Hindi...

(P.C.- Printerest)

As we all know Hindi is our mother tongue but answer me, how many of us can write and speak good Hindi? For me, I am not the one and I am not very proud of this.I guess nobody should be, if your can't respect your mother tongue. You know, I was one of those highest hindi scorers at school but I don’t understand how. (Maybe because my mother taught it to me irrespective of in which class I am). I still remember she used to scold me a lot and make me write the same thing over 10 times a day. Especially the spelling crimes I used to commit. My mother’s Hindi is very good. I still remember she used to check my Hindi paper again and again in PTMs and I can bet. If my mother was my Hindi teacher in school, she would check the paper in the most strict way. Like when she sees my paper in PTM, she used to find 100 new mistakes where teacher should deduct the marks. I still remember her golden words “Ma’am neh kaafi lenient checking kia hai. Mai hoti toh itne no. kabhi nhi deti.” Honestly, Hindi and I are like the two opposite poles of a magnet.

Let me share one more incident with you all. One fine morning I was walking to the school building with my cousin. By the way she is younger than me. I don’t remember what exactly we were talking about but I guess I was telling something about old days when I was in 8th or 9th. We were talking in Hindi and by chance Miss. H.M caught us talking in Hindi. She stopped us and asked our classes and name. She was familiar with my face because she had noticed me roaming in the school and we have encountered each other a lot on many occasions. If she had just said something like, “Talk in English in school premises” then it was okay. Cause obviously we are in an English medium school so we are expected to have conversations in English. But what she said was bit offensive and pushed me share this piece. She said,“ I see you are wearing kurta that means you are the most senior student of the school(p.s. new batch for 11th wasn’t started). Then can you please tell me the benefits of speaking in English.” Very calmly I replied, “Ma’am there are many benefits of speaking in English. Like it improves our vocabulary, it builds confidence in ourself to speak English publicly all a bucket full of points.” Then she replied, “Nice. Even though you knew the benefits of speaking English and being the senior most you are still talking in Hindi. I hope I don’t catch you talking in Hindi again. You may go now.” I said, “sorry” and walked away. When I thought of this incident again and again, I realized that not directly but indirectly I was looked down for speaking in Hindi. I know the rule of speaking in English is made for us. So, that we can get better in our English-speaking skills and I know I did wrong. I don’t know what actually she meant but I felt like this. I want to know why some teachers or students or even some people look down on us if we speak in Hindi. Why? I don’t think we are using foul language, then why?

People can just politely ask us to speak in English but they don’t have any right to look down on us. We should not be very proud about the fact that we know foreign languages and not our mother tongue.

At last, I would like to ask you all that what’s wrong about speaking our mother tongue in public places? What will people get by making fun of the person who is speaking in their mother tongue? Why a person is always judged on the basis of what language they speak? Why a person who always speak English is thought to be an educated person and person speaking their mother language is looked down even if that person is the topper of the university. I mean respecting is being educated. Languages are just the mode of communication.

~ Ananya