LITERATURE-LIGHT AND DELIGHT. 36. LANGUAGE-THINKING AND EXPRESSION.

LITERTATURE-LIGHT AND DELIGHT

36. LANGUAGE-THINKING AND EXPRESSION

We are living in fast changing times- this is a trite phrase now, almost meaningless. The change is so fast and mind-boggling that both the word 'change' and 'fast' have lost meaning. 40 years ago, Alvin Toffler told us of 'future shock'- how we are unable to cope with the pace of change. This was before internet, mobile phone, tablets, pendrives and ipods. I do not know what he would say now.

Those who are 70+  are likely to have seen  and experienced so many changes in their living memory;yet the last few years would have left most of them gasping. We have lived in villages, and small towns without electricity and running water.We have seen our great-grandmothers cook, assisted by great-grandaunts! Water was drawn from the well with bucket and rope, washing was with hand; cooking was with firewood and charcoal.All grinding was on the grind-stone and mortar.Cooking was done sitting on the floor. Lighting the fire for cooking was a ceremony, done with all solemnity; and at night, the fireplace would be washed with cowdung solution or paste and 'kolam' drawn. After every meal, the place would be sprinkled  with cowdung solution and wiped clean. At night, the kitchen would be washed with water.Early in the morning, the front of the house would be sprinked with cow dung solution, swept and the kolam drawn: this would be done by the housewife, not any servant.On ceremonal occasions, the kolam would be elaborate, and the girls would enthusiastically participate, in a spirit of infectious competition with neighbouring girls.So much numbers,dots, geometrical patterns, shapes, sizes and figures would go into them, all from memory or improvised on the spot! The whole street would be sparkling! We were all just middle class, but what joy it was!

We boys would go to get firewood from the firewood depot. We would get a measure called 'gundu'- 56 pounds. We would stretch our hands in front; the depot man would arrange the cut firewood strips on them, and himself would say, 'appa, enough for you' and go on to the other boy.One gundu would cost a rupee or  a rupee and an anna in the near-by depot; a little farther, it would be 15 annas. So we would go there, and the anna or two saved would be given to us for pocket money. But being Brahmin boys, we would not eat anything outside, except some fruit or raw mango or such things depending on the season. I would buy small story books which were sold for an anna.We had a teacher by name Ganesam Pillai. He would tell us stories during the 'morals' period. Once he came to know we had such story books, he would go through them and if he approved, he would make us read it in the class and so encouraged reading. The stories were invariably good. Only once did he not like a story, and called my grandfather and told him so! The magazine 'Kalkandu' was then for youngsters and it cost only two annas. Lifco used to come with small books for 2 or 4 annas.We used to buy them.I still have the Tirukkural I bought then.The girls would not be burdened with any heavy work, but would do some crochet or needle work, learn music, or play some indoor games.

Talking about literature, how relevant are these things? Yes, they are relevant, as we will see.

Some changes are easily seen. Political changes, for instance. Economic changes are also easily felt.But the long term social consequences of these changes are not easily understood. Inability or unwillingness to understand and adjust to these changes breeds problems.What we call generation gap is this lag in adjustment.

Brahmins were very active  in the independence movement but later on , the interest declined mainly due to economic reasons. They were also active in all other fields- not only education and services, but also entertainment, arts, journalism, publishing, small hotels and eateries,etc.After the Dravidian parties came to power, Brahmins were totally excluded from the political arena- not only by the Dravidian parties, but even by the Congress; the anti-Brahmin feeling is deep-rooted and no party wants to be seen as doing anything which could be interpreted as pro-Brahmin in the least. Brahmins were slowly excluded from teaching, law, medicine, and engineering professions, as also from direct govt. service. They were also edged out of all other spheres where the govt has a direct or indirect hand.  

The Brahmin community was generally satwik-tamasik.Almost half of them were in poor circumstances.(But they had no community feeling- would not help each other.)They could quietly practice their religion because it had a steady source of income, though small. And this freedom from the anxiety to earn the daily bread gave them  time and energy to devote to literary, cultural and other activities, besides their religion.Society  as a whole shared these values more or less, and  this was reflected in all fields, especially in the educational and literary spheres.

But with the rise of the Dravidian powers, values have changed.You can observe this in all areas.Those Brahmins who remain active in education, entertainment, literary, journalistic fields have to embrace non-Brahminic and pro-Dravidian values. This is in fact what they do- even their spoken language has changed in the last 50 years.

