A visit to UK for a month is our annual
pilgrimage time when our daughter puts up a brand new Indian mythological Bharatanatyam
dance drama at the Playhouse of Norwich, a highly anticipated one amongst
Indian dance lovers and usually a sold out one!
An eye opener during this year was a
visit to our niece’s house in London where we had an unique experience. As we
entered the house, she came running to the door greeting us with her eight-month-old
baby and said in Tamil " Thatha and Aachi have come. Will you clap your
hands baby?" to which she responded with a gusto of clapping!
"What is the big deal?" You may
think. But my niece had married into an English family and there was no need
for the baby to learn Tamil. We were surprised to know that her extended family
desired that the child learnt another language to enhance the fertility of the mind!
"Do we ever think like that?" My
own question hit me like a bolt from the blue!!
We crazy Indians are crazy about that
foreign language English!
Even when we meet a Tamilian friend we
tend to have the conversation in English feeling proud of our apparent command over that language!
We make our children jokers when a
visitor comes home. We coax them to sing the slavish "Bah Bah Slack Sheep
"rhyme proving the prowess of our progenies in English.
Do we want to compensate what our
forefathers lacked? But even they didn't lag behind in their craziness for
English. At this juncture I would like to share with you a funny incident in my
dad's life.
My
dad was the first child in his big joint family to attend a school where
English was taught. For this purpose, he had to stay with his married sister's
family in a cosmopolitan town. The sister wanted a cow for herself and on the
pretext of providing genuine cow's milk to her brother asked my dad to write a
letter to their father to send a cow.
Accordingly, a post card was sent.
And it was indeed a very special post
card!! It contained just a single sentence!!
When the post man delivered the letter to
my grandfather he was thoroughly confused. The address written in Tamil was
right but the message was illegible. He couldn't make head or tail of it.
He returned the letter to the post man
the single literate man in the village who knew English, and asked if he could
understand the message. He announced that his son from the town had sent a
letter in English.
"A letter for me in English!! That
too from my son?! "My grandfather was in cloud nine!! He jumped with joy
and requested the post man to sit properly in the verandah a courtesy never
offered and asked him to read it.
" I want a cow." The post man read
" Your obedient son Michaelsamy." and he did the much-awaited
translation too!
For the exhilarated man this process of
reading once was not enough and desired that the letter be read several times
along with the translation!!
The reverberating repetitions filled him and
the villagers with boundless bliss! A measure of rice was gifted to the post
man for this special service.
The words 'Your obedient son ' warmed the
cockles of his heart.
"Even though my son knows English he
is still my obedient son." The very
thought engulfed him with soothing warmth!!
But he was a bit upset that his son had
been drinking mediocre milk so long which was likely to spoil his health.
The best cow in the shed along with the
calf were dispatched immediately through reliable servants to that progressive
town!
As
I reflected over this oft repeated event in the family circle I tend to think
"Is this craziness, for the English language, genetic?!
Through our multifarious endeavors we
want to degrade our own mother tongue! In our lives 'Amma' had metamorphosed to
mum or mummy and 'appa ' to dad, daddy or pappa ! Grandmothers and grandfathers
are the happiest and the proudest when they are addressed as 'grandma and
grandpa' instead of the archaic "paatti and thatha and its
varieties!!" At this point I have
to confess that I am also a sinner and my 'mea culpas' at this juncture are
useless as my children are steadfast in their anglicized callings.
We go on boasting about this language
proficiency of our children "She is just three but can write ABCD in
capital and small letters! That school is indeed very good! The incredulity and ignorance of Indian
parents!
"And what happens to our Tamil
alphabets?" we dare not ask lest we hurt their feelings.
When I was in HR manager in an organization,
the staff used lament "Mam! the little one brings a lot of complaint from
the school."
"Too mischievous I suppose?" I
said smilingly
"No mam it is an entirely different
story. The complaint is that he refuses to write. Can I send him for tuition?
My friend's child in the opposite house goes for tuition as soon as he comes
back from school. Of course, she gives him snacks before he sends him off."
"Is that child happy?"
