If it comes to being on the net, English is the language that is widely used and considered to be as the base. Any other language is looked at not so cool and is almost an outcast to say the least. As a child and particularly an Indian, English for me was dear and it still is. Hindi, I felt, was literally a villager’s language and regional languages did not appeal to me at all. My mother tongue Malayalam was not so close to me though the movies gave me a certain degree of excitement. Frankly, we Indians are a hypocrite lot. We abuse law in the name of culture, religion and tradition and clobber our regional languages to death giving globalization as an excuse. The same applies to our regional languages. With 28 states and 7 union territories, India has a mind-blowing 21 scheduled languages, perhaps the most in any country. Our daily regional newspaper consumption is in crores and yet we have turned a blind eye towards languages which have been close to our heart. Let me give you my example. My daily conversation with friends is in Hindi. My interaction with government officials, though quite often, is in Marathi and Malayalam is my language at home. So where is the English you may ask? Articles, mails, comments on websites and the slight conversation in my office. That’s all. It’s glossy and stylish. In contrast to what we think, regional authors have been the real essence behind literature in India. Legendary author and Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore was an exceptional and prolific Indian author whose writings in Bengali inspired a nation and continues to do so. Premchand, the master of Hindi was another author with words that appealed to the masses. His works like Godaan, Bazaar-e-Husn, Karmabhoomi and Shatranj ke khiladi have put Hindi literature at the top. Arun Kolatkar spread magic with his words in Marathi. Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai gave Malayalam literature Chemmeen, a book still considered one of the finest writings in its category. The list goes on and on. Yet, we still have an urge towards the global language English. Not that its bad, but it definitely undermines the weightage we give to our regional languages. We must understand our languages are what make us than vice versa. In a world that is increasingly going global, a common language is essential for communication but not at the behest of our own. Our language defines our culture and our history and for what is our future without our past? Anju Batra is a writer based in India. She like to write on Social and cultural subject. She has writer lots of Articles on the subject of Download Ebooks PDF and Books Online.
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