dhanisen

The last few weeks had been a real nightmare to me. Didn't even imagine in my wildest dreams that I would have to stand on the other side of my life where destiny would scaffold me in which my body and soul was a total stranger to my mind. Being totally out of control was never my attitude but when it struck all of a sudden all i knew was that i was not what i used to be. You have so many things to see and enjoy yet you feel that you are the most unluckiest person in this world. I know that there are so many people like me who keep on brooding, "Why do all these things happen to me alone?". Does this show that these category of people are cowards that they are not able to accept the reality? Or everyone has to pass through this phase in their lifetime. All i wish for is a quick solution to my unknown questions.

This post has nothing to be shared with but it means a lot to me alone. A personal excerpt of mine ignoring the grammatical errors and mistakes.

This isn’t the first time I was hearing such a comment from an Indian. Every time I hear it I have been wise enough to turn deaf to these kinds of comments which have been targeted against thousands of people like me. The simple reason us being ignorant to these kinds of remarks was quite visible in our actions because we felt that we had much more bigger things in this world rather than fighting for a language created by our ancestors or still dramatized by our politicians.

Why is that people coming to a new place expect that place and people to adjust to them? Isn’t it the other way around? Why is that people behave so indifferently in a place that they are so comfortable with? Is it that they are not ready to accept the fact that that place has its own flavor and charm which is unique from the rest of the places. How is it possible for people stepping out of India to take pride in easily adapting to foreign countries’ customs and practices when they feel difficult to adapt something new in their homeland? This is where the entire problem lies.

Ever since I started my career, I have witnessed a lot of non-speaking tamil people making fun of tamil people or degrading them in the name of language. Well I am not saying that tamil people don’t do it. But I can say that no tamil guy if staying outside of Tamil Nadu will dare to pass on such a remark on the native speaker if he is unable to converse in English. Similarly, no tamil guy have ever refrained from learning the native language or hindi as the case may be to make life easier. In fact, they have been quite adaptive to the environment except for sambar and curd rice.

And it’s so sad that people who are educated behave in such an incorrigible manner that there seems to be no distinction between the educated and the uneducated. This is one such scenario which I got to experience myself where unprofessionalism existed to the core in a professional environment. In my previous workplace, I was in a project where I happened to work with a group of which I was the only non-hindi speaking person. You are regarded as shoddy in a group of hindi speaking group if you don’t know hindi. Unaware of the fact that I could understand hindi very well, this group started to tease me. I continued to pretend as though I didn’t know anything of what they were speaking and just kept smiling. The day came when I thought it was high time that I had to speak up and vociferated not sparing anyone irrespective of their positions.

Back to where I left. As soon as I reached home, I quickly did a google with the keywords: “Chennai people reluctant to hindi” and I didn’t get any big hits on articles or documents to support the context. Then I changed the keywords to: “Chennai people against hindi”. This time also I didn’t get any big searches to support to my arguments. But I did find a lot of forums and blog posts all against the tamil speaking community or the language. Damn it! I never knew that this issue was so serious that people could fight over it for days. Such a pity, that people fail to identify and understand what lies in the core of the problem. And by hopping from pages I landed in this link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_language_of_India. Though I didn’t get the exact match for what I was searching, I did end up with an answer that really took me to cloud nine. The Official language of the Union of India is Hindi and its subsidiary official language is English; States in India can legislate their own official languages. Neither the Constitution of India, nor any Indian law defines any national language. Hindi is just an official language of the country. And if you like to know what the difference is between a national and official language please visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_language. I no longer have to be ashamed of not knowing a hindi but at the same note I may not have the opportunity to enjoy some beautiful things that I could learn through that language.

Language is just a medium created by human beings that evolved during a course of time. It cannot dictate how you and I have to live. Speaking a particular language doesn’t make you a flashy person or extraordinary. Had this been the case, then we all should be ashamed that out of the some 6,912 living languages we hardly know 3 or 4 or may be at the max a person could know 15 different languages. Every language has it own charm and beauty. Learning a new language is always fun. But that cannot be regarded as a norm to know a person. A simple warm smile could change things easily which words can never do. If you still think that language is still important then how is that your pet dog could understand what you can say at the same time what I could say? There is already enough demarcation based on our borders and other things. Let’s not further deepen this division under the name of language.

