the English language.
I cannot think of anything that is more painful for those who struggle with the English language - to speak it and to understand it. And this is only the verbal-aural aspect. The reading and understanding of written English is another story.
Yesterday, I was on the phone for almost three hours with the customer care executives of a company. My USB modem was not working, and these three youngsters, two boys and a girl were taking me through the steps trying to get it going. The girl and one of the boys, battling and struggling with English, got their instructions across. I was touched and impressed at their perseverance, and though I used some Hindi, hoping to get them to switch languages, they steadfastly battled on in English. The second boy, poor chap, was totally out of his depth - he didn't know whether to put on his faux-Yank accent, or just talk somehow-anyhow, and in the process got so entangled that not a word was legible. Though I requested him to please talk in Hindi, he refused to do so. Finally, I'm ashamed to say, I got thoroughly rattled because, neither was the problem getting solved, nor was I getting what he was saying. I knew he was struggling, but I was running out of time. I finally got him to register my complaint and get a technician to come home. However, I have sworn to myself that this will not happen again, especially when I fully understand what is happening.
The same thing with the technician - a very bright young lad who knew exactly what to do, and fixed the problem fixed very confidently. A Bengali lad with a smattering of Hindi and hardly any English, it was a joke the way we were communicating... .Once again - the English language stood like a demoniacal sceptre....The technician would have been brilliant had he been allowed to work & talk in his mother tongue. He, like all of us, would somehow have been able to manage Hindi, which is becoming increasingly a common language (except in the South). But English......!!!!!
This one thing - the English language - is what is finally going to prevent us from taking our place on the world stage. If our kids and young adults have to speak English so that it can be comprehended, they have to be taught the language as a skill. HAVE TO. Whether the school is an English medium one, or a vernacular one, or whether the background is a westernized one or a traditional Indian one.....English has to be taught as a foreign language and as a skill. It is a tool that we have to learn to use.
And believe me, once we have that tool, there will be no stopping us. But till then.......????