Sahib's voice....

English seems to be the universal language the world speaks in.Sure there are many pockets of the world where its not the first choice but more or less its appeal is indeed universal.I'm often intrigued by the path taken by this language in my own homeland-india.You need not be a historian to guess that the British brought English to our shores.The language of the sahibs soon spread amongst few natives who must have considered themselves superior in some sense at being able to read and write the sahibs's literals.Many decades passed,the British eventually left India but the English language continued to thrive. I feel we were pretty fortunate in that sense.Without English there was no way India would have connected to the world.But what was happening inside our society?I think that initial sense of false superiority that the natives felt when they first took command of the language somewhere continued to seep down the decades.While in most of the English speaking western world English is nothing more than language,in India it is a complex thing empowering people who speak it with often exalted and false opinion of themselves. I remember back in school folks from convent and missionary schools seem to put themselves higher in the pecking order as they somehow felt that the gift of the gab was with them.I think many of us when we meet or hear someone for the first time tend to record first impressions as the manner in which the person speaks and if the person speaks incorrect english either grammatically or phonetically its occasion enough to mock him if not directly then behind his back.No wonder we make fun of a 'south indian' english, a 'Bengali' english and 'Bihari' english. I have found this particularly gross and unfair.Its another matter that which part of India you come from or what flavor of English you speak is hardly indicative of your worth as a person. I have known enough fools who spoke the queens's language in all its splendour.Well as the saying goes "you can study at Harvard and still be an idiot"!. While at college I found another class of language imperialists this time from the opposite end of the spectrum.To them speaking good english was a matter of being equivalent to a snob.Discussing literature,pulp fiction or Hollywood movies was taken as a sign of belonging to the snobbish upperclass.While using deranged,abusive,badly tattered colloquial mother tongue was somehow considered cool.So if you mentioned an article you read in the Readers Digest or discussed a hollywood flick you got labeled "sophisticated"!. Come to think of it....English is nothing more than a language- a powerful one at that since its spoken so universally.How does it matter the way you speak it.It only represents an exterior expression.Surely,if I was born speaking French I would still be as bad following directions as I am knowing and speaking English!.But alas we continue to judge people on the way they speak a certain language.

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