It was heart renting the first time I heard about Prateek being admitted in ICU for his Viral fever and seizures. He was forced into Comma to overcome the seizure and for one month we all waited and prayed for his health to come back to normal. We all prayed to give his wife strength to surpass this difficult time...that Prateek would be laughing and cheery again...that the hard times will pass soon and Vijeyta kept her strength! Hats off to that lady! But we hardly ever imagined that such a thing would ever happen to such a cute beautiful little family. I can't stop my tears and my heart from skipping beats when I think of Nihi and Vijeyta. Prateek has left us all with nothing but very sweet memories and rememberance of his ever beautiful smile - always shining on his handsome face.
Everytime I picture him...his handsome profile on Diwali day when he wore kurta-pajama comes to my mind! Can't imagine him being sick anytime...forget about being deceased.
Prateek - its truly said that GOD is mean, he takes back all the good people from this world very soon. I want to tell God that this world needs good people like you more than he does and he has no right to tear apart 2 hearts when their life had just started! Prateek, you have left a very big impression even in such a small lifetime and we all will immensely and greatly miss your presence here.
RIP!
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
My response to hindification of India!
One of my Ex-colleagues forwarded me this blog link which dedicates itself against the Hindification of India. The link is http://yennarascalas.wordpress.com/2008/03/10/stop-the-hindification-of-india/#comment-35 and below is my response to the same. Please leave your comments on this too.
This blog looks quite pointless to me when it comes to suggesting and directing people what to do when you are in hindi or non-hindi speaking state. It says quite easily to learn the local language - If my friend, learning a language was that easy then atleast 50% of the world population would have learnt atleast 50% of the languages that exist or that they come accross.
I agree with you that hindification of India hurts the sentiments of non-hindi speaking states, because its like forcing them to learn something out of their culture. Hindification is killing or going to kill other languages - Dear, where do you get this from? If knowing more than 1 language kills your brain to process the other language that you know then how come you in favour of learning English but against learning Hindi?
What is Language for? Is it not about communication and ease or convenience of it. If you go to China, quite suddenly at a notice of a week probably - would you be prepared to talk to them? Are you sure you will not face problems because you know the global language "English". If you know the stats - which I am assuming you do, then Chinese is the largest spoken language amongst the full world population - not English, And people in China are very poor English speakers.
The point is when you meet a person and want to communicate with him/her, you use language - if not spoken then sign. You are opposing Hindi as if its not a language but a virus, which will spread to your barricated areas of brain if you use it to communicate. Will it infect you with Hiduism if you use it or is it something else that you are scared of?
You gave an example of Punjabis and marathis using hindi which is leading to the downfall of their language - where did you hear this now? Do you know that Hindi (or Sanskrit) is the base of many languages and the reason Punjabis and Marathis and Gujaratis are conversant in Hindi is because of this very reason. Do you also know that in the world of hindi speaking people and that you mentioned "Bollywood" there are more Punjabi or Marathi words and slangs which are intricate part of spoken Hindi than of any other language? Why so? Why is Tamil not making it into Hindi?
People learn multiple languages and encourage their children to do so, in order for them to interact with more and more and more people but it hurts my soul when I read comments which so proudly advocate the use of only Tamil in Tamil Nadu. I have observed this behaviour in many Tamilians - not to respond or to shove off if asked a question in Hindi even when they very well understood the question and even when they can respond in Hindi, they will prefer to walk on or pose to not have heard. The problem here is the mental block created by politicians in that state against that very language and the people who speak it.
Your blog dear is not in any way promoting - what you call it - "Unity in Diversity" - but instead it is showing your this sense of hatred created for Hindi."If an Indian speaks to you in Hindi and you understand, reply in English." - This statement in your blog is proof enough of your hatred towards Hindi. Doesn't it direct people to neglect this language explicitly even if you know and understand it and can reply back in it? Doesn't it depict hatred against hindi speaking people - to teach them a lesson when they try to speak to you in Hindi? Why? Why to hate one language more than the other? Why love and respect english but not a language part of your own nation? Is it because Hindi was chosen to be the national language against the will of SOuth Indian politicians who then started advocating the usage of only their local dialect and boycott "Hindi"?
