Friday, 21 March 2014

I Can Speak English!

In India English is more than a language. It is considered as an status symbol, a symbol of literate and if you don't know how to speak English then my friend you will be considered as illiterate. Yes this is the mentality of a particular class of people, a class which has a characteristic of speaking a sentence in Hindi and English simultaneously. You must have observed the people of that class they speak like " I am about to reach huda city center..tu vahi hai na??". You must have listened to other phrases like " aunty may I talk to Nancy" aunty says " no dear she is out of town..is there any message for her" , girl says " nahi aunty bas puchna tha ki vo school kab aaegi". Come on you nightingale I would be very pleased to know if you wanna speak English then why didn't you translated the next sentence in English?. You will also notice that girls are a majority in speaking English class. Please allow me to illustrate an incident it was few years back I attended a career counselling session, there were more than 100 people attending that session , an IAS officer was guiding us. People started questioning in english, may be they want to show that they are also literate well enough but in the midst of that blah blah, my ears were attracted towards a simple sort of voice which was processed as Namaste by my brain. He said " manyavar Maine BHU se sanatak ki hai Kya ...... my ears were blocked by the first six words of his. I said to my friend " bhai BHU se graduation!!" . We both knew the value of Banaras Hindu university. I must tell you pal it is the paradise of higher education, if you get admission in BHU then the neighborhood aunty who was a constant visitor on the result day will rush to Himalayas and attain Samadhi. His first six words bombed the English speaking channels of others as we all were slackers. And I bet our 'literacy' level was nothing in front of that man. He may not be knowing the other lands' language but his degree was enough to blow the socks of our degrees. I don't understand why people convey a sentence which is a hybrid of two languages and if you are expecting an answer from me then why don't mention at the end that in what language you want my answer, should I cross breed two or produce a result of mutation of one?. Next time make sure you maintain the dignity of a language, if you want to speak English then complete the whole sentence in it. Personally I feel comfortable in Hindi because I learnt this language without reading tenses and Shakespeare. Sorry girls!

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