar to Mumbai. I am in Blore for 9 years now and the situation is more or less same here as well.
Hi Hrishikesh
are you an assamese by any chance?
well i have my greivances having been born and brought up there.. its no less than mumbai .. probably worse.. atleast with mumbai its more political.. with assam its intrinsicly the people who make u feel alien.. but inanycase.. i love the place cuz its a part of mychildhood and its given me a lot..
and ya i do agree like you said it isnt a mumbai centric phenomenon and south india has been ever famous to be voicing opinions against hindi as a language but with increasing globalisation and nationalisation for that matter think things are geting much better than before.. but ya politics can ruin that positive movement..
and man u have some number of blogs.. do u really write that much.. or do u create a blog for each topic u think of ? :)
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