“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!
