A Thin Line between Vernacular and English!

“Hey Mom, I’ll be late home; don’t wait for me have your supper!” , Yelled the 8 year old kid next door. I was quite perplexed the way English has been catching up with kids these days, and, why would not it be? For the so-called “mothers” are rubbing English all over the kids tongue or rather say all over the vernacular.

I have seen ladies yelling at their kids in angrezi; “Hey you, go clean up dinner is ready! And, what does the kid do? Make faces right back at her mother and get back to stacking up bricks with fellow kids in the play ground. What do you expect a 4 year old kid to do otherwise!

Vernaculars have recently lost their identity and beauty, for the lone fact that English seems to be hauling around everyone’s tongue. And, the reason seems to be preposterous- “English is important no? Isiliye we speak ‘Englis’ all the time!” Vernaculars have become a cliche, not to mention parody. People tend to commit mistakes while they speak their own jargon and are inclined to scale great heights by speaking English under the pretext of its “importance”; and ask me, do they succeed in speaking good English. Hell, no! It takes a great deal of valor to decipher what they actually spoke! And, imagine if we grown-ups aren’t able to interpret easily, how come those little toddlers will? 

                                                

English seems to taken its toll on people in India, everyone wants a piece of it. It is important in day-to-day life, agreed. But, toddlers and kids who have just realized that the diaper in which they pooped was the one in which they took a leak an hour ago don’t need a piece of it!

People have a filthy habit of speaking English with the vernacular slang, and, worse they do that in public. It is like eating where you poop or vice-versa. How about speaking vernacular instead of “Dilapidated English”? The fear of being a social outcast, and, your self esteem, not to mention false prestige has taken a toll on vernaculars in India and on your kids too. Kids at the end of the day tend to digest what has been fed to them right from the childhood rather than what suits their appetite now. 

                          

With the evolution of Social-Networking sites and their famous lingo, people have butchered English in every way possible! Now, as we speak kids have neither been exposed, nurtured with the vernacular nor are they capable enough to stand their ground with the so-called “Important English”. Either way they are to hamper their image.

So much for the “false prestige”, I’ve seen mothers cajoling their kids in English while kids look startled and perplexed. Mothers take them to functions and end up perpetrating their own social assassination. That’s right, they speak to kids in what they feel is sophisticated and end up making fool of themselves and hampering their own social image as kids cannot comprehend what crap just transpired!

Speaking vernacular and own jargon is sophisticated ladies, what? You want your kids to be Shakespeare? Forget it then! The world has already hampered and proselytized his English way too much, you need not follow suit. Why not draw a thin line between vernacular and English so, both get to keep their identity.

That day does not seem far away when “English pills” are available in the market, daily dose of which will have Shakespeares’ erupting right out the birth canals all over the world. English everywhere and which soon will be a “Congenital Malady”!!

Shakespeare would roll in his grave if he knew what’s happening out here! And, if he were to come alive, “He would die all over again”!!

Adios!