Mother he has lost his Tongue

A month back, while talking to a guy for some time in English, I spoke a few words of Hindi, and all of a sudden I heard him saying, “Don't mind can we interact in English and not in Hindi. You seem comfortable in it." I counter questioned him, “Ya, but why are you restricting me? Don't you know the Language?" He said,”Ofcourse I do, but don’t mind, we have this habit of communicating in English at work, and I don't like Hindi much.” I was awfully shocked to see how a person, who was born and brought up in the Hindi speaking environment, was now discarding the language, because he has been communicating in some other language at work, and is no more comfortable with his background/nation. In such distressful times I respect my identity a little too much , I simply told him, “I Love Hindi, and would now prefer to talk in it.” With his prejudice and pretence, he lost his impression!

Another incidence is about a teacher teaching in one of the popular schools of Delhi ( don't want to name it here). Being a Hindi language teacher, she faced the humiliation and bias. Other fellow colleagues looked down upon her, and preferred not to talk to her for she lacked in English communication skills. While sharing her humiliation with a popular Hindi journalist, she got tears in her eyes. (....and I used to think Language is for communication.)


In the Era of globalization and 'weblization', there is a need for a common language. In a country like India where many languages are spoken, English has become a common meduim which caters to the communication needs of Inter/national  friends, clients, businesses etc. But does one International language unite us with the basics and locals? Is it the matter of pride or shame, that people have started looking down to those, using Hindi and not English?I was shocked to see the prejudice in the outgrown minds of today for English over our mother/national tongue! 

How proudly somebody was telling me a few days back, that in Japan, people prefer to speak Japanese, in China they interact with each other in Chinese, and Germans love their language as well, if you need to live there, you ought to know their language, people want to learn Spanish. What happened to India?
Every place, region, country has a language, culture of its own which binds them with the locals and commons.Language is our fundamental identity; it connects us with our customs and rituals. We are, little by little, discarding our mother tongue, deliberately trying to impersonate somebody we are not. For that fake admiration in the midst of futility, we are making fools of ourselves.

P.S.  Don't be shameful of your existence. Try to talk to a person, in the language he is speaking. There is no trophy in the end for decorating your tongue with English vocabulary and fake accents and look down to people who are not well equipped with the same!

P.P.S. It is always nice to know multiple languages, it develops your brain

Questions in the End: How Important is your mother tongue for you? Would you be proud if somebody calls you European/American instead of Indian? Or during one of your patriotic fits, will you be hearing patroitic songs dubbed in English with a "yo- touch" in them? How will you pronounce chat-papdi, Dahi-Bhalle, Chole bature, Golgappas, Pao bhaji and other Indian snacks for which you die to scoff on at the local shops? 

The Not So Fair Era

A news anchor was not getting a job, though she was competent enough but her skin complexion was dull. A girl in call center  had complexes despite being beautiful, she wasn’t fair! A model didn’t get a break or a girl next door was rejected for a marriage alliance due to her not so fair complexion!  The solution to all problems was Fair &Lovely  or Fairever cream. (Note: These were the lot of self-respecting women who never  did any make up!)(Thanks to the advertisements for providing us with the various above mentioned case studies)

 After making lives of so many women easier, the company thought about the upliftment of the other gender of the society. A guy was not getting proper attention from girls was deemed to be the main issue in the lives of the male section of the society, because they cracked into all the other jobs despite their colored skin “issue”. And since male ego could be hurt for using “fair&lovely” the company introduced  “Fair &Handsome” cream.

So now Indians realized that previously they were neither lovely nor handsome. Thanks for the En-Lightening Cream, that we got an understanding of whats beautiful and whats not. Since it doesn’t matter now how intelligent, multi-talented, sharp or good humored we are,  nor does it matter how sharp our facial features are, we should be fair. Since Dark is dull, and we stopped respecting our existence, we decided to take up the creams and soaps, face washes and hair oils....errrr.. I think people would still consider black hair beautiful than the whites!

I dont know when Bipasha Basu, Helle Berry, James Booker, Will Smith, Barrack Obama and Rajni Kant or thousands of people from dark, brown, or not so “fair” cities/countries will get The En-lightenment, because some people are seriously having an issue watching them on our Big screens, unable to understand if they are performing a Fair act !!!

                                                                                                                                                                                  

P.S. 

To fair (-bias) skins: Kindly respect others on how they are, and what they are, you may not be perfect with your white/light-skin with bad temperaments, and selfish and humiliating attitude towards others.

To Everyone else: You are a creation of God/your parents. You are beautiful the way you are with those lovely bronze and golden complexions, beautiful skins, so many grey cells, and varied interests. Respect your identity, you dont need to become twin of someone else and lose your own identity!

To Fairness Creams: This is not the way to kill “Apartheid”. Thanks but No-Thanks!

P.P.S. : I am not against usage of any cosmetics/fairness creams, but I am against creating stereotypes !!!

Is a Green Leaf actually Green?

Few days ago, Hemant, a fellow blogger, threw a random question at me. I dont know how relevant or irrelevant our discussion was, but he insisted that I should register that discussion on my blog and see how others feel about this. So here it is:

Hemant: What is the color of the leaf?

me: Which leaf?

  leaf of which particular tree?