"No, never mam. He returns home
literally in tears and to add fire to the fuel his mother does a thorough
interrogation of the lessons done at the tuition."
"Would you love to have a happy
baby?" I asked
"Indeed mam, but what about his
future...." she replied
I
ignored her 'but' and asked how her child’s handwriting was.
"Somewhat ok. Got one or two prizes
for handwriting at school."
"Now I would suggest that you to
change it into bit of a scribble and do the home work along with your child."
My statement indeed threw her off the
balance! She was shocked by my dubious integrity!
I smiled at her and said "My dear
girl do you know the fact that the fingers of the children are not yet capable
of systematic usage? They can draw and scrawl at their own will but never at
the command from elsewhere. The whole
life is in front of them to do all the writings in the world!"
"Is this true mam?"
"You can go through any child
psychology book to learn this truth." I said and continued “For the best
education system Finland tops the world and do you know that the children there
go to school at the age of seven? But what do we do? A two-and-a-half-year-old child is admitted
in the school on the great day of Vijayadashami and asked to write the alphabet
on a tray filled with the auspicious yellow rice. We justify this infant abuse by the statement
" He will adapt and prove himself for proper schooling next
year!!"
I continued “I had the opportunity to go
with my daughter to a UK school where she was invited to talk about Indian
culture for the primary section in a school.
She created an ambience of bonhomie among
the children by asking them to help in decorating the room in the Indian way. Flower
Kolam filled the frontage and thorans and Indian posters were hung around the
room. In this Indian ambience the curious children settled down expecting the
lady to go the podium and talk about India. But instead my daughter asked the
children to form a circle and seating herself at the centre began the session with
a little prayer for the universe and continued with an easy yoga session all
the time explaining the process all through.
She went on to the Indian mythological
stories enacting as the story proceeded.
A small session of Bharatanatyam with the
beginners' steps was an opener for the children.
Taking out a patch work spread from her bag
she requested four children to come forward and exhibit it around for the
children to look at the simple yet exquisite artwork.
Then she explained that this ecofriendly
spread was made from waste bit of clothes in Rajasthan and one among them was
asked point out the place in the huge map.
With the group following her she went
through the posters, giving the gist of varied cultures of India.
The children's' enthusiasm knew no bound!
There were too many inquisitive questions! They actually made a patch work
carpet by sticking variety of colour papers with their own designs in them and
proudly exhibited it her!
My friend was enthralled." Mam this
is way the children should be taught."
"Yes my dear friend, a mere talk
show on India would not have struck to their mind and instilling
the creativity in them is the right education." I said
Coming back to my role as HR manager, a convinced
mother and employee, thanked me and
left my place and I was sure that she
would make her house a joyous experience
for the child!
I
want to end this with an interesting real-life event from our friend an
orthopedic surgeon. This is his narration:
"One evening a worried father and
mother came to my clinic along with their three-year-old child for
consultation. They said "Doctor, the right hand of our girl is always
folded at the elbow. Our efforts to straighten it, ends up in painful cries. We
have to feed her at home but she cannot eat anything at school. While the other
children are active, she sits quietly in a corner. What would happen to our child
when she reaches the marriageable age? Should we go for a surgery?"
I pacified them. Tests were done
accordingly and I found no fault with her bone formation. I was confused. I sat with the parents for a discussion and in
the course of which I found out there was no problem with the hand when she was
sleeping.
On an intuition I asked the name of the
school where she was studying.
When they named the school, I was
convinced that the little girl is having psychological problem rather than a physical
one.
"Change the school immediately and
she will be ok." I told the parents emphatically. I have heard of the
school which was notorious for its ‘mug and vomit' methodology with the final
aim on marks and marks only and the tyrannical training starts in right earnest
from LKG! There was no space for the creativity
and imagination of the children to play a role. This resourceful child took her
recluse with an imagined crippled hand!
I told the parents that if their daughter
still had a problem after this exercise, they had to come back to me. Otherwise
a phone call from them about her welfare would suffice. And as anticipated I
received a joyful thank you call from the parents!"
And
I know this incident would be readily waiting to be narrated when someone comes
to unload the 'child worry' with me!