More than this, even their religious language has changed. Most Brahmins today can only write Dravidian , and not Brahminical Tamil.And their pronunciation of even common Sanskrit words like 'mantram', 'chaturthi', 'Hanuman' , 'Vinayaka', etc is horrible. Just look at their wedding or even 'upanayanam' invitations. I was both sad and amused to see a Tamil magazine devoted to Vaidik subjects being called "Vaitheekasri": 'Vaideekam' has become 'Vaitheekam' in obedience  to Dravidian usage! Most Brahmins of Tamil Nad today do not say 'Subrahmanya'- they only say 'Muruga'! Hindu-they pronounce as 'Indu'. The younger generation may not even notice these changes, how do they care?

What these Brahmins do not realise is that no matter what they do to give up their language and customs, they would still be considered Brahmins. Once they had tufts, and Dravidian elements made fun of them The removal of tufts did not make them non-Brahmins and endear them to those elements. Likewise, giving up the Brahminical speech and writing would not make them more acceptable to them. This way, they will only alienate their younger generations further from their heritage.And they would lose all self-respect.

But the change brought about by the large-scale adoption of English medium in education even from primary standards is tremendous. Our generation studied in Tamil medium up to SSLC with English as one subject. The syllabus was not heavy, but the teaching was good and  the basics were well taught.This was the case in Tamil too- the syllabus was not loaded, but the foundations were well laid. In the college, the position reversed: it was English medium and Tamil as a subject! In the first year, we had to work a bit hard- not that it was difficult to follow the subjects, but it took time to acquire the facility to write. But we coped well and became fluent in time.Studying in Tamil medium (ie mother tongue)in the high school had improved our thinking faculty, imagination and  self-expression.

One feature of education 50 years ago was that most teachers encouraged originality in writing. Apart from the science subjects, where definitons and formulae had to be mugged up, in all other subjects, we were told to absorb the subject, get the meaning and express in our own way. Even in high school we had teachers like D.K Ramanathan Chettiar or K.V.Rajagopalan who would take a sentence and demonstrate in how many other ways we could express the idea! A quotation from an authority or from a Classic would always add value to an essay, but the whole essay could not be plagiarised! With the English medium now, the emphasis is wholly on rote learning: the text books are standardised; the questions too are standard; the teacher asks you to mark the answers in the book and the same has to be reproduced in the exam. If you change a word, you lose a mark. So, they just mug up, reproduce and get 99% in all subjects. The syllabus is heavy, so you have the semester system: forget in the next semester, what you learn in this. The result is paradoxical: though they mug up, they hardly retain anything! The faculty of memory, which is so important, is neither developed nor focussed on material which would be useful life long!

Apart from such deterioration, the social effect of English-medium education is remarkable. It used to be the norm in middle class families for the school-going boys and girls to help with household work (which I mentioned above). But with English medium, this has disappeared. There is  total avoidance of any manual work. In the exclusive preoccupation with percentages and professional courses, and the syllabus being heavy, all the time is taken up in study. In most homes, guests are not welcome when the children are around, because it would disturb their studies! And children hardly ever play in the evenings- as we used to! 

Since English medium is taken as the harbinger of modernity, it has brought in its wake whole lot of changes. A generation ago , we all ate sitting on the floor; in most homes there was just a room or two with doors. All the children would sleep in the hall; they all slept on the floor, with mat for bedding.There was no cot; the bedding would be rolled, the pillows would be taken out, the bedsheets removed, neatly folded and kept in a room. What was bed room in the night would become the living room or study room or recreation room, or simply idling room by day, depending on the time! But with the new kind of education, we now have separate rooms with  bed permanently spread out (as in hospitals); with the drawing room stuffed with sofa, unoccupied most of time, most of the days! Even brothers cannot share a bathroom, or share it with parents- each needs a separate one with duplication of everything-toothpaste, soap, mugs! One may wonder, how all these changes can be linked with English medium education, but if you think deeper, the connections will be clear.

Sri Ramakrishna used to point out humourously how the Bengali youngsters going to college and studying English immediately acquired certain stock expressions, and he used to imitate their sound: That,but, it ,put,tit, tat,etc. ( Our elders also would say: what is all this ..thaat boot?) He would remark how, on wearing the pant and boots, their entire demeanor would change, they would strut about bolt upright - all marks of humility would leave!

