Jispa’s teacher is in major pronunciation correction mode. She
likes to get her accents right and everyday Jispa comes in with a new way to
say a particular word. It was fun till some time. Just the other day I probably
had enough of it. I started explaining my point of view to her. What is the
most important job of a language?” I asked her. “To talk?” she replied. “To
communicate” I corrected her. As long as the point is made by the speaker and received
by the listener, language has done its job. Isn’t it? Surely accent correction
is a possibly a desirable thing but it isn’t as important as our primary
teacher would like us to believe. I explained to Jispa that “even the English language
in UK would be spoken differently in different parts. The Scottish speak
differently from the Welsh and also so do the Irish differ. It changes. Even
our Gujarati changes from a person in Surat to a person in Ahmedabad. So who is
to say which accent is right or wrong. I don’t know which accent your teacher
is teaching you but remember it’s not that important to get it right. Grammar
is possibly much more important. It can change meanings”. I gave her the
favorite example of how a comma can completely change the meaning of a phrase. “A panda eats shoots and leaves” versus “a panda
eats, shoots and leaves”. She was pretty amazed at that example. Also it’s important
to get your words right.
One big silly stupid thing I keep hearing from a lot of
people is the word improvise instead of improve. For some reason people just like
to use improvise instead of improve. That is completely wrong. I explained to
Jispa the difference between the two – Improve is to do better and improvise is
to perform with preparations. They can’t be used interchangeably. Now that is
important. But accents... Yup they are nice to be corrected but, it’s finally not
that critical. Especially not as important as the time we spend on correcting
them. And most definitely not the pride we feel when we correct someone else. What’s
there to be proud of an accent?
I remember once one really stupid teacher in school telling
us that these British are now jealous of us because we speak much better
English than them. I repeated this at home only for my sister to laugh at me.
She asked me if I actually believed that we Indians actually spoke better English
than the British and we were now going to tell them that their mother tongue is
all wrong. Use our version instead!
Haha… That was an insightful moment. How certain things just
stick in your head.
Of course some of the stuff that the teacher taught Jispa is
right and good. Like inflammable is not spoken with the word being spoken
different from the way we say flame. But some of the other stuff, we don’t know
where she gets pronunciations from. So we just hear Jispa and just get the real
thing from the online dictionary which also has the voice link. Now that
Jasmine has a smart phone which is connected 24X7 she checks it instantly and
explains the same to Jispa. There – so it’s either – nice… didn't know it was
said like that or – buzz off, your teacher is a twerp!
As I was growing up English was a big thing. We were taught
that knowing how to speak English differentiated us from the rest of India and
will stand us in good stead, give us a competitive edge and propel us forward. All
of that is true but what is also true is the importance of getting your point
across in any language possible. I was surprised when I started my career to
see a lot of Hindi being spoken inside meeting rooms in office. Now I am at
ease with it. I break into bumbaiya Hindi at the drop of a hat and don't shy
away from Gujju if I know that the other side responds. Focus on getting the
point across rather than scoring a point. What say? (wow… that last line
sounded pretty intelligent nah?)
I just got back from Chennai. I was organising an employee cricket event. It was pretty much good fun. It was a chance to get back to Chennai after a long time. In my earlier role I had the chance to travel much more often and I squandered it away by being largely insular to the stimuli around me. I would sit at the hotel, sleep or watch TV in my free time. I hardly spent any time exploring the place and roaming around. For a traveller like me, it was pretty uncharacteristic. Probably it was so because I have always been a depressed business traveller. I hate travelling alone on work and without family, it’s always been a situation wherein I feel sad, depressed and lonely. Eating alone, sleeping alone etc is not exactly the stuff that I look up to. Staying in posh hotels, the best I did was order food in the room, watch TV and take a long time in the shower. If there was a tub, I would fill it and relax. I really miss the small town small hotel which I used to stay in while i was much younger, while i completed my stint in Gujarat. During the recession when it all went away, it struck me... that i travelled and was an ostrich. Completely insulated and anal. I promised to improve my record. So last week while I was getting my bag ready to leave, I remembered to pack in my lonely planet. Even a Chennai would have interesting places to see and surely I would be able to remove a few hours in the evening or in between. The one I honed in on was the Chennai museum. I fiddled with my schedule this time around to visit the place. It is a little tough funding your way around Chennai. Nobody speaks your language and they exclusively talk in Tamil. Now I know what Nehru would have been through while he was trying his best to integrate the nation. Now I understand how anal the Tamils would have been while we were trying to manage the country through a common language. While this nationalistic and regional pride is ok to a point. But keeping it fiercely centric to one language is a complete waste. You alienate your own countrymen. Why would you want to do that? Can any state be completely insular to those around it. Can it safely say that Tamil belongs only to Tamilians. The irony is that it was the Tamilians who got up in arms against the Sri Lankan government decision to force Sinhalese down their throats in Sri Lanka. While they sympathised with their kin across the strait they did little to implement in their own homeland. Why? It is so difficult to speak to anyone in Chennai. Even in my own office beyond a certain level, the guys don’t even speak proper English and are completely impervious to hindi. Talking to my driver is a real difficult job. But I guess I am unfairingly singling the Tamilians. All of us in India have retained the pride in our linguistic roots. We have consistently responded to linguistic fervour. We insist on local language signboards and even shop names. Here I can think of Singapore as one example which had successfully integrated three language identities into its fold, and adapting English as well. I remember a chapter in Lee Kwan book wherein he persuades the local language schools to move to a standardised English medium. As an individual I have faced the real sad situation of being unable to think, read proficiently or converse well in any language other than English. I think many beautiful pieces of writing will be forever lost on me thanks to my limitations. I would loved to have been taught a second language. Of course I was taught a second and a third and then a fourth language in school and we spoke a fifth one at home, but I ended up linguistically challenged. Never good enough to read litreture and understand its subtle nuance.
