Language, Identity & Intellect – Finding Connections Where None Exist?

Hi guys!

So today I wanna talk about language – and the things we consciously or subconsciously associate with that uniquely human mode of communication. Language is human, because no other species on Earth, as far as our knowledge is concerned, have or use languages. The writing, reading and speaking of thoughts in the form of words and syllables is a uniquely human phenomenon.

So is language something we get by virtue of being human – like a gift or a prize? Or is it, in fact, a condition for humanity itself? A part of what makes us human?

Or are all these questions a pointless waste of time, finding symbolism and deeper meanings where none exist?

I was born and raised in India, having spent most of my life in the city of Kolkata, to be precise. So I’m going to draw mostly on my experiences from this background, as those are the only experiences I have to draw on. I don’t know if what I’m about to say holds true for the rest of the world, perhaps it does not, but bear with me anyway. ‘Cause this is not so much a discussion on one particular country or culture, but rather a dissection of human response to our ideas of country and culture.

So just for a little background here, for those of you who might not be so familiar with this matter, India is basically a country made out of multiple regions or provinces, each of which have their own language, customs, clothing, etc. It’s basically a tropical Europe, with one constitution. Each state of India has a state language, the whole country has Hindi for its national language (as that is the Mother tongue of most people residing here), and English is just that awkward houseguest that was originally supposed to be a temporary visitor, but ended up just hanging on through it all anyway. The reason it did that, among other things, was because India just has so many languages that nobody could really agree on which of the native languages should reign supreme over the others. After all, nobody likes being considered second-best. So English it was then, the awkward foreigner nobody thought to compete with in the first place, and that’s where we are now!

How many languages you learn as a resident of India, depends not so much on your talent or interest in linguistics as on where and to whom you were born in the country. Now suppose you were born in a Hindi-speaking state to native, Hindi-speaking parents. Well, lucky you! The only languages you need to learn are Hindi – the national language that also doubles as your mother tongue – and English, the international language you’ll probably need to read articles on the internet.

Now suppose you’re like me. You live in a non-Hindi speaking state, with non Hindi speaking parents native to that state. Like I live in the capital of Bengal, and happen to have been born to Bengali parents. Well, things aren’t so bad then. You just compulsorily have to learn three languages – Hindi, the national language; English the international one and whatever your state language happens to be, which also doubles as your mother tongue. Hurray!! The same goes for native Hindi-speakers living in non-Hindi speaking states, as their mother-tongue also moonlights as the national language; they’ve already got that one covered.

Don’t get too happy yet, though. What happens if your parents are non-Hindi speakers, living in a state that is not their native one and also not a Hindi-speaking state?

Well, my friend. To put it simply, you’re fucked. Now you have to learn the international language, the national language, the state language and your mother tongue, all by the time you’re five years old. Because if you can’t manage that? You’re either an idiot or a self-hating traitor, or wait for it – BOTH!

And if you value your own sanity you better pray to God that your parents didn’t get adventurous and marry outside their own linguistic community because then, why even bother? You might just as well denounce society and walk off into the Sahara desert already.

But what happens if you just learn the one (or maybe two) languages you like the best and leave it at that, you might ask? Why not learn just the ones you actually need to use in your day-to-day life?

Well, that’s what this discussion is all about.

Because apparently, if you can’t speak, write and read English like a pro, you’re just a village idiot with no brains and no future. It doesn’t matter if you’re a doctor treating poor, sick people in remote areas of the country who’d never have to utter a syllable of English in his entire life if he doesn’t want to. Don’t know English? Yep, an absolute moron.

But let’s say you can speak beautiful English, and just that. Let’s say your parents were diplomats travelling the globe and you never had occasion to learn multiple languages you’d never have to use anyway. Or maybe you’ve spent your entire life in the more remote parts of one of the aforementioned non-Hindi speaking states, and never had occasion or reason to learn the national language. Don’t know Hindi? How dare you call yourself an Indian?! You’re obviously ashamed of your own country’s rich heritage, which apparently includes mandatory knowledge of a language half the population doesn’t speak. You’re a self-hating pseudo-American loser, and that’s that!

