Let us be proud of our Mother Tongue

Dear Readers,

 this was the article which was published in daijiworld.com  on May 15th 2010.

A few years ago when I was in school, one of my far relatives got married in Mangalore. She was born and brought up in Dubai with her brother and had a good Konkani background. Later, her brother moved to USA and started working there.



Coming to the wedding part, well, I heard one of my relatives saying, the whole wedding was conducted in English and not even a single word of Konkani was used except during the raising of toast by her brother. The brother was appreciated for raising the toast in Konkani and being true to his Konkani upbringing. The guests were listening silently to what can be called as ‘pure Konkani’ without adulteration of angrezi words. I was just surprised and wanted to meet the man to hear him speak Konkani but never got an opportunity to meet.


I do remember reading an article on Konkani language by Anil D Souza in the month of March 2010 in daijiworld about the history and the present situation of Konkani. In his article he begins with a question “Hey kid do you speak Konkani?” and the answer goes this way “What? NO NO, My Grandparents used to”.


Well, adding to this I have to share a few experiences I have gone through with regard to our mother tongue Konkani. A few years ago, one of my relatives was sent to Mumbai and was studying in a convent school managed by nuns. After about a year of joining there, her cousin called her from Dubai to have a chat with her. When he was talking to her in Konkani, she continued the conversation in Queen’s language. Her cousin was taken aback by this sudden change as their conversation from childhood has always in Konkani. Unperturbed by this volte face this man continued and the conversation went on in Konglish (Konkani+English).

The shock treatment came finally when she said “brother if would be good if you could speak to me in English as I have forgotten Konkani”. My cousin is not the only one to exhibit such an attitude and repulsion towards Konkani. It is the common story among Konkani speaking people. When we go away from our homeland we behave or pretend to have forgotten our mother tongue. Many Catholics feel speaking in Konkani is a shame and an embarrassment whereas speaking in English elevates their status in the society. We care a damn to slap our mother tongue saying we have forgotten the language through which we were breathing, eating and drinking.

To cite another incident I got to visit a relative of mine few years back when I was in Bangalore. My aunt’s kids were of my age and some were quite elder to me and some younger as well. All had come down to Mangalore during Christmas holidays. As my mom asked me to pay a visit to them I went to visit them. Soon after entering their house I began to doubt whether I had entered the wrong house or my own aunt’s house. My doubts arose from the fact that no one in the house other than the old man spoke Konkani. I could not believe myself as just two years back when I was living in the same house none of them could speak proper English and suddenly within no time they decided to converse only in English as they were away from the town. Along with the children the mother too was conversing in broken English which really sounded weird and grotesque. When I was conversing with them in Konkani their response was in English as if the queen of London had asked them to speak only this language. As I continued speaking in Konkani I happened to ask one of my cousins whom I called dattu (brother) “dattu how come you guys don’t speak Konkani? His answer was disgusting to say the least. “Oh! Konkani! It is an old man’s langauge. By learning this language one is not benefitted in any way. So what is the point in speaking this language? We hardly understand and speak as we were away from Mangalore for 2 years and did not get a chance to converse in Konkani…”.


Gosh! I must say his reply surprised me and I felt like laughing. I kept wondering how people can forget their mother tongue within a short period of just 2 years. I felt saddened by their attitude and it kept bogging me down for many more days.


Many questions bubble up in my mind such as why are we shy to say “I know Konkani”? If we continue to behave this way what example do we teach our kids, and how does the next generation carry forward our language and our tradition? As Anil D'Souza has said in his article “we should learn a lesson or two from Keralites and Tamilians. Whenever two Keralites meet, they tend to speak mostly in Malayalam and when we Mangaloreans meet, we try to help each other by speaking in the QUEENS LANGAUAGE”

We, the present generation have to keep in mind that we should continue to speak this language and teach our kids also. There is nothing wrong in learning or knowing numerous languages. Let’s teach our kids our mother tongue along with other languages as well. Let them be proud of their mother tongue. I have seen a few cases where the older people in the house had no knowledge of English and their grand children raised outside Mangalore had no roots of Konkani at all. One can imagine the scenario when such grandparents and grandchildren meet. They cannot communicate with each other or express their feelings, their love or what they feel about. Even if they express their feelings they cannot understand what they say to each other. This actually builds a communication gap between the grandparents and grandchildren and the relationship tends to remain just so so. I think the parents of these children should try to be in the shoes of their parents to know their predicament when faced with such circumstances.
Let’s be proud of our Konkani language which has good heritage and history. Its one of the Indo Aryan languages, spoken in the Konkan region and the adjoining coastal areas of India like Konkan division of Maharashtra, Goa, Canara, i.e. coastal Karnataka and a few pockets in Kerala.

When we talk about the history, Konkani as a language, flourished in Goa. Konkani language was developed primarily in Gomantak, now Goa in the Konkan region. There are two theories regarding the origin of Konkani. One says that the Brahmins, who lived along the banks of the Saraswati River, must have migrated to Gomantak during the period when seismic activity in the Himalayas made the river run underground around 1900 BC. Their own dialect of Shauraseni Prakrit, over the time evolved into modern Konkani. Another theory states that Konkani is a Sanskritised version of a language spoken by the Kokna tribe and the Aryans who came to the Konkan picked up the language and added various Sanskrit words.

