Is it really such a huge issue ??

An idle mind is always a devil’s workshop. There are so many things that we find amusing the night before a crucial exam. Even standing in front of the mirror will not amuse you this much. One such night I recollected some of the conversations I had with my classmates before I made friends with them. Here are few of them.

Hi! I’m Sudeep. And you are?

Me: Surya.

S: From?

Me: Chennai.

S: You know only Tamil and nothing else kyun ki mein Chandigarh se hoon.

Me: Rehne de bhai. Kisne bola ki mujhe Hindi nahi aatha?

S: Kya? *Bursts out laughing* Chennai waale hindi jaante? Kaisa yaar?

Next

I’m Saurabh from Delhi and how about you? Mein Delhi se nahi hoon lekin Hindi me baat kar sakta hun!

Ranveer spoke the same way and so did Debashish.

           A few more interesting conversations followed. But the best reactions came from my very own city people. The startled look on their faces said it all. The problem wasn’t with or for me. It was for my non-Hindi speaking friends. They had horrible first time conversations with their ‘only Hindi’ speaking friends. Their reactions varied between ebullience and wistfulness. Why is that people who know Hindi expecting the others to know it as well? Is it because the national language is Hindi and we should all stand by the rule? Allow me to correct such beliefs by quoting that as per the constitution of India, Hindi is not the national language. In fact, India doesn’t have a national language and it doesn’t need one. So it would be prudent to lower the expectations which were supported by a myth rather than a fact. Now to the most important question: Why Chennai won’t speak Hindi?

            I would say it is as the exact same reason why a person from Delhi, Punjab or Assam does not speak Tamizh. First, Tamizh is a language that from my knowledge has existed for close to 2000 years with crores of people speaking the language. It has stood its time. The only languages that tried to compete with it are Hindi and its mother, Sanskrit but have failed to create its mark. It’s a fact that we love our language and do not like to speak a different language when we are in our domain. And this reflects in being supportive any to Tamizh community outside the country irrespective of what is right or wrong.

           Two – Fear. The more you love something, the more you’ll be afraid that you’ll lose it one day. And you’ll do everything at your power to protect what you love dearly. That’s what people in actual power in 1960s did by opposing point blank to the proposal of making Hindi as the national language based on the fear that nationalizing Hindi will slowly erode Tamil. Our fear is justified.

           There are several points that one can put forward to enforce our side of the argument. If you travel to Barcelona/Madrid, do you expect people to speak in Hindi? Obviously not Hindi when you can’t expect them to know English either! Will you complain that English is a global language and they should have known it? On the same note, why should you expect someone in Tamizh Nadu to do so? Because it is a part of India? The greatest strength of India is its diversity in languages and sustainable cultural diversity. Don’t try to nullify that strength by expecting the entire nation to speak in a single language. If you are moving to a land that doesn’t speak the language you do, the onus is on you to learn the new language and not the other way around.

            Everyone has their own choices and can make their own decisions. When I started college, the language spoken over here wasn’t my mother tongue. It seemed like Saroj Narayanaswamy reading the news in French. It was that funny. I didn’t brood over it. But I vowed to learn the language and even though I’ve failed miserably at it so far, I know that I still have 3 other languages that can help me survive anywhere in India. No-one stops you from learning something; it’s just that you choose not to. It’s not Tamizh, even languages like Telugu and Kannada experience similar issues. As people from Bangalore and Hyderabad can converse in Hindi, it makes them a better cosmopolitan than Chennai. Only the state governments continue protecting the regional language. 

             Yes you can continue arguing over such topics forever and ever. India is a sovereign, socialist democratic republic where anarchy will never prevail. Choose your own medium of communication and do not burden the other person with the you-should-know-what-i-speak nonsense. In that case English can be considered as a global language. Why don’t we look forward in that direction? And my dear brothers and sisters, please do remember that our national song and national anthem were both written in Bengali. 

Cheers to our ‘national language’.

#Frustrated Indian.