The reasons for this repentance are quite obvious and many of the hindi medium ( OR Non english medium) educated people would agree with it.
Let me narrate a small incident which can support my views.
It is an incident when I was in class 11. Our teacher asked a question to the class in the middle of an ongoing english period . " Can any one tell me a one word substitute for a person who don't take alcohol" ?
One boy raised his hand and replied, Sir!, it's "Teetotaler".
In response, teacher did not say anything and requested the boy to sit down.
I had no clue about the answer but the sort of humble order to my classmate to be seated, and his confident reply, compelled me to guess he was right. and in an envy for my classmate's quick reply i muttered to myself, "what a damn intello, studious person. he must be getting up at 5 am to remember all these tough words."
To be precise the reply from my classmate was: Teeto - taler. ( really damn tough to remember all these english words. isn't it? )
Few days later, i myself searched the meaning of "Teeto-taler" in dictionary( not worth to mention i had english to hindi dictionary, as i never had confidence to use a eng-to eng dictionary). What did surprize me was that the word actually was not "Teeto-taler" rather it was "Tee-Totaler". and really not tough to remember. as it says if a person who doesn't drink alcohol is called as teetolater; tee- totaler. so simple to memorise and making sense as well. In my lucid way of understanding, if one dont drink alcohol, one must be fond of totally of Tea ( Prounced similar to tee)- a non alcoholic drink.
But for sure it made me to chuckle the way my classmate replied that day. How easily he misunderstood Tee-totaler to be Teeto-taler and how much tough he made the word to remember in general. Simultaneously, it really scared me the way we, hindi medium students, were putting our sincere efforts in a wrong way and that too without having any idea about this wrong way. May be because we were completely relying on the education system and were grasping with full concentration what ever was coming our way.
The point i want to highlight here is that most( if not all) of the hindi medium educated students in spite of doing a hard work in geting a command over english,suffer to develop a flavor for it. Their efforts are less effective to enhance their english communications. Though one can do mastery in the topic thru regular practice, reading english news paper/books etc, the LOSS (of missing the english grip) incurred in those basic years of schooling is hard to get back over years. I have witnessed many example where such people though had been profound knowledge of their subjects, could not get thru a interview because of their lack of confidance in english speaking.
One can't deny the need of effective communication in english in today's scenario. Now a days any high paid job require atleast an MBA (for e.g.). And MBA is another synonyms of commanding english. Without going in much detailed argument that why India cant develop its own language driven technology (though Japan or China had been successful in this regard), I feel no hesitation to say, our education system should be changed. And the most feasible solution can be to improve education system of Non english medium schools in a manner where they should create a plateform for students to enhance their english skills. 10-12 years of strong foundation is required to mastery english. No doubt, once again, english is more important than any other subject today.
And believe me, I am not prosecuting or canvassing for english. I am just putting my views over a basic flaw in hindi medium education system. With due regard, i still love my mother tongue, but do support to acknowledge the importance of english to get a better life style. Had I have any other alternative in my views, i would have discussed that before putting a direct support for a foreign language.
Regards,
saurabh
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