Today I happened to watch some part of the "Miss Kerala" event in Asianet. It was surprising for me to me note that inspite of this being an event to elect the "so called" beautiful Kerala girl,none of them spoke in Malayalam ..either the compere or the partcipants or the judges..
In fact , the one and only person who tried to ask a question in Malaylam among the judges was none other than the Tamil actor Bala and I do appreciate him for that.
What happened to us ? You tune in to any Malayalam channel , the TV anchors mostly speak English or anglicized Malayalam .
How much I missed Malayalam during my 6 years of life in Bangalore ? A lot ! In my work place, there was hardly any malayali . I should say that I had craved to crack or hear a joke in Malayalam. I used to call my "Mallu" friends working in other companies for a chance to speak in Malayalam. What ever jokes we share in my office , nothing had an impact on me as much as one in malayalam . I used to even feel that the cosmopolitan crowd in Bangalore even dont have a humour sense. My career in fact started with a company in Kerala where I had lots of friends each unique by their own way of expressing humour. It was totally a global and polished environment when I moved to the IT Company in Bangalore. Though I had a better working atmosphere there , I used to miss a lot the fun we used to have in my previous company inspite of all the work pressure we had there..
This craving for Malayalam was much more for my father. He always used to manage to find out at least one Malayali family which ever our apartment complex we stayed in B'lore , because he gets suffocated without speaking in Malayalam. Though I used to tease him sometimes , I could definitely understand the agony of my talkative father.
When I decided to move to Kochi , I thought that I can speak Malayalam whole heartedly here. But after moving here , I realized that I am mistaken.Here most of the crowd I know either speak English or anglicized Malayalam.
When I moved here , I was looking for a good English Medium School for my son and was very particular that they speak good English in the school . Because if at all I make a decision to move back to Bangalore , he should not get into issues. In B'lore , most of the people make fun of the mallu accent . So , I was particular that his language should not have the mother tongue influence. One side , I am happy that he got into the so called hi-fi school here and definitely their English is also good. But , on the other side , I feel that it is such a polished environment there that even the smiles on the faces of the people there are so artificial. Sometimes , for some reason if at at all I need to go to school and if I cant make it , I request my mother to go. But she refuses saying that she hates to go to that "English" speaking community. She used to manage in Bangalore when ever I cannot visit his school. People there used to be so friendly with her including the teachers or parents of other children. She used to communicate in Malayalam , Tamil, Kannada or Hindi based on the language the other person is comfortable with. But in our own Kochi ,she is so reluctant to visit my son's school as she may be expected to speak in English which she does not want to try.
In our apartment complex in Kochi , none of the children speak in Malayalam as they all study in English Medium school and speaking Malayalam is a crime in the school , the rule which they follow even at home. My son speaks to me in English a pratice which I was forced to develop when I was in Bangalore for the survival of my son in that cosmopolitan city. Now also he continues the same or speaks in "anglicised Malayalam" as he is not able to get away with his habits. I dont deny the fact that I as a mother ofcourse have the complete responsiblity to teach him proper Malayalam. He writes Malayalam alphabets and also reads to a good extent but pronunciation is not all that great which I hope that he may improve over a period of time. But , am having tough time in teaching Appu his Malayalam lessons. Almost every word I have to translate in English for him to understand its meaning. In fact , it was the other way round for me when I started learning English as a kid !!!
Now , some facts about the community where I live now. I live in an apartement close to the city. The community there speaks only English. Our association meetings are held in English. (I have not noticed any rule in our association rules/regulations that speaking malayalam is an offence which attracts penalty.) But , still people there ,take the help of English , if at all for any reason they need to interact. Dont know whether smiling is also an offence in the association rules that most of them dont even smile even if we meet inside lift. One way , it is good for me otherwise I will have to again fabricate the story of NRI husband to answer the queries of my inquistive neighbours. The "English" mania is so much that once I had to witness a humorous scene where in my retired neighbour was trying to speak in English to our plumber , an old man . The old man looked very embarrased and finally my neighbour spoke in "Pacha Malayalam" because he had to get his "Kudivella prasnam" resolved.
Where are we heading ? Our children are not exposed to good Malayalam either at home or society .Even our entertainment media is exposing them to "Anglicised Malayalam". May be ,this English speaking syndrome is mostly there in Kochi only - the so called cosmopolitan city and other towns/cities in Kerala could be better. Ofcourse , as part of globalisation , we all need to know English well so as to effectively communicate.But at the same time can we forget our mother tongue ? 196 languages in India are identified by UNESCO as "Vulnerable/Endangered/Extinct". Our language may not get into this list , but will we have good Malayalam Literature , songs , poems if this continues ? I doubt !!
Note - Some of you may be thinking that my post itself is in English when I am so much emphasizing on the need for we using proper Malayalam. I am facing difficulties in fact when I try to use the Malayalam Scripts, most of the time my edit window hangs . ie when I gave up after trying it once. I am neither an expert in Malayalam nor in English , what I know is to pen down my feelings here , in what ever way I can...
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3 comments:
interesting outcry, but is it very surprising?
The rampant and mindless urbanization that we are undergoing and the facades that follow such a hollow process is seriously going to take a toll on our language and traditions.
In another 30 or 40 years, i suspect if we will have a Malayalam language, infact this will be the case with indigenous languages in all urban centers.
hi nice to see you writing again.
I think its a thought which lot of people echoes at least in their mind. Even if we look into the literature, art(i mean cinema) where works of Malayalam were praised as the best(sometimes in the world), there is a steady state of decline.
Technology of script and language is an interesting study and i focus on a similar field for last two years. From what i see, people who learn, use and think in Malayalam is not extinct. Sometimes they are in great demand even :) .
Anyways, if you are using GNU/Linux and face problems in using Malayalam, do contact us
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