Well, we haven't stopped completely, but while talking to a friend yesterday I realised that we were lamenting upon the fact that our respective children are finding it a bit difficult to make hindi speaking friends- or maybe it's the other way around. Maybe it's the other children who can't really understand K, have difficulty in communicating and he's told me about the funny comments about his hindi; which though I admit is a little tentative, it is by no means bad!
So how come a child born off Indian parents, in a hindi speaking milieu, surrounded by people whose english is at best passable; start having troubles with his mother tongue? I think this is where the influence of "MOTHER TONGUE" comes in!! Although I am fairly decent with many languages, and hindi is one of my strongest; the language we communicate in- Anuj and I, are english/french! Why? I don't know...I really don't know.
A whole lot of reasons- school environments, work environments, friends; till the time you reach a point that it does become easier to talkn in what is essentially a foreign language.
Hindi is by no means our national language either, with India being such a huge diversity, we can't even proclaim (much as the politicians would like to)that hindi unites all. No, that honour lies with english- the language we were colonised by; the language we all (and we won't admit it) aspire to master and the language which remains (much to our chagrin) a measure of our respective levels of education and exposure.
Let us be honest to ourselves and remember the last time we literally looked down our noses at the girl whose english was far from perfect; the delievery guy? the saleman?
And of course it all stems from our inherent insecurity; the inability to be proud of ourselves, our heritage, our culture.
Time for a wake up call- I am aleady speaking in hindi only to my boy...what about you?
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