Of Bharatiya passion and “phirangi” thoughts…
Aditi Goyal from Bharat Uday Mission recently wrote this essay - worth a read.
Some excerpts below:
“About 3 days prior to a national holiday � � the independence day of India � I along with my desi phirangs thought of being patriotic and decided that all of us will converse in � Hindi �, the national language of India for a week. To hell with a week we hardly could converse in Hindi without using a single English word and formed a new language popularly recognized as �Hinglish�.
…It is indeed astonishing that most of us are gradually losing pride in our own national language (and amongst)…�the so-called �elite� class (those who) choose not to speak in this overrated language i.e. English are looked down upon.
Our big shots in Bollywood industry who are earning arabs and kharabs of moolah because of this golden egg laying hen � � Hindi � surprisingly never come and say thanks in Hindi during the Oscars of India � the Filmfare Awards�.
…lets discuss…the situation in our own schools and colleges where students not well versed with the English language are labelled as �gautis� and �vernis�.
…I do not say we should just stop speaking English altogether and adopt Hindi for everything but what I want to convey is that we should not forget our roots and our national language our uniqueness, the language of Indians, �Hindi� because Indianess just doesn�t come from hoisting a flag twice a year and singing the national anthem daily, it is something that has to come from within.
In the end to put the icing on the cake, though I am very sure that everyone would not be convinced by my arguments and the biggest question mark � why is this article in English?� the reason is, this article is intended towards those who wouldn�t give a freaking trash to glance over a Hindi article….
…which reminded me of something else that I had written a while back: “Deprivation’s real cause: English“.
In that post,�I wrote that one of the �dreams� I have is to have a piece of software that could translate this blog in Hindi and Indian regional languages so that more people can access it and read it.�
I could of course choose to blog in Hindi but there are numerous practical difficulties (keyboard layout/ my Hindi typing speed etc)�a podcast may be a viable idea�but I have not tried it yet.
Which brings me to Lokmanch�- the newly launched Hindi news portal… I highly recommend it for anyone�and everyone who is conversant with Hindi and wants to feel the pulse of the “real India” (the one hidden behind the LCD TV sets and latest Ford models).� I was fortunate to meet Shashi Singh and Amitabh Tripathi (the brains - and the muscle - behind the portal) a few days back and I wish them every success in their endeavour…we need more like them.
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UPDATE:
Hindi is not the *national* language but the *official* language of India. Please see my comment dated 2nd Jan ‘08 below. Thanks
