My Problems With Language

All right. There’s originals and there’s originals. And there’s the shameless Indian copies of the same. Songs, music pieces, movies, car chases from movies TV Shows, Reality Shows, and just about everything else. We, relinquishing the need to further our understanding and appreciation of our own Indian-ness, have even usurped the English language, and – to be fair to us, and to me, since I’m writin’ in it now – we have done a bloody good job of making it our own.

Such a dam’ good job that:
We are proud of flaunting it. We are proud of all our Booker nominees and winners and our Nobel Winners and our NY Times Bestseller list-making authors.

But, let’s face it, there’s some shockingly bad English out there that just jars my senses. Oh I know, I know, some will say I’m prejudiced, and others will smile, but this is serious.

If we want to woo firangs with English, let’s at least get it right!!!

I’m not talking about auto-drivers (curse that arrogant breed!) or waiters using bad language, or even incorrect grammar/English; I’m not talking about hippie wannabe software professionals and their faux accents. I’m talking BIG LEAGUE here.
Yes.
The Times of India.

F’r Chrissakes!!!! They bill themselves as the most widely read paper in the country (or was it Asia? The specifics escape my memory).

Read this article. Though the blood boils at the tales of the VIP Brats (I shall apply my immense intellect to that problem just a little while later), one thing catches the eye. One thing brings the bile to the throat, one thing jars.
This sentence:
“The car and the two bikes dashed sideways.”

DASHED sideways???? Who are you, O Writer??? A school-kid??? Dashed indeed! And this person starts off with high-falutin’ stuff about ‘kin of prominent personalities running amok’. Jesus.

Another sentence on a neighbouring article begins ‘Even as the shocked Deve Gowda’s clan…’ Plurals v/s apostrophes, anyone??? Singular noun followed by plural verb? Someone who sees that as proper English deserves flak on a Gargantuan scale. I would say nothing if my seven year old cousin did it, or even my classmate. But someone writing a headliner article for one of the world’s top newspapers??? I cannot let it go. And what happened to the World-Class editing? The Proof-readers???

Okay. Maybe these are isolated incidents (we’ll choose to forget such typos that occur everyday, thus exonerating all writers, proofreaders and editors, because it’s too stupid a duel to take up. We will never change. We will always show off and fall flat on our faces. Idiots, we are.)

And now, for the second situation:
This one is HUGE. This one is seriously embarrassing, because it occurs in a place that is supposed to wow all visitors, Indian and otherwise, a place of International importance and cultural relevance.

And it occurs so many times in just that one place that I, being Indian, wanted to run away and hide myself somewhere.

I was on a recent visit to Hyderabad when I happened to visit one of India’s most famous institutions, a place that people from all over the world come to see.
The Salar Jung Museum. The museum is brilliant, the arrangements and the lighting and the exhibits are all impeccable – well, as much as can be granted under the circs. But, the displays. The placards and the brochures that give information about each exhibit. Out of every ten displays, eight have typos, bad grammar, horrible mistakes with names and spellings, and basically, very bad English. Considering that the museum has THOUSANDS of exhibits (and I saw them all), this error count is no mean number.

Displays for such important exhibits as the Veiled Rebecca, the Paintings Gallery, the Indian Sculpture section and such are simply riddled with bad English. Add to this faults about names and places and people, and you get something that’s really embarrassing. This place is supposed to showcase our heritage and our cultural wealth. All it does is show what little care we take. I’m surprised that a museum that boasts collections from Europe and England and indeed, all over the world, takes such little care about what is said about itself on it’s own displays and brochures.

Alright, maybe I’m caring too much about what others will think of us, maybe I’m being too critical on my own nation. Maybe I shouldn’t be making such a big deal, but hey, I would do that same if it were in any other language, let me tell you. Kannada or Tamil or English. We raise so much hullabaloo if any other language is misused, why not this also??

I’m writing from a state that bans a movie because it considers the title offensive to a historical character (and that movie had nothing to do with that character at all, if anyone bothered to watch the first two minutes.)

A state that, to promote writers in its language, is sponsoring English translations of Kannada plays which are Kannada translations of English plays. (e.g. An English Version of P. Lankesh’s Kannada version of Tennessee Williams was on the books, I don’t know if it’s happening. An English adaptation of an English translation of a Kannada work happened a couple of days back – I’m serious: a Kannada play was translated to English which was then altered and adapted and then presented in English. True creativity.)

So I feel justified in saying that either we learn to do things properly, or we quit doing it at all.

Ever vitriolic,
I remain,
Yours truly,
K.