Lingweenie

I have discovered a series of articles I had written for The Week magazine, these were about 2 years ago. But it seems the intention though honourable from both ends never got us to a concrete end. So here they are posted and preserved. May the be of some purpose to someone this week or the next or whenever...

LINGWEENIE

Children are angels till they find words!! My son has crossed that laxman rekha, he is all of 3 and a half years old and as such it is time to pattern the syllables escaping his lips, Its time to look for a school. The search begins and the fear hangs over our head like the sword of Damocles. My wife has been fretting and fuming for a few centuries saying we need to see the schools, I’m a little amazed as I existed in a time when there were no options you either went to the Girls school or Boys school and the maximum choice was Hindi Medium or English and Government or Private.

As such I surveyed a certain number of schools and was amazed to see the various options available: Australian curriculum, IB, Marathi, Hindi, English medium, schools that take children from particular communities, others that encourage pin code segregation. Imagine a child talking to another: I’m Mumbai 53 U are ? Mumbai 61! Oh sorry my mummy and daddy only allow me to speak to 55 and 54. There birthday parties are nearer to our home!

Schools with playgrounds, schools that our multi storeyed, schools that ensure international placements to universities, schools that have uniforms, schools that interview children who are 3 , schools that interview parents till 3 (pm) and schools that expect parents to attend schools as well.

Having assumed some semblance of a scholarly concerned father I attend an orientation by one school. The teacher starts in earnest, “ Werlcome tyu the bestest school in town! For the sake of not torturing your ears I will keep it short. The teacher had an accent picked up between the French and American embassy and I have it on good authority that her visas to both were rejected. But 10 points for imagination! She even found r’s to roll in words that don’t contain the alphabet.

I also noticed a unique fact, the school took great pains to say that they do not discriminate between boys and girls and your child will always be looked after. He will grow up to be strong of will, he will discover new things, he will play and learn…Some prejudices are better removed from the mind rather than paid poor lip service to.

I hastened to her after the session: Madam when will you put up the interview list
Dunno as yet will get back to you asap!!
MY mind processes the don’t know and says so should I call back
Yep If u wanna!!

I imagined my son walking in and say: Gu morn da! He would have willingly participated in the murder of the language as I knew it. But look and listen, the words have changed. A wedggie is not a short form for a plant eater but a crease riding your butt leading to strictly non vegetarian thoughts. Ginormous is not a double patiala peg of gin but something bigger than gigantic and enormous. Chillax, is not the ax murderer who got locked out on Christmas day but hanging out with friends. These words are real and they exist and each generation adds its favourites to the chain of spoken word, but the murder of the existing words is a crime we commit daily. Primary school teachers who are irrigating the fertile soil of imagination have a responsibility to them as well, to speak the language as it was meant to be, to strain the influence of the affected affluence of sources and let the synthesis of cultures do its best to grind a few syllables together and create a new word when the child has a mind of his or her own.

My son goes to a simple school now and each day I spend some time trying to inculcate in him a love for the language I have learnt to express and absorb with.

Call me old fashioned but I am not a lingweenie and look that up in an online dictionary before you cast aspersions on my sexual prowess in any way!!