Destination Infinity

Destination Infinity

Thanks.
Nanda

I would like to know the addresses of good tamil bloggers, if you have. Maybe I didn’t try to reach out to them, enough. My time flies nowadays, with just reading limited no. of blogs. I am busy at home and do not find too much leisure time too. This hobby might be useful when I don’t have much to do, in the future!

That was a surprise – knowing that your mother tongue is Kannada! I can relate to your situation – I was born and brought up in Chennai and my mother tongue is Telugu. Of course, even in my house they used to read Ananda Vikadan. Since I am very slow in reading, I have read a few articles only. In fact, there was a student journalist contest in Ananda Vikadan – where they selecting students to contribute articles in their areas and I missed that chance narrowly, in the last round. I am glad that atleast these blogs are there so that I can indulge in creative writing.

Have you noticed one thing – If we write in Tamil, our style of writing is so different. Especially some of the poems people write in Tamil in the Blogosphere is highly impressive – It is as if that language was created for writing poetry. I felt that people (those who know the language) are missing such stuff. I find it very nice. I am sure that people are coming out with such stuff in Telugu, Kannada and all other languages in the blogs. It is people like us who don’t read them! But I think we should not read them out of compulsion. I will put one Tamil poem and one Hindi poem that I liked reading in the other blogs – in this blog one day, and then people will know what they are missing!

Destination Infinity

Writer, late Sujatha and his friends, have invented lots of equivalent technical words in Tamil for the usage of computer. It is so easy to recognise them, like ‘min anjal’ for e-mail (as you wrote here), ‘madi ganini’ for lap top…he was a very famous science fiction writer and he was using tamil equivalent words for most of the technical words. I learnt from one of his article about the computer, in my school days. I think his group is still there, creating new technical words.

I feel guilty for not writing more tamil blogs. I have not created a separate title for that and I did not get much response, so the interest has come down. Like this, people who know English, think that articles written in English will reach more people, right? So one more person who know to write Tamil is shifting to English!

The famous bookstore Landmark, did not have much Tamil books, till some years back. Now it has improved. We used to get Tamil books only in Higgin Bothams. Thank god, our Book Fair, in Chennai thrives in Tamil books. Tamil language has got lots of good writers, still and most of the households buy Tamil magazines…till now. My son said that he saw Ananda vikatan in an Australian Airport! My sister’s husband is working in a Bank and they were shifting their house to Shimoga, Chikmagalur, Udupi, Mangalore and she has not yet missed even one issue of Vikatan! So, to some extent Tamil readers are still there, everywhere. But for how long? Tamil is a very good, rich language. Hope that it lives forever.

I feel like replying to the comments also. You are doing a very good job at it, Destination Infinity. Thank you.

I am a Kannadiga and I know to read and write the language, but because we are living here for a long time, my family reads a lot of books in Tamil.

I share your contempt for those who think they are somehow better than their rural brethren who are not-so-comfortable with English. That kind of stupid attitude irritates me

Yes, I too am involved more with English in the print and online world and don’t read much in Tamil, other than the daily newspaper.

I don’t think we are dependent on jobs that require good English speaking skills, not at all! The IT and BPO sector is an important, but only MINOR, part of the economy. Major parts of the economy are agriculture, which does not require English, manufacturing industries of every kind (which do not require spoken English skills) and other service sectors which may/may not require English.

IT/BPO is a highly visible sector in the metro cities, especially if you live in a city like Bengaluru, the Silicon Valley of India. Cities like Bengaluru (and Hyderabad) have gone all out to encourage the growth of one sector (IT/BPO) while neglecting others. And they would pay the price for it if they don’t change course and encourage other sectors sufficiently. All sectors have to encouraged equally.

IT/BPO is highly visible in Chennai but it is by no means the greatest contributor to the city or the state. Industries are an integral part of the landscape in Chennai and different smaller cities and towns in TN. While IT is the new and pampered kid on the block, diversified manufacturing industries have always formed the bed-rock of TN’s economy and agriculture is an important part in irrigated and fertile areas. The Chennai region is a large manufacturing hub for automobile, electrical and chemical industries, Coimbatore region for auto parts and textile machinery, Erode and Tirupur for textiles, Namakkal for coach building, Sivakasi for amorces/fireworks/matches/stationery/small goods, Karur-Trichy belt for cement manufacture, Hosur is an industrial powerhouse despite its small size etc. It requires very little spoken English skills to work in such industries at most levels. A well-rounded economy spread out in all directions is what each state requires. This will prevent massive inequalities in income and overcrowded, badly congested cities that are on the verge of collapse.

I believe Maharashtra and Gujarat, have highly diversified economies as well. Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh too have begun encouraging manufacturing industries after concentrating only on IT/BPO and Biotech and that is a very heartening sign indeed.

Nobody in India is equating professional success with English knowledge, DI. It is only in small sectors where English is required, like IT/BPO/hospitality/tourism/airlines in which that is the case. I’ve met a man who is a successful multi-millionaire, an owner of a large textile manufacturing firm in Coimbatore, who speaks only in Tamil since he does not know much English. But he has several English speaking graduates and even foreign-educated engineers and managers who work for him. He never associated professional success with English knowledge and he is not ashamed of his lack of English speaking skills, why should he? And to top it all, he is a self-made man who built his industry from scratch on his own and did not inherit it from anyone.