Languages were created within small communities at their own discretion - of what they all commonly accepted and understood, later these communities grew and expanded and the language expanded with them. The problems started arising when people started migrating and they realised that not every one uses the same convention. At that point people realised that may be learning the other dialect or using signs are the best options at hand. Indian government realised this same kind of need and proposed Hindi to be that one common language which can bind all communities and states. They evaluated their options - the statistics said (Please refer to link for stats "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:South_Asian_Language_Families.jpg") - Indo-Aryan Languages occupied over 60% of Indian subconitinent and less than 40 were covered by Dravidian languages - which included Tamil, telugu, kanada, and malyalam. The decision was simple - the base for Indo-Aryan languages was Hindi and hence it was to be choosen the one language which will help communicate people when they travel or diversify. Now is this simple stat so difficult for you to practicalise? Is it so wrong of government to choose Hindi as the national language? And my freind please do refer to your history book if you debate on whether or not Hindi is the national language of our country!
If not Hindi, then which Indian language do you propose should be nationalized? Tamil - spoken in one state, Telugu - spoken in one state, Kanada -spoken in one state, or malyalam - one state and one uinon territory?? Nationalization does not mean supersiding or dividing other languages it simply means creating standards.
Why are we Indians so against following standards laid by someone other than either our own local community leaders or white foreigners? We can follow standards laid by foreigners because they are white and hence always right! But we are totally against them when our Tamil/Telugu/Kanada leaders tell us that they are wrong standards because they were laid down by some stupid north-indian who wants to rule us by making my people learn his language - so he can directly convince them. Now the last part ofcourse is the hidden truth not outspoken reality by the politician.
Anyways...The point here is - I don't see a problem with Hindification (as you call it) of India. Learning another language or more languages never hurts anybody - it just enables you more and makes you more capable of learning other things - whether people, culture or anything else. Learning more languages also does not make you respect your own mother tongue less or makes you forget it. Its just an individual's choice which language he starts enjoying more or is more fluent with - nobody not even your parents can force it on you. Eventually you keep taht with yourself what you wanna keep. If you learned hindi in school days - because government forced it on you, it did not make you forget Tamil and if you would have chosen to keep that skill set with you just like you so dearly keep English or French as souvenirs and mention them in your resume, you would not have written this blog!
Now the thing about ridiculing people when they don't know Hindi - that's something I don't appreciate by north indians if they do it and when they do it - but think of it this way - its those illiterate or unaware humans who ridicule others - who themselves have no idea that Hindi is not the only language in India. Now, this may be also the side effect of Hindi being the national language that people around the world expect that all Indians know this language atleast and that's why the literate individuals who don't know Hindi are ridiculed - "You are literate, you went to school and still you don't know Hindi, I thought Indian Government set it as a national standard?" - might be one of the ridiculing argument but I think people can handle it. Those who did not learn it at school because of a mental block created by society around them will find it difficult to handle such a remark but other than those everyone else will pretty much have a reason of not knowing Hindi!That might be one of the side effect of nationalizing Hindi but other that I don't see it as a catastrophe.
Are you building bridges or walls - Please rethink and re-evaluate your post. May be you just reflect the ideas of some other influential politician around you!
This blog looks quite pointless to me when it comes to suggesting and directing people what to do when you are in hindi or non-hindi speaking state. It says quite easily to learn the local language - If my friend, learning a language was that easy then atleast 50% of the world population would have learnt atleast 50% of the languages that exist or that they come accross.
I agree with you that hindification of India hurts the sentiments of non-hindi speaking states, because its like forcing them to learn something out of their culture. Hindification is killing or going to kill other languages - Dear, where do you get this from? If knowing more than 1 language kills your brain to process the other language that you know then how come you in favour of learning English but against learning Hindi?
What is Language for? Is it not about communication and ease or convenience of it. If you go to China, quite suddenly at a notice of a week probably - would you be prepared to talk to them? Are you sure you will not face problems because you know the global language "English". If you know the stats - which I am assuming you do, then Chinese is the largest spoken language amongst the full world population - not English, And people in China are very poor English speakers.
The point is when you meet a person and want to communicate with him/her, you use language - if not spoken then sign. You are opposing Hindi as if its not a language but a virus, which will spread to your barricated areas of brain if you use it to communicate. Will it infect you with Hiduism if you use it or is it something else that you are scared of?
You gave an example of Punjabis and marathis using hindi which is leading to the downfall of their language - where did you hear this now? Do you know that Hindi (or Sanskrit) is the base of many languages and the reason Punjabis and Marathis and Gujaratis are conversant in Hindi is because of this very reason. Do you also know that in the world of hindi speaking people and that you mentioned "Bollywood" there are more Punjabi or Marathi words and slangs which are intricate part of spoken Hindi than of any other language? Why so? Why is Tamil not making it into Hindi?