Alright then! Hindi and English it is. You’ve learnt both. Can we have some peace now? Well, apparently not. Because how dare you focus on the national and international languages without paying equal attention to your own mother tongue? Never mind that you live in a place where nobody but your dad speaks that tongue. How dare you?!! Arrogant, self-hating, insecure traitor of a ten-year-old, you!!

Okay okay we get it! We’ll learn all three. Happy now?

Nopety nope! Not so fast, buddy.

What about the state-language? You know, the language of that state you’re only living in because your parents have been transferred there for a couple of years, the one you’ll be out of in a little over 700 days and never have occasion to speak the language of again? Yep, if you wanna go to school there, you gotta learn that. Even though everyone in that state already knows at least one of the other languages that you speak, so there’s no communication gap during your short stay to speak of, and once you’re out of that state you’ll never ever need to speak that language again anyway. But not only do you need to learn how to speak it, you also need to learn how to fluently read and write it too. Many states have made it mandatory for schools within their borders to teach their own language to all students enrolled therein, regardless of the preferences or necessities of the students themselves.

Lucky you. Or not.

So why exactly do we as a nation have such a schizophrenic attitude towards languages? What is it that we really even want?

I am not saying that learning new and diverse languages is a bad thing. Quite the opposite, actually. Honestly, to me, there’s nothing cooler than a person who can speak, read and write multiple languages fluently. And there are some children that have a natural facility for learning languages. Who could pick up new languages lightening fast, and I do think that that is an incredible skill to have. My father and grandfather, for example, could read, write and speak in over three languages with equal (and amazing) fluency. That was never a problem for them.

But the thing is, learning multiple languages should be a choice, a hobby that you enjoy and not a necessity, where the inability to do so marks you as a social pariah. Not everyone has the time or even the desire to spend all their time and energy learning the intricacies of four different languages. And the thing is, they shouldn’t have to.

English is just a language, a foreign one at that. It is not, and should not be thought of, as a parameter of anybody’s intelligence or ability. Not knowing Hindi does not make you a traitor, it just means you’ve never lived in the Hindi belt and consequently never had occasion to learn the language with any fluency. If someday you do, maybe you will. And not being a fluent maestro of whatever language happens to be your mother tongue does not make you a self-hating pseudo anything. It just means your family has lived away from their original place of residence for so long that the original language has become irrelevant in your social context. A language is just a string of sounds used to communicate thoughts – a string of sounds the meaning of which nobody else around you can understand is by definition obsolete.

Assigning emotional, cultural and nationalistic significance to a tool (and ultimately, that is all language really is. A tool to facilitate communication) is an exercise in futility, not to mention a breeding ground for identity crises. Which languages you can speak is not a signifier of your loyalties, but simply the natural consequence of your day-to-day necessities. The sooner we as a nation understand this, the less tormented our future generations will be. 
Language should be a fun game, not a terrifying punishment.

Of Romance – the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

Disclaimer and Warning: Hardcore Twihards proceed with caution. The following article contains a fair amount of criticism of that series, so read at yer own risk!!

Hi there my lovely readers!! Hope you’re all doing well.

So I wanna talk about something particular today; something that might seem a bit cliché, but then again, we have clichés for a reason. Namely, because some things are just so all-pervasive in life that you simply cannot escape them, no matter how hard you try.

So today’s topic will be Romance – fictional romance, to be precise – romantic relationships as portrayed in various works of fiction including but not limited to TV, books, movies etc.

Now a little disclaimer here; I have to admit that I am not exactly the biggest fan of romance, or at least of certain kinds of romance, when it comes to the world of fiction. At first I thought that perhaps romance just wasn’t my cup of tea to begin with, perhaps I just wasn’t destined to enjoy the hearts and the butterflies in the lives of my beloved fictional characters.