But then at least I can go around most of India and still feel at home. Chennai is alien to me. It seems hostile and unwelcoming. Why ... So getting my way around the museum was a pain. Getting my around?? No I thinking reaching the door of the museum was also a pain. But I reached the museum door only to find it closed on Fridays. Dam! WTF. I hung around the campus and as I was ready to leave I chanced upon a ‘permanent book exhibition’. Not expecting too much I was suitably not disappointed. Metal racks with one side full of tamil books and the other full of English books, arranged in some apparent logic. Making my way through them I came across a set of really old books. Not that the books were old, but they were written at the time of eth raj. They came in the old style binding with golden embossed lettering. A type face font and image pages being called colour plates. There was nothing for me except one book on Tipu Sultan and his dad. Being fresh from a vacation in mysore, it caught my attention. As I began reading it, I leaned one side against the rack. Soon enough I was lost in the book. In some time a petite lady came up to me and said “hsdfksdhgcfwgwhjfghjdfghjfdfhgaxhjgf”. Arghhh. Dam you. It was Tamil and I couldn’t understand a dam thing. Then started all over again. This time with a lot of actions. I figured she did not want me to read the book too much and she did not want me to lean against the rack. Sure. I went about browsing again. This time I chanced upon glimpses of world history. A book containing the letters that Nehru had written to his daughter while in prison. Interesting. It felt a lot like this blog of mine. Posts written to my daughter while at work. I was reading it standing when another older lady came in and started in Tamil all over again. She too did not want me to read too much. Buy what you want and walk out dude. I don’t think this India has really understood what a book lover relationship is with his books. They don’t get it at all. While I did not want to court any fight I also wanted to read a bit. I read a bit more, bought the Nehru book and walked out. I bear them no ill will. I just think to myself... how can we get our kids to love books when the whole job of many such people around book shelves is just to shoo people away. I remember my school librarian. A complete ass of a guy who had control to a large amount of resources (read: books) we had a massive library and a well stocked collection. But I don’t remember having spent any time there. I must have been there a few times. We even had a library period, but the only thing I remember was being told to be silent. Ssshhh. Some guys would get a bit interested in national geographic and show each other some pictures of Amazonian tribes, obviously naked. Once he caught them snigger and he called them and asked them what was in the magazine that they found funny. That put me off the magazines for sure. I did not to be caught doing anything with them. Even a more than a curious interest would have found me pulled up. We just don’t know how to inculcate a love for books, do we? The problem is not resources, the problem is the attitude. Love! Just the day before yesterday I realised during a sufi music show that my religious leanings can be best positioned as similar to Sufi. A belief in love, humanity and simplicity of life. It must be so simple. It must be the truth. I think it would be the true way to solve every conceivable issue in life. I can surely think of it solving all my marketing issues. I am looking forward to the Sufi music festival this Sunday, which I hope to get a few passes for. It’s also an interesting thing that these days Hindi movies seem to be embracing sufi music and getting atleast one if not a few more songs into the movies. Reminds me of the old days where every Hindi movie definitely needed on qawalli song. Sufi music is designed with so much love that it can be used to show your love for god or to show your love for your beau. Love is at its essence pure, isn’t it? Whoever it is targeted at.
This one is obviously an abashed love for the mystic
This one is the one that can be for far a more earthy love. But isn’t that a mystic as well?
Even the whacko hit Dabangg carried a few songs which somehow when played on the radio I can’t get it off my head. I love them. What is it about being soulful, that I can’t them off. It seems to affect my heart in some way. And then here is one of my favourites. A lifting one.
Sacerdotal Intercession. When you read a bit and you have a blackberry that connects to Google, its fun to come across such words. You can get the meaning of these words in an instant. Reading is much more meaningful and rewarding. Not to mention – ridiculously slow as well. It gets painful when writers use a lot of these words but sometimes a right word can have a powerfull effect, especially if you have the will (and the means) at hand to look it look it up. So what the f&*% does sacerdotal intercession mean? Sacerdotalism is from the Latin sacerdos, priest, literally one who presents sacred offerings, sacer, sacred, and dare, to give. Sacerdotalism is the idea that a propitiatory sacrifice for sin must be offered by the intervention of an order of men separated to the priesthood. Simply put it is a belief that priests can act as mediators between human beings and God. Intercession is a prayer to God on behalf of another person I would reject the former in an instant and hold my view on the second. Of course when the twain is put together – it’s an outright rejection in my books. Now I know the word for what I believe in. Thanks to Google it’s easier in office writing and checking spellings. I would not even pass basic prelims at the spelling bees. The spell check in word seems inadequate for a growing vocabulary and an inborn spelling disability. yesterday when the net was off I struggled to get some words. I typically write the phonetic close and hope for spell check to correct – I wanted to write psephologist (which incidentally is correct as I spell it) but the dam word processor refused to know of it. Next I wanted to write saccharine but since I assume its spelt saccerine the only options word gave me was something like – suckering, succoring etc. I had to ask around to get the saccharine spelling. Incidentally saccerine seems perfectly fine by American standards I realize, as I search Google for it. Language is fun. I keep telling Jasmine that for Jispa - language skills will be very important. The corollary to - Its not what we know, its how well we search – is - its not how much we know, but how well we can communicate what little we know.
