To speak or not to speak!

A middle class family. in Bombay,now Mumbai. My  mother,having suffered the jeers of her 'convent' educated cousins,who flaunted their working knowledge of the English knowledge made her send us, to a 'convent'. My father who firmly believed that the mother tongue is equally important,laid down the rule that  we should speak our mother tongue, Konkani,once we came into the house. the rule was strictly followed by us though we continued to speak English  among ourselves. A good working condition with 'malice towards none'. But we had an equally healthy respect for all the languages we heard around us on the bus,train or amongst our classmates and our surroundings. But then all South Indian languages were clubbed as 'Madrasi' as the  South Indian  were.  But coming to  Kanhangad after my marriage made me realise the existence of the various South Indian languages.  Kanhangad had many  of these, the main being  Malayalam and Kannada. I was already familiar with Kannada having had lessons on the same as a kid but all that had gone just over my head. But a deep rooted desire to learn any new language, I picked up a working knowledge of both languages so that I could efficiently converse with those around me when the need arose.
      The subject here is certainly not about my love of languages. It is about how people today seem to think that speaking English gives them a superiority over those who cannot converse in that language and make fools of themselves when they try to shine by trying to speak in English! While the so called Malayalam channels speak in English through a DJ or VJ as the case may be, dressed in the western style of clothing. Or the latest seems to be speaking in Tamil to a Malayali audience. Little wonder, one of the competitions in the Malayalam Channels is trying to speak only in Malayalam without using a single word of any other language including English! A great fiasco took place recently when a Panchayat President was invited for a Social Organisation meeting. Some of the speakers spoke in English. Not to be left behind, she, the Panchayat president spoke in English to an audience which clearly understood Malayalam. Speaking in English  was certainly not her forte and  she could not put forward her ideas.at all! And to crown it all, she ended her speech by requesting the audience to speak in Malayalam at their future meetings!  Probably she did not realise that language,English or otherwise does not make the man but an inborn respect and reverence for our language or mother tongue does certainly help in developing  a wholesome personality. After all language is just an instrument for communication, nothing more, nothing less!

                                                                    Suman G. Pai,
                                                                    Dr.K.G.Pai,
                                                                  Deepa Nursing Home,
                                                                  Kanhangad,
                                                                  Kerala-671 315
                                                        Tel.No. 0467 2204675
                                                                  17-01-08