  New leaf or old one? (I wanted to be sure of the question thrown at me all of a sudden)

Hemant: New

  common leaf!

me: New...light-green most of the times

  Maple leaf is red I guess

  :-)

Hemant: And why does it look like green?

  Thinking?

 me: Chlorophyll!

  Why?

Hemant: You are still far from the concept

me: Okkay.. There is one more answer to it!

me: It absorbs all the colors and reflects back green.

Is this the answer you wanted?

Hemant: Yes

I need the latter one!

 Hemant: So does that mean that it is of all the colors but green ;-)

 me: Hahaha wow.. Probably!!!

 Hemant: This is only my interpretation

 me: So when we see no color in dark

 Does that mean dark is colorful?

And colorful is dark?

And Rainbow is colorless?

 Hemant: You got it right

Hope I'm not boring you with my theory

 me:   Naah.. U are giving my brain some excercise!

 When I absorb negativity and reflect back positivity does that mean I am negative? (I had no other example to understand the subject we started discussion on!)

Hemant: That means you are too positive to absorb negativity

  Sorry!

  Let me correct my statement

 me: Sorry?

Sure!

 Hemant: You are so positive that u can absorb negativity.

me: Yaa.. It means I destroy negativity when I absorb it.. So does that mean leaf destroys all other colors by absorbing them... And its green?

 Hemant: And that's the reason why all the leaders are gr8 absorbers of negativity

   And that's what we see...

me: Stay on leaf thing!

What we reflect is how we are, something which we can't destroy.

 Hemant: It doesn't mean that u have to destroy the negativity after absorbing it

 me: We use it

  If I am negative I'll reflect it..

If I am not I'll absorb it.

Hemant: Wow

  See we have come ur with a theory now

 me: Hahaha.. Am i making any sense?

Hemant: Why don't u write a post

  On it

  Trust me

  U will enjoy...

P.S. : After confirming things from google I found "we see green leaves or grass as being green because leaves and grass (and other green plants) use Chlorophyll to change light into energy."

Likewise Tomatoes appear to be Red because when ripe, tomatoes contain a carotenoid known as "Lycopene".
Lycopene is a bright red carotenoid pigment, a phytochemical found not only in tomatoes but also other red fruits. Lycopene absorbs most of the visible light spectrum, and being red in colour, it reflects mainly red back to the viewer, thus a ripe tomato appears to be Red...
(Ref. http://www.colourtherapyhealing.com/colour/objects_and_colour.php)
P.P.S. : Hemant's thought was pretty convincing as when we absorb all the colors then we should be colorful. And reflecting back a certain color may imply that we are not taking that color and rather dumping it out..

Am i confusing you? 

शोर

इस शहर में शोर बढ़ रहा है
यह गुस्से से खुद को तरबतर कर रहा है
बस और शोर न करिए
अब इस शोर से डरिये

हर रोज़ पागल हो रहा है आदमी
अपना आपा खो रहा है आदमी
अंधाधुन्द दौड़ती गाड़ियां,
समय से लगा रही हैं होड़
एक मृत्यु निर्भय खड़ी है
हर दूसरे मोड़

चिल्लाहट से सराबोर सड़कें
ऊंची आवाजों में गुम होती धड़कनें
इस शोर में डूबी,
फटी पागल सी आँखें
और आँखों में उतरता खून
जी हाँ, यह शोर छीन रहा है
आपके दिल का सुकून

किसी ने कुछ कह दिया
तो कह दिया
उसे मन में ठून्सें न रखिये
कुछ दर्द चुपचाप सहिये
अपने गुस्से अब तो हरिये

इस शोर से दूर ही रहिये

बस अब और शोर न करिए ...


P.S. This poem is inspired by increasing havoc, impatience, noise and madness in people in big cities. In the name of development, lives are somewhere ruining.

The day I grew an year older..

One more year to my existence!  As always I was super excited for the day. For some reason, each birthday seems better than the last year and 4^th March 2012 was no exception.  Since it was a Sunday – a golden opportunity to celebrate it with my close friends, the party was held at home. Thanks to all of them for making the day so special for me. We played toddler games like Cat Mumma, Bingo (which involves calling consecutive numbers and substituting multiples of 5 by the word ‘Bingo’)  playing cards, blowing b’day whistles, wearing funny masks and joking around with each other. My parents gifted me an SLR camera which was in my wish list since last year. The sudden appearance of my very dear cousin and one of the closest friends Puneet Bhaiya with his newly wed wife(living in Pune) was the surprise of the day, which left me overwhelmed with tears of joy.

The whole affair was beautifully managed by my younger sister Rochana along with a very dear friend Ashima. My brother took charge of the camera, and I was saved from every responsibility and enjoyed the day at full throttle. The day was packed with entertainment- hopping around, chirping for infinite hours, giggling, laughing, and what not. I love you all for making it so warm, special, beautiful and one of the best birthdays I have ever had.

I loved the sumptuous honey-almond cake!

P.s. Wishing everyone a very happy Holi.

[I loved this image alot, found it on Shine's wall. :)]

P.P.S. Sharing this post with a hope that you would never miss a chance to celebrate your day in a special way.