As I’ve gotten older (though not particularly wiser, I daresay), however, I have slowly come to realise that that is not necessarily the case. While I am still not (and perhaps never will be) the biggest reader (or watcher) of romance, I have come to the conclusion that I actually quite enjoy certain kinds of romance.

The book that first made me realise this was, perhaps fittingly, Jane Austen’s ‘Pride & Prejudice’. It wasn’t a book I would have ever picked up of my own volition, but it had been a part of my college syllabus last year, and seeing as I already owned a copy – a birthday gift from years ago that I had never yet attempted to read – I figured I might as well give it a try.

And boy was I thankful that I did!

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Pride & Prejudice has earned its rightful place on my list of Top 5 Favourite Books in the History of Ever!

I loved the characters, the plot, the atmosphere of late 18^th century England. There was literally nothing about that book that I didn’t absolutely adore!!

But wait a second, how could that possibly be?!
’Cause unless I’m terribly mistaken, P&P is hardcore romance, is it not?

Elizabeth and Darcy are the epitome of a perfect romantic pairing – the odd couple that could not be more different from each other and hate each other on sight, but are slowly brought together over a series of misunderstandings and confrontations until they finally come to love and understand each other more than anyone else ever could – it is the cliché-est of all cliché romantic tropes when you come to think about it.

So how come I did not hate Pride & Prejudice? Hell, how on earth did I end up loving it more than life itself?! That doesn’t seem right.

Hmmm...

My Romantic Pet Peeves

This odd realisation made me rethink some of my own prejudices about the romantic genre, and come to certain surprising (or maybe not-so-surprising) conclusions.

As I looked back upon some of my favourite books of all time, I realised that quite a few of them are either outright romances, or have significant romantic subplots. These include but are not limited to – Little Women, Emma, Good Wives, The Count of Monte Cristo, Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, etc. Plus I happen to love fanfic, which let’s just admit is nothing if not a self-indulgent exercise in drowning in the feels!

So quite obviously, it could not be that I hate romance in general. Rather, it is certain very common sub-tropes of the romantic genre that I seem to dislike. Here are a few of the same that I have been able to identify so far...

1.     INSTA-LOVE:

Well, I don’t think this at least comes as much of a surprise to anyone. Most people don’t like insta-love. For those non-nerdy souls who don’t know what the term means, here’s what Urban Dictionary has to say about the matter –

When someone who just met you thinks that you are their soul mate and they want to spend the rest of their lives with you and have kids with you. Usually you don’t feel that same about them.

Insta-love in fiction manifests itself in the form of a hero and a heroine who meet each other, and from that moment onwards seem quite unable to take their eyes off each other for more than half a second. This is annoying for several reasons, the main one being – how the fuck do you even know the dude (or dudette) you are so enamoured by is not actually an escaped serial killer?!

Insta-love poses a terrible existential problem to my mind. How can you truly love a person you don’t even understand?

Perhaps there are people out there who get it, I sure don’t. I mean sure, you fall in love with a person and he eventually turns out to be a great guy (forgive the gender bias here but I am a girl and it’s hard to maintain linguistic balance while ranting), which is usually how it turns out in books, and that’s all well and good. But how on earth did the protagonist know for sure, from the first moment they met their SO, that this would actually be the case? Edward Cullen could well have been a psychotic mass-murdering vampire all the while Bella was obsessing over him from afar.

And while I am profoundly grateful that he wasn’t, the point is that he easily could have been, and Bella would still have been obsessed with him, because she had no way of knowing anything about him or his personality when she fell for him head over heels!

I mean I realise that people do have obsessions, romantic and otherwise, but to present that as a desirable ideal of a loving relationship seems quite a bit silly to me. Call me a heartless robot, but when you see a pale-as-fuck vampirish dude who keeps to himself and talks to no-one outside of his tiny coterie, maybe exercise some semblance of caution before launching yourself into a whirl-wind romance with your potential loving blood-sucker.