People learn multiple languages and encourage their children to do so, in order for them to interact with more and more and more people but it hurts my soul when I read comments which so proudly advocate the use of only Tamil in Tamil Nadu. I have observed this behaviour in many Tamilians - not to respond or to shove off if asked a question in Hindi even when they very well understood the question and even when they can respond in Hindi, they will prefer to walk on or pose to not have heard. The problem here is the mental block created by politicians in that state against that very language and the people who speak it.
Your blog dear is not in any way promoting - what you call it - "Unity in Diversity" - but instead it is showing your this sense of hatred created for Hindi."If an Indian speaks to you in Hindi and you understand, reply in English." - This statement in your blog is proof enough of your hatred towards Hindi. Doesn't it direct people to neglect this language explicitly even if you know and understand it and can reply back in it? Doesn't it depict hatred against hindi speaking people - to teach them a lesson when they try to speak to you in Hindi? Why? Why to hate one language more than the other? Why love and respect english but not a language part of your own nation? Is it because Hindi was chosen to be the national language against the will of SOuth Indian politicians who then started advocating the usage of only their local dialect and boycott "Hindi"?
Languages were created within small communities at their own discretion - of what they all commonly accepted and understood, later these communities grew and expanded and the language expanded with them. The problems started arising when people started migrating and they realised that not every one uses the same convention. At that point people realised that may be learning the other dialect or using signs are the best options at hand. Indian government realised this same kind of need and proposed Hindi to be that one common language which can bind all communities and states. They evaluated their options - the statistics said (Please refer to link for stats "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:South_Asian_Language_Families.jpg") - Indo-Aryan Languages occupied over 60% of Indian subconitinent and less than 40 were covered by Dravidian languages - which included Tamil, telugu, kanada, and malyalam. The decision was simple - the base for Indo-Aryan languages was Hindi and hence it was to be choosen the one language which will help communicate people when they travel or diversify. Now is this simple stat so difficult for you to practicalise? Is it so wrong of government to choose Hindi as the national language? And my freind please do refer to your history book if you debate on whether or not Hindi is the national language of our country!
If not Hindi, then which Indian language do you propose should be nationalized? Tamil - spoken in one state, Telugu - spoken in one state, Kanada -spoken in one state, or malyalam - one state and one uinon territory?? Nationalization does not mean supersiding or dividing other languages it simply means creating standards.
Why are we Indians so against following standards laid by someone other than either our own local community leaders or white foreigners? We can follow standards laid by foreigners because they are white and hence always right! But we are totally against them when our Tamil/Telugu/Kanada leaders tell us that they are wrong standards because they were laid down by some stupid north-indian who wants to rule us by making my people learn his language - so he can directly convince them. Now the last part ofcourse is the hidden truth not outspoken reality by the politician.
Anyways...The point here is - I don't see a problem with Hindification (as you call it) of India. Learning another language or more languages never hurts anybody - it just enables you more and makes you more capable of learning other things - whether people, culture or anything else. Learning more languages also does not make you respect your own mother tongue less or makes you forget it. Its just an individual's choice which language he starts enjoying more or is more fluent with - nobody not even your parents can force it on you. Eventually you keep taht with yourself what you wanna keep. If you learned hindi in school days - because government forced it on you, it did not make you forget Tamil and if you would have chosen to keep that skill set with you just like you so dearly keep English or French as souvenirs and mention them in your resume, you would not have written this blog!
Now the thing about ridiculing people when they don't know Hindi - that's something I don't appreciate by north indians if they do it and when they do it - but think of it this way - its those illiterate or unaware humans who ridicule others - who themselves have no idea that Hindi is not the only language in India. Now, this may be also the side effect of Hindi being the national language that people around the world expect that all Indians know this language atleast and that's why the literate individuals who don't know Hindi are ridiculed - "You are literate, you went to school and still you don't know Hindi, I thought Indian Government set it as a national standard?" - might be one of the ridiculing argument but I think people can handle it. Those who did not learn it at school because of a mental block created by society around them will find it difficult to handle such a remark but other than those everyone else will pretty much have a reason of not knowing Hindi!That might be one of the side effect of nationalizing Hindi but other that I don't see it as a catastrophe.
Are you building bridges or walls - Please rethink and re-evaluate your post. May be you just reflect the ideas of some other influential politician around you!
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