Do you know English?

December 22 2010

Why do I have (a)  bad English?
Every time I type a blog post, I always try my level best to avoid grammatical glitches and spelling mistakes. But I always end up making at least one error in every post. I don't know whom to blame? Should I blame my school? Should I blame my English teachers? Should I blame my folks? or should I blame my own laziness? I did my entire schooling in a place called Pollachi. I studied in six schools in my life .

Kindergarten to class 4 - Arokia Matha Primary School
English was an enforced language in that school. Our standard of English never improved. In fact, it got bad because even the teachers were not comfortable with the English language. I don't want to sound like a racist here. Still our English during those days sounded like the Chinese speaking English.The following are some of the conversations that my friends and I have had with our class teachers.

Miss, Gayathri was stole my rubber ( The usage of "was" to denote a past event was used by us and our teachers never corrected us) {Note:Rubber is the Indian English for eraser}
Miss, Can I go bathroom? ( I am sure that many of my readers have the habit of first call in the bathroom.) The word toilet was not much used in my school
Miss, I winned ( I have won)
The only solace for me was that we used to converse in English at home. But my sister Viji Akka had a good grasp of the English language. She used to correct me every time and hence I would often resort to speaking in Tamil at home. But still the sitcoms helped me to stay in touch with English. Invisible Man, Oshin, Street Hwak were some of my favorite programs on TV.

Class 5 to Class 9 - Scott Viswadeepthi Higher Secondary School
The first English medium school in Pollachi. It was started by Christian missionaries centuries ago. English was an alien language in this school. The yearly tuition fee was Rs.25. I was introduced to Tamil Golden words in this school. Speaking in English was considered a crime by every student who attended this school. Hence I never had an opportunity to converse in English.The teachers were very good. Yet the students were not up to the mark.

But again, the conversations at home helped me to stay in decent touch with the language.. My sister's vocabulary was in a huge margin and I failed to understand 90 % of the English words that she used.
When my parents found that their enforced method was not effective, they made it compulsory for me to read the "HINDU" newspaper everyday. I would spend time on the cinema column. It never worked for me. I had love for films; but I hated English very much. Little did I realize that the parents of my classmates from my previous school also had similar ideas. A bunch of guys from AMS School landed up in Viswadeepthi Higher Secondary School and we were so comfortable talking in Tamil.

Class 12 - Vidya Vinaya Vinodha School, Chennai.
Soon I figured out that Vidya Vinaya Vinodha School was in fact worser than my previous school. The students of this school were from the families of upper middle class homes , NRIs and VIPs in Chennai. Hence English came very naturally to most of them. But unfortunately, there were lost sheep like me too.

Most of the students were really good. Still the teachers were an utter failure. Jayanthi miss was the best example for this. The British Government should erect a statue for her for his noble deeds in English. She is still surviving as a teacher in the school. A present day student of that school took pains to scribble down Jayanthi miss's golden words in a piece of paper.

My English started improving only after I started writing. I also realized that even if one has a good grasp of the English language but still falls short of ideas and content, he/ she doesn't make a good writer. If only I had stayed inside my comfort zone developing an inferiority complex because of my bad English, I would have never started this blog in the first place.

I would like to thank my dear friend Sruthi, who takes time to constructively correct my English. There have been many such good souls who have helped me in my blog journey. I sincerely thank all you guys. This post doesn't answer the question, "Why do I have a bad English?". But still you would have sensed the take away pointers from this post, if you understood what I am actually talking about.

Do you think that you are not worth it? Did any one say to you that are a loser? If you are in such a position, I have a story for you

Once a farmer found an abandoned eagle nest and a warm eagle egg inside it. He took it to his farm & laid it in the nest of one of his hens.The egg hatched and the eagle grew up along with the chickens and spent its entire life in the farm with the chickens. It rarely looked up. When it was very old, one day it lifted up its head and saw above it a wonderful sight - an eagle soaring high above in the sky. Looking at it, the old creature sighed and said to itself,"If only I'd been born an eagle".

Many of us are like the eagle. We often curb our capabilities and slumber within our comfort level. We seldom come out of our shell and exhibit our full potential.

We might have attempted and failed in achieving our goal in life. If we see some one attempting the same thing, we often discourage them based on our experiences.

We all have an eagle within us. Do we realize that? or Are we still chickened to acknowledge that?