ENGLISH and the MESS

ENGLISH. the first thoughts that comes to one's mind hearing this word is IMPRESSION. If u want to impress someone, speak few sentences in english and u will be immediately considered as a person having an intellectual mind even though u may not possess it. :-) English is a blessing left to us but at the same time it has become burden on us too. The reason: Well after all we all have to bear each other's english skills.

We Indians have influenced english in a very big manner which can be evident from the fact that our english is specifically being called as "THE INDIAN ENGLISH". We all are experts in translating watever we think in our vernacular language to english, word by word. Yours truly is one of the biggest followers of such kind of methodology. I had literally translated hindi idioms to english without even thinking wat drastic changes they can cause to the meaning of whole sentence. I realized my folly when once my english sir told me about his suspicion about this. I was amazed at his skill of knowing that but now after getting basic knowledge(hopefully :-) ), i know its not tough to detect.

Other problem that i,like all others,faced was that while speaking in english all of sudden i would be at loss of words. The whole world would seem blank and i, lost completely, not knowing wat to say.Thankfully, due to novels and movies, i somehow reached a normal level of knowing english and felt that from now onwards i wont be commiting the mistakes like others. Afterall i had switched to the other elite category. But i forgot that i m nothing but a mortal. The truth descended on me right at the time of my interview going on for placement. I blabbered and realized immediately "boss kya paaya itna sab kar ke bhi". In the end no use yaar.:-)

Coming to the impression part, speaking in english is considered as a style statement. But these people forget how much they torment others through their colorful language. During my college festival i got a glimpse of that. We were havin cultural festival and the host was singing praises of our college(normal stuff). He said " I am proud to be a student of L D Engineering college". The hostess, eager to join in, immediately added " I too L D" Now for some moments we could not understand what deep message was she trying to propagate but realized afterwards that she wanted to say that she too, being a student of L D, is proud of it. :-D

Sometimes those who preach themselves r trying their best to kill the language. We had an english teacher in 11th std who put a great impression on us by teaching the tenses on the very first day. But slowly all our hopes crashed down when the guy started speaking in english which can even make a junior kg kid speaking in english look much better. He believed all the stories as well as poems in the course were about death. Even if contents are shouting out aloud that "duffer i m about LIFE and u dont need deep meaning to analyze me", he still knew that they were about "DEATH". And the accent. The less one speaks, the better it is. And yeah regarding tenses, He had crammed it up all from WREN AND MARTIN word by word. His examples for tenses were always the same and never changed.

Now in the end, i feel why the hell am i write blogs in english when i always champion the cause of sticking to using ur mother tongue. The plain,simple reason is that we all r put in a habit of writing in english. After all, except that one language subject, all other required writing in english.so ur comfort level is in writing in english but u love speaking in ur mother tongue. Isnt that really messed up??? Keep thinking and enjoy the spirit of using the language. Till then i leave u with some gems that i have heard during this journey of exploring english.

"I coming. U going????"(now wat was that)

One person on a phone: "This is Atul here. Who is there?"(good rhyming)

"The sir will be coming and he will taught u the theory"(We believe in living simultaneously with past and future)

computer sir in class to students: "U must have been told by ur mothers and fathers that...."(No comments on that)