Indianizing India.

It is often believed that the greatest gift that the British Raj gave us is the English language. Without an urbane population which eats, drinks and sleeps English India would still be “lang”uishing somewhere alongside Chad and Rwanda. It is this love of the language that has seen India scale ladders of success in all known spheres, internationally.

Although we love the language, the thing we love to do even more is Indianize** it. Just like every other phoren maal we imbibe into our daily lives. ( The chowmein is nowhere as spicy or colourful in China! Next time you order Chinese home, remind yourself that it’s not technically Chinese rather Indianized Chinese ). It’s the same thing with English. While we spell like the British we speak like the Americans! And that gives rise to Indian English. (Have you noticed there is an option to select “Ïndian English” in MS-WORD) .

Speaking of Indianizing and language, while some of the folks are engaged in acquiring a stupid sounding fake accent, like some of the people I will be facing today in an open debate thing; some others sound like they are speaking English when they speak their mother tongue, which is not English! ( there is this one person I like who sometimes sounds like she is speaking English when she speaks Odia – although she denies it :P ).

If you were surprised at how I spelled Odia (Oriya), then I guess you are still unaware that Oriya will soon be Odia and Orissa will be Odisha. The Union cabinet has reached a consensus and forwarded it to the parliament. This comes fairly soon after we got used to Bengaluru (although I am still confused as to how it is pronounced). After Bombay was “Indianized” to Mumbai by the Shiv Sena Govt in 1995, this naming, or rather re-naming gimmick has been well recognized and brought into use as a political tool to invoke shallow patriotism and deep ballots.

I simply fail to understand what was wrong with Madras, Trivandrum, Cochin, Calicut and Pondicherry and what’s right with Chennai, Thiruvanantapuram, Kochi, Kozikode and Puducherry. I don’t care as long as they remain the one and the same for all intents and purposes. I just hope they don’t take it so far so fast that next time you want to book a flight home, you are left searching for your hometown on the destination list.

Later.