That certainly is the sound of music! Your mother tongue. For me, my sweetheart Malayalam! I was inspired to become a writer for the first time in 10th standard, in my Malayalam class, as our was teacher taking taking a chapter on Balyakalasakhi, supposedly the best novel / short story ever written in Malayalam. Every bit as good as the Kite Runner I would say, and similar in a lot of ways too.
Studying Malayalam in 9th and 10th was something else; truly memorable. That literary exposure will always resonate in my words. Kumaran Aashan's Veenapoovu, Changampuzha's Manaswini and a host of other master pieces, learning and re-learning their nuances, memorizing the poetic devices, it was all much more than just exam preparation - I was in Love. And how can you not fall in love?
The first essay I was taught in 9th standard was about 'Mother tongue'. "Nothing greater that your mother, mother land and mother tongue. Protect it with your life". The fight for independence is not just a matter of self-governance. It is every bit as much about cherishing your own language, for our mother-tongue is tied up to our identity, which we are at a risk of losing, if not taken proper care of. That was the content of the essay, in a nutshell.
And ever since, there has been this debate, heating up in my head about how much a foreign language has invaded our lives. English, I am talking about. From school to work, right down to this blog, everything has been outsourced to English. The word outsource may seem to undermine things, but our dependence on this alien language, as everyone knows for sure, is nearing 100%, day by day. Ever spoke a complete sentence without a single English word in it?
But then again is it a curse? Is it something we have to worry about. Sanskrit gave birth to a bunch of languages - Hindi, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada, etc. Hindi married Persian and Arabic to give birth to Urdu. And on the other side of the world, we had another bunch of languages, evolving, simplifying and at the same time, getting richer with heritage and legacy over time. And now English has walked into our lives, and very gracefully merging with our mother tongues. Technology has facilitated English script to take over our languages. Why this kolaveri and its likes have propagated Tanglish, Manglish and what not? And they are truly beautiful. It's a new era we are staring at, new words being added to our vocabulory every single day, words which are not citizens of a particular language. And as we expand our dictionary, language simply becomes more colourful. And this merger of language is synergistic, both languages develop and grow, eventually wiping out the lines that divide mankind.
You don't expect language to be the same forever. As a matter of fact, you don't expect language to be the same tomorrow! As we evolve, as technology and science evolves, or even at a much faster rate, language evolves. My mother tongue wasn't the same when I was born. But is the speed hurting us?
Language is more than a medium of communication, it is a medium for knowledge, history, culture and heritage. It is in-separably linked to our history and legacy, and hence our own identity. Evolution is one thing, conquest is another. As we take to sms and chats, are we producing a generation that cannot appreciate Veenapoovu and Balyakalasakhi. What will become of Kathakali, will it find a new home? Or will it be washed away in the tide of change? And what about the marvellous movies that we grew up watching. Will we be able to preserve them for the generations to come?
What about over songs? Do we appreciate the genius of the poet who compared the dilemma of a woman caught in a love triangle, to that of the dusk that is caught in between the dipping sun and the shining moon? Or are we destined to hear rap that NOBODY understands. I mean, how ridiculous it is to see the lover boy from a remote village wooing his dream-girl with rap?
Bottom line, have a balance. That is the bottom line of every debate that I have ever had, and it seems to be a sensible one. You don't want your language to remain archaic. You are not supposed to be a guardian of the dictionary, warding off any sign of threat. Open up and learn new words. Create new words, phrases, sentences and newer meanings. If it were all about rules and constraints, you wouldn't call it art would you. But there is this urgency for protection. When our legacy is at risk, we have the duty to lay down everything we have got, to fight for it. We are not mud-heads who just copy whatever happens out there in the west. We have our identity, our culture, which has reined the world all through history, and will continue to do so.
Jai Hind
Love
Studying Malayalam in 9th and 10th was something else; truly memorable. That literary exposure will always resonate in my words. Kumaran Aashan's Veenapoovu, Changampuzha's Manaswini and a host of other master pieces, learning and re-learning their nuances, memorizing the poetic devices, it was all much more than just exam preparation - I was in Love. And how can you not fall in love?
The first essay I was taught in 9th standard was about 'Mother tongue'. "Nothing greater that your mother, mother land and mother tongue. Protect it with your life". The fight for independence is not just a matter of self-governance. It is every bit as much about cherishing your own language, for our mother-tongue is tied up to our identity, which we are at a risk of losing, if not taken proper care of. That was the content of the essay, in a nutshell.
And ever since, there has been this debate, heating up in my head about how much a foreign language has invaded our lives. English, I am talking about. From school to work, right down to this blog, everything has been outsourced to English. The word outsource may seem to undermine things, but our dependence on this alien language, as everyone knows for sure, is nearing 100%, day by day. Ever spoke a complete sentence without a single English word in it?
But then again is it a curse? Is it something we have to worry about. Sanskrit gave birth to a bunch of languages - Hindi, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada, etc. Hindi married Persian and Arabic to give birth to Urdu. And on the other side of the world, we had another bunch of languages, evolving, simplifying and at the same time, getting richer with heritage and legacy over time. And now English has walked into our lives, and very gracefully merging with our mother tongues. Technology has facilitated English script to take over our languages. Why this kolaveri and its likes have propagated Tanglish, Manglish and what not? And they are truly beautiful. It's a new era we are staring at, new words being added to our vocabulory every single day, words which are not citizens of a particular language. And as we expand our dictionary, language simply becomes more colourful. And this merger of language is synergistic, both languages develop and grow, eventually wiping out the lines that divide mankind.
You don't expect language to be the same forever. As a matter of fact, you don't expect language to be the same tomorrow! As we evolve, as technology and science evolves, or even at a much faster rate, language evolves. My mother tongue wasn't the same when I was born. But is the speed hurting us?
Language is more than a medium of communication, it is a medium for knowledge, history, culture and heritage. It is in-separably linked to our history and legacy, and hence our own identity. Evolution is one thing, conquest is another. As we take to sms and chats, are we producing a generation that cannot appreciate Veenapoovu and Balyakalasakhi. What will become of Kathakali, will it find a new home? Or will it be washed away in the tide of change? And what about the marvellous movies that we grew up watching. Will we be able to preserve them for the generations to come?
What about over songs? Do we appreciate the genius of the poet who compared the dilemma of a woman caught in a love triangle, to that of the dusk that is caught in between the dipping sun and the shining moon? Or are we destined to hear rap that NOBODY understands. I mean, how ridiculous it is to see the lover boy from a remote village wooing his dream-girl with rap?
Bottom line, have a balance. That is the bottom line of every debate that I have ever had, and it seems to be a sensible one. You don't want your language to remain archaic. You are not supposed to be a guardian of the dictionary, warding off any sign of threat. Open up and learn new words. Create new words, phrases, sentences and newer meanings. If it were all about rules and constraints, you wouldn't call it art would you. But there is this urgency for protection. When our legacy is at risk, we have the duty to lay down everything we have got, to fight for it. We are not mud-heads who just copy whatever happens out there in the west. We have our identity, our culture, which has reined the world all through history, and will continue to do so.
Jai Hind
Love
Nice one man...Never really gave this topic much thought....Thanks for the insight...:)
ReplyDeleteThanku for reading and commenting man!
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