We the crazy bunch

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!