Which brings me straight to my next romantic pet-peeve –

2.     OBSESSION:

Many people don’t seem to realise this, but there is a fine distinction between loving someone and being mindlessly obsessed with them.

As an illustration of this point let me present to you the differences in the depiction of love in the aforementioned books – PRIDE AND PREJUDICE and TWILIGHT.

In P&P, you can trace with an unerring finger the development of the relationship between the two MCs. Elizabeth dislikes Darcy when she first meets him, and it is not a random emotion she feels for no good reason. She overhears him arrogantly dismissing her as a dancing partner at the ball, and while this might seem like a trivial offence, her reaction is appropriately nonchalant. She finds it annoying, because let’s be honest here, who wouldn’t? No girl wants to be told she ain’t pretty. But it’s just that, a minor irritation. She then goes on to discover the (untrue) fact that Darcy had cruelly defrauded the son of his father’s faithful valet (or was it butler? I forget). Following which she learns that Darcy had played a significant role in breaking up her sister Jane’s relationship with Mr. Bingley. At this point she has several very good reasons to hate the man, and she does. With quite the burning passion.

Things take a turn for the better with Darcy writing her the letter of explanation and apology, in which he explains to her Wickham’s elaborate deception of them both and the real reason that Wickham now lived a life of penury. She then goes to Pemberley where she meets Darcy’s housekeeper and the other workers at his estate, who all agree that he is a kind and beneficent master. Finally Darcy helps Elizabeth to find her missing sister and recover her family’s honour, at a personal cost of having to once again confront the man who had once caused him so much pain.

After all this, one can understand perfectly why our heroine would want to marry such an altruistic and kind hero. (That he has a huge-ass mansion doesn’t hurt any!)

Because Darcy, despite all his broodiness, is indeed just that – a hero.

And while Edward also turns out to be quite the nice guy over the course of the series, Bella had no way of knowing that when she got swept off her feet by his ethereal ghostliness. At the beginning of the first book, Edward is rude, secretive, insensitive and an obsessive loner who talks to none of his classmates. And Bella falls for him anyway.

Why? Well, from what it looked like, she got obsessed with the pale glory of his potentially sparkly skin at first sight! It is not that Edward Cullen had no lovable qualities – he was kind, altruistic, protective and very loyal to his adoptive family. And I would be completely on board with this relationship if only Bella had waited until she actually got to know of any of these qualities before she started throwing herself at him. But at least as far as the book went, she didn’t seem to love him for the man he was, but for the prettiness of his vampiric face. And that, I just can’t be down with!

Because that, my friends, is not love, it is obsession (and of a very unhealthy variety at that).

3.     OVER-THE-TOP ANGST:

Now don’t get me wrong, people – I happen to be a sucker for well-written angst! And there are some situations wherein the angst is to be expected.

When your Godfather just got killed by the psychotic follower of an evil overlord, angsty you will be, and rightfully so. When you are being subconsciously manipulated into being the tool of said evil overlord through his black-magicky diary while a murderous snake goes on a rampage throughout your school, again, the angst is perfectly justified. Torture by Government, particularly the variety portrayed in THG, is also a perfectly valid excuse for feelings of overwhelming despair.

You know what isn’t?

Going on a suicidal rampage of angsty melodrama ’cause a boy you met less than a year ago has moved out of town, which is exactly what Bella did in the second book of the Twilight Saga, ‘New Moon’, which I was unable to finish despite concerted efforts to recover the ₹300 I had spent on its purchase at the urging of a close friend from school. I mean I understand being sad that you won’t be seeing your crush again anytime soon, but jumping off cliffs and trying your best to become road-kill? Really, woman?!

If your life loses all meaning because ONE person, whom you didn’t even know a year ago, has left you, then it never had any meaning in the first place. You might as well never have lived, never formed any other bonds or relationships, never had any other memories.