Disclaimer:

Whenever, I start to re-open this post somehow I feel that I could never verbalize my sincere opinions in a manner acceptable to the reader, for a circle of unknown fear dejecting me, knocking my thoughts to the ground like a fierce tornado. Not that I dread of anything harmful but the thought of articulating on sensitive concepts in this virtual world just sends shivers to my spines. Now that I know how it feels to be a true journalist, I really salute all those genuine hearts who splurge their thoughts profoundly with ease and comfort. This post is going to be a little out of my domain which for sure will invite heated arguments in my blog space in case it catches the eyes of people and gets scrutinized like a brutal murder. If not, it’s going to be another post that caught my attention. Opinions expressed here in are not meant to hurt anyone’s emotions or beliefs. On the same note, I would like to make it clear cut that I am no way a fundamentalist or a fanatic or that I am overzealous of my state. I am very proud to say that I am an Indian alone and don’t want to be tagged to a particular religion, or language or whatever label it may be. With this disclaimer, let me begin to say what I felt was rational.

A couple of months ago, I went to join my friends in a get-together party. As usual, I couldn’t make it on time and was behind an hour but quickly went on the roll with my friends. The party went well and it was time to get back home. Since it was already late, my friend was kind enough to extend me an offer to drop me at my place. Declining the offer, I moved over but somehow my friend insisted that I should come with them. Finally, I agreed to the offer with the often used words – ‘Thank You’. Soon the car zoomed past us and both of us hopped into the backseats which already savored another two more friends of mine already occupying the front seats. Slowly, the car started to pickup and my friends started to set their seats as beds after a hefty-meal. No one was in a mood to talk let alone the a/c speaks for itself. Annoyed, my friend switched on the CD player to break the muteness that roared in the car by playing a new Hindi number and this is where it all started. Since the number wasn’t that good, my friend who was sitting with me in backseat nudged the driver (another friend of mine) to change the number turning to me and said, “I don’t like that number. Do you like it?”

Curse my stars that day, I should have stopped saying a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. In turn, I promptly added a few more words to it make it rather ugly with a ridiculous statement which turned out to be a nightmare to me. That day, I replied humorously, “No, I don’t like that song. In fact, I don’t listen to Hindi music.” And there I was sitting ignorant of what was awaiting my way. In general, I am a kind of person who doesn’t open my mouth very soon. Whilst this being said, I am not an introvert and have always been known to be the centre of attraction surrounded by friends. I always have enjoyed the luxury of being a spectator rather than being combative. But this time not! Even before I could realize what I said, the argument started. My friend was well aware that I have no reservations to any particular language and that I do listen to hind music. But that didn’t help me anyway.

Bong, came the reply from my friend, “Why don’t you like hindi songs?”

I said without hesitation, “I don’t know”.

Unconvinced with my answer my friend wanted a justification as to why I didn’t like hindi songs. “What could I say if I don’t like something?” was the immediate rush of words from my end. Still unhappy with my answer my friend continued, “That’s why I am asking what is the reason you don’t listen to hindi songs?”

God Damn! I should haven’t said these words: “I listen only to Tamil songs and we don’t prefer hindi songs”. In fact, I didn’t mean any single word of what I said, but I had to pay the price of it for the next 30 minutes. On the contrary, the truth is I hardly listen to songs or watch movies be it tamil or hindi. No reservations here. Now the fun starts.

“How can you say this?” was my friend’s irritated response.

“All you tamil people are like this only. The entire state doesn’t have anything better in this place except for priding your language. Tamil Fanatics”, was the reply from my non-speaking tamil (I don’t want to mention people as non-residents or whatever term because I don’t want to divide people by their demographic) friend including the other two in the car. It didn’t stop there and I was showered with the following statements: “This is the only state which refuses to accept hindi. If you go to other states you could find people conversing in hindi right from the educated to the auto-driver. It is so weird the way chennai people behave. This is the only state where people in spite of the fact knowing the language don’t speak or watch movies."

To my respite, I added the following comments: “See we are not against hindi language or any other language. It is just that we are more comfortable with our language. Moreover you cannot expect an auto-driver to speak in hindi when he hardly knows how to read or write tamil itself. People will not learn any language unless and until they have a need or requirement. Not everyone born are multi-linguistic. And if you think that speaking in our language makes us linguistic fanatic, well go ahead and label us ‘Tamil Fanatics’.

“Ahh! Here comes the truth like I said! You should go and see how rest of the people in India speaks in hindi. In fact, hindi should be made compulsory in all the states and everyone should learn it. You tamil people should be ashamed of yourself that you don’t know hindi which is our National Language.” And the argument went out of control and I was tagged a ‘Lingusitic Fanatic’ in the end before I could get down at my place. On my friends part the victory cup was shining brightly in the hands that they got the better of me. In reality it wasn’t the truth. Not that I lost the argument, it was simple that I didn’t want a confrontation. The moment I bade goodbye and closed the car, I was all aghast with the way my friends reacted to a simple sentence. Unable to digest the arguments, I went home and did a quick research and finally was contended to see that I was indeed right on expressing my opinion. For all those people who have uttered these words do please take a few more minutes to read the rest of the story.