English thoughts

 

The kid next door when she converses with her mom uses probably the only language that she knows to speak – English. The Malayali couple who are dating each other speak in English. The Hindi-knowing guys who have been friends for years speak to each other in English most of the times. The father who talks to his son’s friends uses English to connect.

Sometimes it sticks out in my head that English dominates our lives so much so much so that I blog in English.

I do understand that the kids are taught English in school but I still do not understand how this became so rampant that kids in Bangalore can’t speak any language other than English. It does limit their ability to connect to people instantly. The maid, the paperwala, the autowala, the vegetable vendor – how will the kids converse with them?  It instantly disconnects these English speaking kids from the world that is different from their own. So,

Question - does knowing mother-tongue or Hindi, matter?  - YES !

Consider though the fact that even these people who can speak only English are many a times able to connect to the crowd because of their ability to speak to people with much more than words.

Now comes the part where you wonder why the young couple also speaks English. Its strange ‘cuz one would imagine that they being from kerala, born and studied in Kerala – they should be more comfortable speaking their minds in Malayalam. Yet, for some confounding reason incomprehensible to my brain, they choose to speak in the ‘yo english’ that most young mallus speak in these days. No,neither are  they  any wannabes nor are they  trying to learn better by talking in English. They just are highly comfortable in English. Did our reading of English books when young, shape our thinking to be in English?  Maybe yes. That is why our intimate feelings are given shape in the As, Bs and Cs of the island nation.

By the way is it shameful to have ditched a woman/man for their lack of English speaking skills? What if a person not comfortable with English is dating a person who thinks and expresses in English? Is the need for speaking out and being understood far more important than being with a person whom you love in spite of not being able to speak comfortably?

So coming back to the idea of the mallu couple, I still haven’t understood why they would speak in English?  The only plausible answer is that they were reading English books and articles all their life due to the English schooling and hence they are attuned to speaking and thinking in English. Hence their intimacy is expressed in the Queen’s language.