If losing one person, a person who wasn’t even a part of your life for the majority of your existence on this planet, makes you want to kill yourself, makes you want to throw away every other relationship you ever had, then why the fuck were you even alive for this long anyway?

Stories that go over-the-top with the angst just end up making their characters seem whiny and pathetic.  And nobody likes a tale revolving around head-ache inducing protagonists.

There is a fine line between drama and melodrama, and romance, unfortunately, is the genre most guilty of waltzing back and forth between the two sides with little regard for believability or even aesthetic appeal. An emotion too overtly stressed eventually loses its value.

So, what are some of your greatest pet-peeves in the genre of romance, or any other fictional genre, for that matter?! Let me know in the comments below.

––– Buh-byeee!!!

A Beginner's Guide to the Incomprehensible Mess that is My Brain.

I wanted a blog.

Why, you ask? Well, to be perfectly honest with you, I haven’t the faintest. For the longest time, I have tried to keep a diary. As an English major, everyone told me it was the thing to do.

“Write about your day. Express your deepest thoughts. Pen down your secrets, pour your friggin’ heart out!”

You get the general idea...

The fact of the matter is, embarrassing as it is to admit this, my thoughts aren’t usually all that deep, I don’t have that fantastic of a heart, certainly nothing to write home about; and honestly, in my view, if you really want something kept a secret, for the love of God keep your trap shut about it and don’t write it down on a piece of paper anyone and everyone can read if they felt like it! Like seriously, how hard of a concept is that to grasp? If you effing write something down in vivid detail, on white paper with black ink and all that jazz, at some point somebody’s gonna wanna read it. And then, there goes your secret, right down the drain, don’t it? And if you still must do it, at least have the sense to write it in some fancy indecipherable code that only Alan Turing can break, like the one the Germans came up with in The Imitation Game and excuse me a moment while I cry ok done.

All that being said and done, you might now want to ask me:
“But my dear woman, why on Earth do you wanna write an effing blog, seeing as you seem to have nothing to write about?!”

And the tragedy of it all is that, I really couldn’t tell you. Apart from the fact that maybe I am one of those sorry souls put on this Earth for the express purpose of forever starting projects I am never going to finish. And blog-writing being one of those rare activities in the world that a) costs no money, and b) has no mandatory finish-line, it gives this poor, procrastinating college student something to do with her limitless free time that wouldn’t make her feel terribly guilty about it when she finally succumbs to laziness and doesn’t touch pen to paper for weeks on end. Well, that’s my current excuse anyway. Mostly I am just a very random sort of person with profoundly random ideas that never ultimately lead anywhere and best case scenario – this is another one of my wild goose chases in search of something worthwhile to do with my life that will at least be fun while it lasts. 

Huh, note to self: Write shorter sentences! Ain’t nobody’s got the time to read your long-ass epic rants of random nothingness.

Well anyway, back to the topic at hand. 

Seeing as I have nothing in particular to talk about, I’m just gonna talk about a bit of everything, and a lot of nothing that crosses my mind.

Why should you bother to read it?

Well, again, the sad fact of the matter is that I haven’t the faintest. Honestly? I probably wouldn’t if I were you. But that’s mostly because I know me, and I don’t trust me not to churn out random whirlwinds of epic weirdness followed by eerie silences, end-pause-repeat until I find something shinier to occupy my magnificently uncooperative brain.

But until then, my poor, internet-addicted souls, you are stuck with me. And since you are, you know, you might as well enjoy this bumpy ride while you’re at it. ’Cuz sooner or later, you’re gonna fall off the vehicle and break your spine; or I’ll drive the thing into a bottomless ravine of incomprehensible weirdness. Whichever comes first.

So say your prayers, adjust your seat-belts, and prepare to be exasperated!

Fair warning: I have it from reliable sources that I am a profoundly exasperating individual. 
Can’t say I didn’t warn ya now, can you?

All set? Great!

Let It Rip!!!

(Random Beyblade reference. Don’t ask me why. Just...don’t!)