 And how English constricts our familial and social circles! In all Indian languages we have distinct words to denote each relationship in the extended joint family. We have separate words for father's younger brother and elder brother, and sister; we have separate words for the mother's brother and sister.In English , all are aunts and uncles. And their children? All cousins! So, immediately you have English, you have the nuclear family-every thing and every one seen through its eyes! As Raja Rao remarks: how can they conceive of  "my wife's elder brother's wife's brother in law"? He too is just an uncle, as any child would call any stranger! But just a generation ago, we all were close to such relatives! We had our own endearing nicknames for all our neighbours- 'kodi aatthu mami' (the 'mami from the corner house'), 'arai-mottai Brahmanan'( the half-head shaved Brahmin), kulla Vasu (Vasu the short) 'Kasi patti' ( the grandma- from Kasi: this did not just refer to her having visited Kasi- more than that, it signified and celebrated her triumphant return, it was such a rare event those days; and she need not be our grandmother at all- just any old lady of the village or area) How odd such expressions would sound in English! Not that the English themselves may not have such words- but Indians speaking English cannot call them ours!

A language conveys a philosophy silently. When a person dies, the English would say: he kicked the bucket., or he 'gave up the ghost'. But who indeed gives up what? The ghost ie the spirit leaves him: he cannot leave it as he likes, unless he is a Yogi like Vivekananda. But what do we say? In Tamil, the standard, deferential expression is: 'aavi pirindadu' ie the spirit or prana left him! Which is accurate? In the Indian tradition, we are not supposed to say certain things openly. In the olden days,in the Tamil grammar they used to teach something like 'mangalam' or 'kuzhuookkuri'- how to express indirectly something which it is not considered pleasant to say plainly. The burning ghat is not called as such in literary writing; it is mentioned as 'nan kaadu' ie the good wood. In the obituary notices, people affectionately mention the elder as 'having attained Sivalokaprapti'; Srivaishnavas say: 'reached Acharyan Tiruvadi'. Someone attached to a particular saint would be said to have reached 'his lotus feet'.I have seen some Indian Christians use expressions like 'slept in the Lord' or 'merged in the Lord'. I do not know whether these expressions are more Indian or Christian! Of course, Shakespeare himself calls sleep "the death of each day's life" in Macbeth.! In Hamlet, he refers to death as "shuffled off this mortal coil" which is more accurate, and which expression many in India use!  Referring to Lord Shiva's throat which has become dark on account of his swallowing poison at the behest of the Devas, we don't refer to the poison at all but say"Neelagriva" ie the blue throated- Neelakantan in Tamil, or still better, 'Sri Kantan' in Kannada! 

A language thus brings its own subtle ways of thinking and expression.. That is one reason why a language changes the way we think unconsiously. Among Indian writers, Tagore wrote Gitanjali in Bengali and then translated it into English; so it has retained its Indian flavour. R.K Narayan has captured in flowing prose how the ordinary middle class Indian of British days conducted himself. Raja Rao is said to have experimented with bringing the Indian way of thinking (based on Kannada and Sanskrit models) into English.All three have written on Indian themes, with Indian spirit, but in entirely diverse ways! This is the creative use of English, and not just imitation. We should all read  these three great authors.

Note:

I am not suggesting for one moment that the past was perfect and we should all go back.All I mean to say is life was less complicated. Most things have changed, and life is marching on. Today , technology controls and dictates everything, and no one can control technology.Just see how this one invention mobile phone has virtually made prisoners of us all! Every authority today needs our mobile number to deal with us.We are nonentities without it. But with it we are all like prisoners with a number- any one can trace us anywhere! Techology has taken away our freedom quietly! It is the same thing with our computer. No one has assessed the long term consequences of such over-dependence on technolgy on our psyche! (eg. What is the effect of long term exposure to magnetic radiation through computer, mobile phone etc on our brain function, say on japa or meditation?)The pace of life is accelerating and every one would find it difficult to keep pace at some point. But what  will  we have  to go back to? Religion was the only permanent feature but today even that is changing- this is all I wish to point out. The Brahmin was the custodian of religion- especially in practice.But even he is changing. The changes he is making to his life style- both under the force of circumstances and on his own understanding and choice- render the practice of his traditional religion nearly impossible!