I’ve been asked a million times, by my
North Indian acquaintances, why I dint learn Hindi and how I could survive
without knowing the language. Thanks to all for the concern, but I do know
other languages too. Hindi is not the only language known to all. And since I
was born and brought up in Chennai, my official language is Tamil, though my
mother tongue is Telugu and there’s English too, to help me communicate on a larger
scale. I have survived my 32 years without knowing much of Hindi and I did
fabulously well. I don’t think I missed on anything, including the Bollywood
movies and songs. But why is ‘NOT’ knowing Hindi such a big thing??
One time, when I was in a gathering at my
friend’s place, there was an old North Indian couple who made it look like it
was my fault that I dint learn Hindi. When I told them, I was brought up in a
society comprising mostly of Tamilians and Tamil was primarily the language
spoken there, the couple just mocked at me and said we South Indians
intentionally refuse to learn Hindi and that we are stubborn and unwilling to
socialize because we dint speak their language. I was in a state of shock and I
dint know how to react. The couple made it even worse for me that they refused
to talk to me in any other language that we commonly knew and rather conversed
with me only in Hindi, knowing the fact that I understood little. Probably they thought I should learn the language in one day.. Initially, it made me think they were arrogant and rude but then in due course of time, I felt they
were ignorant and that incident provoked me to write this.
Why do we need a language? Does it really
matter what language we speak as long as we are able to communicate with each
other without a problem? If communication was limited to spoken languages, then what about the
people who are mute? What language did we speak a few hundred centuries ago?
What
about the sign language that we resort to, in most foreign countries
when we are a tourist and the body language that serves to understand
people’s behaviour? Connecting universally, does Love need a language at all?
If still the question why most South
Indians don’t learn Hindi, remain unanswered. I revert the same question back.
Why do most North Indians don’t learn Tamil? In fact, Tamil is India’s pride.
It is one among the most ancient languages in the world along with Sanskrit. Tamil’s origin dates back to few hundred centuries and has a very rich
history, which adds to India’s incredibility. We don’t want Tamil to end up
like Sanskrit, which is now limited only to scriptures. In fact, most of the ancient
Indian scriptures were either written in Tamil or Sanskrit. Palm leaf astrology
also known as Naadi, was written in Sanskrit and in ancient Tamil called "Vatta Ezhuthu", a few hundred years ago and its
still highly sought after today for its accurate predictions. If we let Tamil
die now, we will have to hire people in the future to teach us about our own
history and to translate our literatures and scriptures like we do now with
Sanskrit. Off late, people from the Western countries have started to learn
Tamil and Sanskrit in order to decode our ancient scriptures in the quest of gaining
true knowledge in various fields. Isn’t this obvious enough to prove that we
have something more invaluable with us? Something that we should be proud of and
pass it on to our future generations?
We from the South are proud of Tamil and
our Tamilian culture. Though we too have succumbed to modernity, we try and
want to keep the tradition alive, whatever little is left, at-least for a few
more centuries. If you choose not to support us, at-least try not to discourage
those of us who strive to save our ancient language and tradition from the fate
of disappearance. We have already lost some invaluable knowledge in the name of
modernization in fields such as Siddha, Ayurveda, Ancient Astronomy, Yoga, Kalaripayattu
(an art of wrestling), and many more. But I’m glad we haven’t lost it all. And Tamil
has already undergone many modern revisions and the new generation hardly knows
the original older version of it. Still, I believe it is not too late to protect
whatever is left now that we can call it our own.
This is one of the reasons why, even if my
mother tongue is Telugu, I am so affiliated toward Tamil and am proud of it. No
offense against Hindi. I love the language but when people look me down when I
say I don’t know Hindi and I’m from the South; that is when I feel its high
time they know the importance and credibility of Tamil and its origin. Also,
why should one be discriminated on the basis of language and culture? When we
all have evolved to a state where we strive to erase the boundaries between
religions and castes, why should the barriers between languages and cultures
persist?
Just think, given a situation where we come across a mute person,
who finds himself unable to communicate to his fellow beings, our hearts would go out to the
mute person and we would try our best to help him. But why don’t we do the same with
people who are unfamiliar with a particular language? Do they also have to be
mute to earn our sympathy? And when we see a foreigner who doesn’t know a
native language and struggles to communicate, we step forward to help him
out. Why can’t we do the same with our own people? We all very well know language
is just a means to communicate, then why do we hold on to it like its some
status symbol? How many of us would have looked down on people who can’t speak
proper English? Don’t we all know deep within us that people alone matter irrespective of
where they come from? Each of us is born into a respective society in order to
help us learn and achieve our soul mission. Each one is unique and so is our
life purpose. There is no need to look down on anyone.
On a lighter note, the reason I dint learn
Hindi is simply because I dint feel the urge to learn it. How do I survive in
the North? I’ve got amazing set of friends who also know Hindi. And I thank all my North
Indian darlings, who don't make me feel alien and whom I adore. I can survive anywhere in the world, as long as
there is love, compassion and understanding. If we start supporting each other
and fill in the missing gaps between us, there is no need to feel lonely even
in a land unknown.
Love to all :)
