Some 60 years ago, when the British left India, they did not realize the blunder they had made during that time. They taught us English. I now wonder why Mr. Blair gets so upset about getting a sales call from Mr. Kumar in Bangalore. Afterall, Kumar spent a good part of his childhood education learning English so as to make a living by calling Mr. Blair. The British had created an elite class of English speakers during their rule in India to administer the empire. Even today in India, if you are good at making English jokes, you are a dude, otherwise a yarr (pal). However, over the last decade or two, there is another language that is flourishing, though out of frustration, among not-so-dude Indians. These youngsters, who have tried their best in life, but failed, to learn the nitty-gritties of English grammar, have created an indigenous English called Indlish.
Indlish varies across different regions in India based on the local language. In the north, it is Hinglish, a hybrid of Hindi (the local language) and English; in my home state, it is Punglish from Punjabi. The way ‘Indlish’ works is that when an Indian struggles to find the appropriate noun/verb/adjective to complete an English sentence, they finish it with an Indianized word. Sometimes, they use English words to complete sentences in their local language. However, it is now a common trend on college campuses to use such words.
Some words are quite common like ‘timepass’ (Kill time)or ‘timewaste’ (to not utilize time appropriately). I believe ‘tension’ is one of the most commonly used words by non-English speakers in India, like my grandmother who speaks Punglish, ‘Put tension hee te bimari di jaad hai’(tension is the root of diseases). However, there are some English words which she has had difficulty in pronouncing like inverter, a power backup system in India. She settled with an alternative in Punglish, hor-power (more-power). In India, you never address someone older than you by his/her first or last name or you could be badly scolded by somebody. It is considered very disrespectful. Every person who looks significantly older than you is called AuntyJi or UncleJi, where Ji is the most widely used suffix in North India. The Ji at the end signifies respect. If you are being extremely respectful to someone, you may call him/her SirJi/MadamJi.
In one of my courses during my first semester at Tech, a professor spoke, very fluently in a language similar to English; later on, a friend of mine told me that I was listening to the American English. I liked his style of teaching, cracking jokes in between the lecture to make it interactive. Because of his accent, I often missed the transition from his lecture to his joke, so lagged in laughing. Watching American movies (not porn) helps a lot in getting the hang of the American accent, but to my surprise, I found that even they have Americanized the Queen. There were many words, which I heard in movies and during my interaction with fellow Americans, I didn’t find in my Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. I believe it doesn’t matter if the Queen is in jeans or a sari (Indian woman’s dress). English is now the world’s local language. According to Stefan Bergman- it is the bestest.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Batch Year or Batch Number?
Whenever someone asked me which batch I belonged to for my bachelor’s degree, I had trouble answering because I used to think the year of admission was my batch year. After some enquiry, I found it to be the year of graduation. Now that I know, I wouldn’t have to be embarrassed again after my master’s in the U.S.
In India, it is a very popular notion that the U.S. institutions are the best in the world, and that a degree from a good U.S. university means plenty of opportunities ahead. No doubt about it; even I have found it to be quite true. But there are some very disappointing facts about the American education system which no one told me before. I had been very interested in knowing the history of education especially about the US education. Fortunately or unfortunately, I was introduced indirectly by a professor of mine to the work of Ivan Illich, John Holt, John Taylor Ghatto and few others names in American education reform movement.
The first disturbing thing I found was the fact that the present school model had been taken from the factory model of the industrial revolution in the 20th century, eliminating the earlier school house model where children learned from peers of different ages and where the teacher could cater material to individual needs. In a factory model, a teacher is seen as a worker and a student is seen as a product to be manufactured. Each year is like an assembly line sequence, passing from one class to next. Those students who don’t make it as finished products are called “drop outs.” Still skeptical about these radical views, I wanted to know if there were people in the 21st century who agreed with what I had read.
To my surprise, one of the well known names in the field of management (also education), Clayton Christensen, has reinforced the same point in his book ‘Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns.’ Daniel H. Pink in his book ‘A Whole New Mind’ describes the crises in education. Others have directly or indirectly hinted at the same underlying factory model. I was not prepared to digest all this, after all, I have grown up believing that good school education means a good job which means a good life, and if you are lucky enough, it could also mean a good wife.
Remembering my school days, spending 6-7 hours in the classroom, listening most of the time, writing important notes that could help me get an ‘A’ in the exam and in turn, earn respect among fellow students and praise from teachers. A single letter at the end of the year framed the perception of me in the eyes of my parents, friends, teachers and all those people who knew me. Things are not different here. After all, there is something wrong at the core. Though it sounds radical, it is not inaccurate.
During the career fair, everyone is busy researching the companies, practicing their interview skills, reviewing resumes. Even I had been waiting for this day. While working on my resume, one thing made me ponder for a while – the year of graduation. Does it represent a batch year or a batch number?
My Article in the Michigan Tech Lode
Link:http://www.mtulode.com/feature/2010/10/07/culture-shock-6-2/
In India, it is a very popular notion that the U.S. institutions are the best in the world, and that a degree from a good U.S. university means plenty of opportunities ahead. No doubt about it; even I have found it to be quite true. But there are some very disappointing facts about the American education system which no one told me before. I had been very interested in knowing the history of education especially about the US education. Fortunately or unfortunately, I was introduced indirectly by a professor of mine to the work of Ivan Illich, John Holt, John Taylor Ghatto and few others names in American education reform movement.
The first disturbing thing I found was the fact that the present school model had been taken from the factory model of the industrial revolution in the 20th century, eliminating the earlier school house model where children learned from peers of different ages and where the teacher could cater material to individual needs. In a factory model, a teacher is seen as a worker and a student is seen as a product to be manufactured. Each year is like an assembly line sequence, passing from one class to next. Those students who don’t make it as finished products are called “drop outs.” Still skeptical about these radical views, I wanted to know if there were people in the 21st century who agreed with what I had read.
To my surprise, one of the well known names in the field of management (also education), Clayton Christensen, has reinforced the same point in his book ‘Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns.’ Daniel H. Pink in his book ‘A Whole New Mind’ describes the crises in education. Others have directly or indirectly hinted at the same underlying factory model. I was not prepared to digest all this, after all, I have grown up believing that good school education means a good job which means a good life, and if you are lucky enough, it could also mean a good wife.
Remembering my school days, spending 6-7 hours in the classroom, listening most of the time, writing important notes that could help me get an ‘A’ in the exam and in turn, earn respect among fellow students and praise from teachers. A single letter at the end of the year framed the perception of me in the eyes of my parents, friends, teachers and all those people who knew me. Things are not different here. After all, there is something wrong at the core. Though it sounds radical, it is not inaccurate.
During the career fair, everyone is busy researching the companies, practicing their interview skills, reviewing resumes. Even I had been waiting for this day. While working on my resume, one thing made me ponder for a while – the year of graduation. Does it represent a batch year or a batch number?
My Article in the Michigan Tech Lode
Link:http://www.mtulode.com/feature/2010/10/07/culture-shock-6-2/
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