We cannot squander away the advantage that we have in certain sectors. The Chinese are a menace, who are looking to gobble up every sector in the world with their cheap industries that employ forced labour and pay very low wages. Without neglecting the service sectors, we need to build up our manufacturing industries and spread them out in areas where there are none and encourage agriculture at the same time to feed the huge poplulation that we have.

The whole thing about being the “back-office of the world” is a silly, over-hyped and oft-repeated line that the worthless journalists of the “mainstream media” keep dishing out.

So, when you compare the above situation with a person in Germany or France or Japanese or Chinese, don’t you think it is totally contrasting?? Aren’t these people successful? Why do we need to equate professional success with a language? What is stopping us to translate the engineering curriculum, for example, into a regional language and encouraging research with the regional language (or Hindi) itself? The answer to this question is – we are hopeless when it comes to original research in technology and contribution (even in English) and we depend on jobs which require good English speaking skills – In other words, we have become the back office of advanced nations (in Exchange for some Dollars) because of our proficiency of English, which is not bad for a start – but for how long?

Computer/internet languages rely on keywords, and programming can be done by any body who is familiar with the libraries. It is because of our proficiency in English (and the dollars) that we do not look beyond these back-office jobs that we get from abroad. A nation surviving on such back office jobs and BPO is good for the short term, but it could even break our backbones on the longer term. Of course, I can’t put the blame squarely on English for all that, but I used the language to bring another important point that we are neglecting.

And the title was intended to hurt those people who form classes with the language and think that people who are less proficient in English are of a lower class and they are higher class.

Destination Infinity

While I hate the despicable attitude of some of those who studied in English medium schools to look down upon people from small towns and villages who are not so comfortable with English, I don’t quite agree with the title and some of the contents of this post

For one, English is not the language of the “royals” any more. In fact, English has ceased to be “English” quite a long time ago. “Globish” is the new global language! Globish (written in the Roman script) is a simplified form of English in which simple expression is encouraged and the complexities and quirks of the language are avoided to a large extent. This is the default lingua franca of the planet now and in a few years time, every kid on the planet will be able to read, write and speak Globish with ease (though it will never be called that, it will still be called “English”) and no one in India should miss out on this opportunity. Instead of trying to target English, it should be our endeavour to make every rural kid comfortable with this language that will be able to open doors for them in any remote corner of the world. In that sense, India is in a better position than the kids in countries where, say French (the old lingua franca of the world, though it never became too popular) is taught, like many Francophone countries in the developing world, or countries where English is not taught at all (like China). Why, even the French and the Chinese have warmed up to the new global language and are learning English (or Globish) with a vengeance. Even Latin American countries, where Spanish (or Portuguese in Brazil) reigns supreme, have realised the need to teach Globish to their children and English is a compulsory subject for school students in many Latin American countries now. Even in Morocco, where Arabic and French are the languages of instruction, English is a compulsory subject for school students. It would be foolish and extremely stupid if Indians were to discourage English!

Another point is that English is the only language that can keep India united. Though it may not have the sheer numbers, it is the only pan-Indian language, and it is an Indian language, not a foreign one! Hindi may have more speakers because of the population of the Hindi speaking states, but it is a regional language that has the largest number of speakers, that’s all. If Hindi is a national language, then all the languages of India are national languages, including English! There can never be one national language and many regional languages, since all languages are regional languages, including Hindi. If there is one language that is non-regional and has a genuine pan-India presence, it has to be English! As many Maharashtrians and Kannadigas have belatedly realised, it is Hindi and NOT English that is a threat to Marathi and Kannada. The unfortunate thing is that while they realise the threat, they are not able to counter it effectively. Thus, we have groups that use forceful means, like the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) and the Kannada Rakshana Vedike (KRS) gaining prominence since the people are naturally angry with the marginalisation of Marathi and Kannada.

Another thing to be noted is that English is never a threat to any language in India! IT NEVER WAS, IT IS NOT AND IT WILL NEVER BE!!! The best example is Tamil Nadu, as you yourself mentioned. One state that never faced issues of having to deal with groups such as the MNS and KRS is Tamil Nadu, since the people of Tamil Nadu realised long, long, ago that English can NEVER be a threat to Tamil. If anything, English has enriched Tamil and has acted as a window to the world (and the other parts of India). I believe West Bengal, too, realised that English has never been a threat to Bengali after some initial flawed policies of trying to discourage English. Due to the enlightened two language policy of TN, Tamil and English flourish everywhere. Even in tiny towns in TN, one can find bi-lingual signboards in Tamil and English and locals can read and write the English (Roman, actually) script with ease. Of course, rural students may not be able to speak English with ease as their urban counterparts, since they did their schooling entirely in Tamil medium, but English is taught right from the first standard to the twelfth (and beyond) as a compulsory language, so they are actually literate in both Tamil and English. The government of TN has realised the difficulties that students from rural schools face with spoken English, and is now concentrating on improving the spoken English skills of rural school students, as opposed to just teaching English as a language. For instance, there is a concerted drive by many Corporation schools in Chennai to make their students (mostly hailing from poor, working class families) comfortable with spoken English in association with well-wishers and organisations. This should be extended to all the government schools across the state and spoken English should receive equal attention as written English and teachers should be trained for the same.