A Linguistic Dilemma: Of Language, Culture And Historical Influence

Today we are encouraged by these same Anglophile predecessors to hone and nurture and polish our English skills, yet we are simultaneously repeatedly reminded not to forget our mother tongue, which roots us in our formative years, instills a love for motherland, a sense of identity. Or at least, it should have, had it not been withheld from us to a great degree, even as toddlers.

Yet this bifurcation of thought and contradiction of mind is also a unique treasure, and in conjunction oppositorum, (unity in opposition) if you will. An accommodation, a rich synthesis of opposite thought processes that can only broaden the mindscape infinitely.

East can indeed meet the West, and the twain can overcome polarization, despite what the respected Mr. Kipling had famously penned. if we can properly assimilate the power tool that English is, in a worldly sense, as a labour of love, a treasure trove of rich experiential stimuli, rather than just a way to acquire money, status, and privilege. If we can do it without forgetting what should have been our primal instinct, our first love, the language of our ancestors and forefathers.

We are fast losing sight of a balance, that we must synthesize and assimilate ourselves, as parents, for the sake of our impressionable children. In chasing job security we inculcate a wealth-seeking mindset, that apes the West crudely, for no good reason, but false optics. We think we look good, but do we? We cannot genuinely, comfortably put up our sneakers-clad feet on our furniture, we cannot just toss away our old ways to fit an image or mold.  Opening our shoes at the door may bring a few condescending grins on the faces of the neo-westernized, but why let it faze us?

The famine of our minds is greater than that of our great grandparents who witnessed horrifying poverty, partition, and famine and rose from it to embrace, even cling to the English sense of honour and fair play, in their everyday lives, to justify earning their bread and butter from the British. Seeking honour, and receiving nothing more than an occasional condescending, if affectionate pat on the head. Then they watched how these self-same notions crumbled under the imperialism of colonial and empire-building objectives, how race and colour determined the judicious and convenient application of these defining values and principles.

My purpose is not to condemn, but expose the always unbalanced equation between conqueror and conquered. To discuss how the minds of the conquered subject race are both proud and craven, submissive and rebellious, noble and honourable, despite their need to stoop to conquer, to sacrifice some ambition for the daily compromise of coexistence. Which is not the same as peace and justice among equals.

So yes, my Bengali dreams would have been richer, and more poignant, if I had a chance to develop earlier usage, command, and fluency in my mother tongue, but I had learnt only their basic tools of communication. I am ill-qualified to reveal the pathos and angst, the affectionate heart of a section of humanity that throbs in my blood but appears only as a pale spectre in my dreams.

Perhaps even within this cage of limitations, it reveals itself fully in the brilliant minds of our age, who are far more fluent polyglots, greater cosmopolitans than I. But I am speaking for the average well-educated Joe/Jai or Jane/Jaya, who aspires to write here. All I wanted to do was write to her, for her, about her in Bengali. To make her proud. The ordinary self-effacing modest woman that my mother was. Ma, whose linguistic brilliance was clouded and suppressed by the early onset of illness, leading to near senility. And I did pen many pensive pieces, missing her, lamenting her demise. With a childlike despair at my limitations.

I am not confident in the exactitude of my Bengali expression, in the written form. I know what I want to say, with my heart pounding, and my blood beating against my veins, but as I pen the words, I know I did not nail it, nor come close to nailing the thought or feeling. The delivery is of a ten-year-old girl. Give or take five years. The age when she was the one I went to, for confidence, advice, and comfort in moments of heartache. And Mother was benevolent and noble in her dispensations, slightly detached and aloof, to teach me to take my tribulations lightly, often making me sit in front of our alcove of gods and goddesses and pray or meditate, or accompany her in singing a bhajan, a devotional hymn.

Comfort was never delivered physically in a hug or kiss or embrace, the way I do with my two boys, but there was spiritual sustenance, a silent show of grace and grit, bravery and renunciation under pressure. And if I laid my head down on her lap, she would run her fine veined fingers upon my forehead, and cool my feverish thoughts with her soft yet comforting strokes. Every trouble washed away in an instant, and her bent bangles with crooked safety pins adhering to them charmed bracelets of motherly protection. There is high-octane power in that protection, that comes from both closeness to mother, and intimate familiarity with one’s mother tongue.

When I realised that I was unable to voice the exact nuanced feelings the emotions evoked, it was another reason to be sad. To weep in shame. A second death of my sweet undemanding mother.

That is why when the boys were babies, I sat and learnt every Bengali lullaby that I could beg off from my parents’ live-in help or my own sweet village girl maid. I badgered every aunt and great-aunt for tales, stories, nursery rhymes, even doggerels, and of course our beloved Sukumar Ray’s Abol Tabol nonsense rhymes. I tried to steer my kids in my mother tongue’s cultural paradigms, side by side with their more frequent ingestion of Hollywood fare on Netflix and Amazon Prime.

If their superheroes are from Gotham and Krypton alone, I fear they will not be able to lift their weights to fly under the gravity of an Indian sun. Imperfect metaphor, I accept that, but it will have to do to express the urgent need to fall in love with what one has at hand, over what one perceives as greener grass on the other side.

I recall Ma only ever making one plea to us. Entreating us with tears in her eyes, when we binge-watched Hollywood movies, and sitcoms and listened almost exclusively to Western music… her eyebrows furrowed, her eyes gently remonstrating. All she said however was, “If you don’t use your matribhasha, (mother tongue), then it will die with you.” It was a neutral assessment, but it made an impact. Children are intrinsically fair and honourable beings. I had read this quote somewhere:  “Children are innocent and crave justice while adults are guilty and crave mercy.”  I was around thirteen. I decided to give what my mother asked, a try.

I watched a ton of Bengali movies, and liked all the ones by Satyajit Ray, (who was incidentally awarded an Oscar in the nineties, as he lay on his deathbed.) This actually supports my position. Real genius does shine brightly in any language, not losing its universal appeal and flavour, except what is lost in translation to a foreign audience. But should native speakers of a language lose its flavour in translation too, or write in it as if it were a foreign medium? Should we watch Satyajit Ray and get less or more out of his work than a foreign audience? It is my feeling we should get far more than we actually do. And some of us do, by the dint of their brilliance. But many of us are handicapped to approach even indigenous work as an outsider, a foreigner.

The Oscar ironically felt like a validation of his worth, and that should not have been the case. We can be proud of our local homegrown heroes for winning foreign plaudits of course, but had he received none, his work would still have been our privilege to read and watch, needing no authentication from the West. Global, especially Western recognition cannot be our measure of excellence, however, welcome it is for providing a work with a global platform and context. We crave Western recognition, a colonial hangover that shapes our mindset.

Watching feel-good Hollywood romantic comedies, (I had not yet graduated to dramedies), I remember complaining to Ma, “Why do they cry so much in Bengali movies?”