When we have such a wonderful heritage, instead of destroying it, let’s nourish it by taking individual responsibility just by talking to our kids and teaching them. Let’s be proud and say “Yes I know Konkani and I am a proud speaker of Konkani”. Let’s encourage people who want to do something for preserving Konkani culture. When we pat the back of those who have done a lot to the Konkani culture, we will also try to do something for it. In the mean time, a big thanks you to all the poets, writers and thinkers who have contributed to their might to keep the pennant of language and culture flying high.

Football, Egyptians and Stones

I am not a fan of sports though.. but still would like to say few words about the kind of craze people have.. Well, if you ask me, in India when the cricket matches going on, people would like to do nothing other than just watching it in front of the television. Well, I do used to watch cricket and loved doing it, when I was in school before completing 10 years. When there was match fixing by Indian cricket team, I took an oath not to watch this game anymore, and felt that we were wasting our time infront of the idiot box, doing nothing other than wasting time. Dad was the one who had put this seed in my mind as he was really pissed off with old Indian team, and as usual I was impressed with ma dad's ideology.
 Well, I really stopped watching cricket forever. May be the last time I watched was when I was working in Dell in 2007, 20:20 match which was the final one b/n India and Pakistan. It was one of the good matches I watched, felt worth watching it though watched at the end the game. It was fun watching with all ma colleagues in our cafeteria filled with over 5000 employees with lovely music around for every balls they used to hit..


Dad and Cricket:

As dad hated watching cricket after match fixing, he did not like anyone playing this game at all in our family. Especially, my younger brothers Jossy and Roshan. The moment dad used to see their cricket bats at home, he used to straight away burn them in the fire with strong warnings not to get them again. There were days I had seen ma brothers getting beatings for playing cricket. When Jossy flunked in 8th std, dad used to say “ Its just because of cricket”

Even today ma dad  keeps saying to the modern parents “ cricket ruins kids future” , though we know its not really true. But we have to nod our head and say “ yes” in front of him as he does not like anyone doing something against him.


Me and Football Match:

I am proud to say, am not a fan of Foot ball, but still I do remember wearing Football T shirts from Nike when I was working in Dell at the time of Football world cup 2007. We had placed 2 screens around and 6 Televisions at work place so that all could watch the match while people working. I just cant imagine how well Dell used to take measures to satisfy their employees. We all had celebrated the world cup 2007 no matter who have won the match. I have no idea who won it, but yes, do remember wearing the T shirts six days continuously of which represented different nationalities with different colors.

 Few days in Kuwait:


Well, recently about 2 to 3 months ago there were talks in my work place regarding the foot ball match. The only people who would talk there is just “ Egyptians”. We have a friend in our group who would always talk of Egyptian football team to pull mine and Tess’s legs and listen to our dialogues as he knows that we hate this topic to talk about. Well, there is a reason why me and Tess hate the Egyptian foot ball team. Well, about 2 months ago, when there was a match between Egyptian and Algerian team, Algerian team lost the game. At this point of time, Egyptian team hit the team members of Algerian team which became a big news in the media because of neusance activities of Egyptian team. Here in Kuwait, especially in my office, I could see most of the Egyptians for being so happy about the great deed of this team. It really made me to feel sick of this team.


Egyptians and Stones:


Sometimes it makes me to think what is the relationship between stones and Egyptians? I have heard many incidents over the news saying they have killed people by throwing stones. If you see in many incidents Egyptians love throwing stones on things.. After all they don’t have to pay money in picking the stones and throwing on things which are not theirs. Whose faher’s what goes mentality…


So let me continue with ma story of the Egyptians and Algerian Teams. Again on the next two days there was a match between Algerian and Egyptian teams. In this match Algerian made the way to win and they won the match. So Egyptians could not control their madness. Especially, the ones who are in Kuwait, who have to do nothing, other than spoiling the peace of other expatriates who are peacefully living here. They formed the mob and decided to throw the stones on Algerian embassy. As they were throwing the stones on Algerian embassy they found none coming out. So they could not think of what to do. They found Indian embassy which is next to Algerian embassy with full of people over there. Imagine, what these Egyptian jerks did? They started throwing stones on Indian embassy who did nothing to them. Could you imagine what a kind of nuts are these? Then I realized that these guys does not have brains instead onions. When you peel onions you get nothing at the end other than being blank. I think if the ratio of Egyptians were lesser here, Kuwait would have been really doing good in all possible sectors.


Whatever, now recently its about 2 days ago, when I was sleeping I could hear some wiered noise in my apartment. I was really terrified thinking what happened, and later realized that there was Foot ball match going on… so these nerds were screaming out of their life for winning.


Next day morning, I heard from Tess that there were police around her locality when these nerds were making noise around and disturbing civilians there. Police had to come and fire at the air in order to move them out of the place. When we were talking of this out of anxiety, our colleagues proudly said “this is Egyptian way of celebrating the happiness”.


I was so furious and felt like throwing ma anger on them by words that I had to take a sick leave on previous day because of their annoying noise around ma locality throughout night. But still shut my mouth thinking if I open ma mouth what’s the difference between me and them, and we Indians are always meant for patience and love. So, I just had nothing to say other than me and Tess smiling at each other “ NO WONDERS THESE ARE UNEDUCATED IDIOTS WHO HAVE ONLY ONIONS IN THEIR HEAD AND BORN TO SPOIL SURROUNDINGS AROUND”. My blood was really boiling out and had to close the doors of ma office in order to work peacefully without noise.