Mozhi

            When I wanted to type this post on whatever that follows, I wanted to give one captivating title and all I could do was steal Radha Mohan’s film’s. A film that possibly makes every viewer smile, laugh, cry, cry hard, feel love, appreciate courage, realize and the experiencing-life list continues! A lot of us are blind to the beauty that accompanies silence. Today’s appreciation of linguists is a result of the leap of yesteryears’ ruckus over silence. This definitely doesn’t mean that I offend linguists. I do admire them for my own reasons. This is only a mark of my liking and appreciation to films like mozhi and vaayai moodi pesavum that convey messages worth carrying with, since I have used the title.

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The way I learnt the value of my mother tongue...   

            “Get up idiot!” – I heard a voice and sensed a pat on my shoulder. It was that one responsible friend of mine who woke me up while the other 9(including the one who stole my blanket overnight!) were in deep sleep when the clock was about to strike 7 in the morning. I got ready, kicked every sleeping friend to say goodbye and went downstairs to inform my friend’s mom and dad about my departure. 10 of us had stayed at one of our friend’s place to enjoy the previous day and night. I had to travel back to home alone through a path I wasn’t familiar with.

            My friend’s dad had asked me to get into a bus holding a “Tambaram West” board in order to avoid complicated processes such as crossing railway station and travelling through subway. Excited about one unusual solitary travel, I was waiting for the destined bus. With minimum patience and maximum jubilance I was not on ground when I saw a bus approaching. It read ‘Kizhaku Tambaram’. For a second I was confounded - Does kizhaku mean East or West? I tried recalling the words from my Tamil teacher and I was placing “Suriyan merkil udikum” and “Suriyan kizhakil udikum” on the balancing machine inside my mind. The conductor whistled and even before my brain could send the answer (that I believe would have been right!) my mouth inquired if the bus would go to West Tambaram to one of the lady passengers inside the bus. Not sure of what West meant in Tamil, she said “pogum ma erunga” and I jumped into the bus happily. I found a window seat and took out my purse and headset. “Oru Tambaram West” was all I said to get that nasty look from the conductor. In the next couple of minutes, I was sitting with all the energy-giving-batteries unplugged and a ticket to East Tambaram.

I got down, crossed the road and saw a bus with “Tambaram West” board. It was in English and I was pretty ready to get into the bus confidently. But then my mind replayed uncle’s words that meant crossing the Railway station if I got into the East bus. So I asked the conductor of the bus if it would go to Tambaram West. He yelled at me “Anga irundu dan ma varudu idu!”

Telling myself “I am a brave girl” repeatedly and with the help of a lot of people to direct, I crossed the Railway station and reached the other end. I saw a few buses there and so asked if it would go to ‘Tambaram West’. He chuckled when he said “Idu dan ma Tambaram West”. He seemed to have his cool unlike the other conductors and so I continued talking with him - “Apo inda bus main Tambaram kachum poguma?” He got irritated by my meaningless question and asked “Ada poma, unaku enga ponumnu sollu”. I said “Ambattur anna”, got the right directions and reached home.

            Had I been familiar with my mother tongue, I would not have roamed with escaped-from-keelpakam-girl look for about half an hour!

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The way I learnt the value of a second language...

Being obsessed with what we call the ‘mother tongue’, for most of the Indians, ‘English’ has become one good intangible enemy to fight with. By what means do we expect a kid that grows learning a lot of things with English as the medium not to love the same? Isn’t it unfair to train a kid in one field and ask it to love another? Love for anything is a feeling of watching a thousand sunsets and sunrises and it can only be felt. It is impossible to show, impart or create the feel. It has to come from within. Let us not use any language/love for language as a criterion for criticism.

            In a video that my sister recently shared with me, I came to know about Dr.Jayanthasri Balakrishnan. Working as a Professor of English in PSG, Coimbatore, she owns a Ph.D in both English and Tamil. She exclaims the need of English not as something that feeds her. But that any person who deeply loves a particular language will have his/her love for another language too and that that craving is pretty natural. In her speech, she shares a story that she usually shares with her students who fear English. And the allegory goes like this.

           One hot afternoon, a cat and its kitten were walking along a road. All of a sudden they noticed a dog that leapt from nowhere. The dog started chasing them. The mother cat and the little one started running. They ran and ran and ran. After a few minutes the mother cat, unlike many of us who continue to run in life out of fear, stopped running. The mother cat found no reason worthy enough to run in that run-out-of-fear race. Angered by the thought, the mother cat stood her ground and turned back to see the dog that followed them barking “bow bow” vigorously. She looked directly into the dog’s eyes and uttered “bow bow”! The dog got bewildered and it was its turn to run now. The mother cat looked down at its kitten and asked “Now do you understand the importance of a second language?”!

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            Let us stop being partial and look at “language” as a means by which we gain another attitude and an extra dimension to analyse life. Nothing more. Nothing less.