The Vicious Circle Of Linguistic Conundrum

It is an unspoken responsibility of every Indian to pay respect to their mother tongue, Hindi. However, things on reality ground portray different picture. They delineate our disdainful attitude towards this sweet and possibly the world's richest language of our nation. Most of us cast callous disregard for this language, mostly come perfunctorily from the behaviour of pseudo, sophisticated Indians representing affluent upper class family whose kids barely speak Hindi. They consider it an affront to their overtly inflated social status. Things are taking such a nasty turn, that without sufficient knowledge and understanding of English, you can’t have plum job in virtually any job sector in India, albeit government jobs stand uninfluenced from this linguistic disorder. English is vital beyond words to narrate.

Take me for instance, I am a senior executive in digital marketing in a company and I have job responsibility, including writing blogs, articles and various products related information for my employer company. However, those written things are not Hindi, but English, as I am supposed to be extremely creative in my niche. 

Guess what... English is proving to be my bread-earner in this context.

True it is that I wouldn’t have averted my nearly possible status of being jobless hadn't I known about this language. It gave me respect, and scared away those bigot jackasses with the mind terminally suffering from moral depravity of insulation. So far, I have been truly fortunate not to have gone through racially-motivated comments, and my ability to express myself in English has been a saving grace. This language promoted me into the club exclusively reserved for the elite guys. I taught kids from widely reputed public schools, just because I had ample confidence on myself to teach them, thanks to English. My affinity with English grew up since my school days. I feel a little sorry for myself for my procrastination towards improving my English proficiency (can’t rule out the knee-jerk sense of compliance which motivates to development of such a feel in me). Everywhere I went for a job interview, I was interviewed in English. I have also seen the time how rudely I was said to go away, just because I used Hindi to communicate myself where it was strictly forbidden, but English.

Today I have been to a shopping mall in Noida. I saw most people speaking out their feelings in English, and in such an enthusiastic way, that I mistakenly got them for non-Indians. The problem with me is that I do not show off unless provoked beyond the toleration point.

I accept I have no fluency in English, but I am really glad at myself for being expressive. I am just verbose in writing, while in speaking, my English vocabulary is limited to the use of few but very strong words, those words that effectively sum up the whole conversation requiring otherwise a lot of extended (futile) verbal argumentation. Those with limited vocabulary feel awkward being my conversation partner, as the words I use are not known to them or they just can’t comprehend the extent of their worth. For them, being too light in expression of what you mean is good and acceptable, as contrary to my credo, that being frugal in words that literally summarize an otherwise extended conversation is/must be an acceptable form of healthy debate/argumentation. 

In my country my mother-tongue is not respected very much, especially in situations when you are supposed to be relatively more modern and up in standard of your linguistic expertise than others. I hope you get the drift. I am worried about the future of this language. Will it be suffering from apathy shown by its own people? Will it suffer an extinction? Sorry for being a cry-wolf apprehensive Indian. However, don’t you think that this could be a likelihood? For me, it is an unsolved quandary of vindicating the significance of a foreign language on the cost of my own mother tongue. However, this is something I barely feel guilt-ridden, for I definitely regard my mother tongue and pay respect to foreign language as well because English has been an evil necessity and I can't just blind myself to its dire necessity in every job sector and society of our nation.

For me, both are respectable and have their respective significance.

The viewpoints are already shared on my Facebook's Note page.