The younger brother I never had

The lump in my throat when I shared this news with my wife surprised me. When a classmate asked me how well I knew him, to which I told him that I knew him more in the last 5/6 months and knew him socially since the last 5/6 years; this was his turn to get surprised.

My degree of grief defied the conventional logic of proportion.

His passing away didn’t take me by surprise. Since morning I was dreading to face this news and by noon it was all over and by early evening, I was seeing his mortal remains a few minutes before it was about to be consigned to flames. With tears welling up and lumps in my throat I chose to leave the place. At this same place, I had bade farewell to many of my dear ones in close succession in the last few years.

Who was Smarajit? And what was he to me? And why was I reacting like this?

If my memory serves me right, we bumped into each other at a pre-Holi party organized by his doctor friends. That was 2015/16. A friend took me there to escape from another boring party. Joining a party uninvited isn't new to men and my hosts were at ease in minutes. The only odd thing was that I wasn’t their age. In minutes it was free for all with expletives flying about and snacks flying off the plate keeping pace with it. But in that chaos, one guy could sense my discomfiture and kept chatting up with me to distract me from what was happening only a few feet away. Valiant was his effort even though chagrin was written all over his face. In the air filled with irreverence, he instantly established our equation which he maintained till the end.

That I'm the respectable senior and he, my junior.

We met many times at his workplace, Apollo Hospital mostly while chaperoning some relatives for their orthopedic problems. Courteous as ever, he would deal with me with his signature inimitable style. Later I realized that I wasn't the only one who was touched by his good manners and disarming smile. Hundreds of posts on FB bears testimony to the happy patients he helped get back on their feet. He had a legion of satisfied patients from every possible part of the society – important to common.

My wife's persistent heel pain took both of us to him some years later. He in his courteous best told us that he can numb the sore area which will make the patient falsely believe that she is cured or undergo physiotherapy to strengthen the parts thus progressively lessening the pain. We chose the latter. At that time was dealing with his mother's cancer and the trauma had made him philosophical. He, commenting on the uncertainties of human life and lack of family support because of dwindling numbers of family members in the future, told that he has instructed his attendant to give him some basic food when he is all alone battling loneliness and old age. A few days later he was detected with cancer. God had made sure that he will neither see old age nor deal with loneliness. A bulwark of response got initiated with the latest and best possible treatment regime under the subconscious realization that the countdown has begun. That was 2018.

2021; after working on a concept to preserve our mother language since 2019 and keeping it on deep freeze for the duration of two waves of Covid, chose to push for the launch of ReciteWorld. With only the goodwill of friends and faith in the purpose, we unleashed all our energies. Any sane man would have said it's akin to spitting into the oncoming wind or sure-shot hara-kiri, but we kept moving.

Smarajit called me up once after seeing one of our contents on our YouTube Channel and offered his all-out support. He after listening to one story had realized how little he knew about our literary heritage. His guilt spurred his resolution. He was a man on a mission. He would in a state of excitement call me to tell me how this has now become his new passion. He would forward the links to hundreds of his friends and check the status on the channel. Starting from arranging the chief guest to sending a flawless invitation letter spoke of his sense of commitment. He from his self-imposed bunker would handle every issue like a master puppeteer. The day it was inaugurated, his sickness kept him away from watching the event on TV. But like the blind Dhrutarastra watching the war, wanted me to brief him about every minute detail just to ensure that everything went well.

On realizing that ReciteWorld is free to air and is fully dependent on private contributions, offered to arrange resources. I was shocked upon knowing that the amount committed by one of his close acquaintances for his medical treatment got diverted to us to take care of the production expenses.

That was him. A warrior even if he is on a hospital bed.

Life for him was a cycle of battle with the Big C, trudging back to normal with occasional bouts of treatment-related trauma. These bouts became more frequent with time. I kept track of his health from common friends and his postings on FB. He always wore a smile, this time the smile was that of a brave soldier who has returned from the borders amputated.

We kept exchanging notes. He would ask for his favorite chicken stew and caramel pudding but then refuse it next time when we offered to send some when we cooked it again, but each time making ensuring that I am not hurt by his refusal. I could sense that he was getting exhausted after his treatment sessions, staying disconnected, and avoiding communicating with others. I was dreading that the slide to the worst has begun. When a friend from the US who was his classmate called me up early morning yesterday to inform me about his deteriorated status; I knew the worst is about to happen in just a few hours. And here I am after 24 hours, grieving his death and trying to decipher my attachment with him. Now, I kind of am ready to answer the question my friend asked me yesterday - How well did I know him?

The answer is - he was the younger brother I never had and yesterday he became the younger brother I don't have.

Goodbye Smarajit; I'm sure much more people are waiting in the other world to benefit from your grace and kindness than the number of people whose lives you had touched positively here. You will always be remembered my younger brother. 

So long!

Language Extinction and its consequences on us

According to UNESCO, a language is lost every two weeks. Cultural and linguistic diversity is of the utmost importance to build sustainable societies. Every country realizes how preserving and nurturing the mother language of their people is vital to their holistic psycho intellectual development. In fact, it’s the most important cultural asset around which the identity and salience of a community are built.

Since 2000, UNESCO has been celebrating International Mother Language Day every year on February 21. It serves to remind us of the importance of language as a cultural asset. This date was not chosen at random though. It was a tribute to the Bangladeshis' (former East Pakistan) battle and the sacrifices made for their mother tongue in 1952 when Pakistan imposed their language of Urdu on them as the official language of the country.

Ms. Audrey Azoulay, the UNESCO Director-General, highlighted how four out of 10 children worldwide do not have access to education in the language they speak or understand best, meaning the foundation for their learning is more fragile. "Using technology for multilingual learning: Challenges and opportunities" is the theme for this year 2022. This year's theme focus is to advance multilingual education based on the potential role of technology and support the development of quality teaching and learning for all.

The language we see today is the language that has evolved from the past. It's a product of development and cross-pollination from its lateral languages through voluntary or involuntary infusions. Languages like so many things have their typical life cycle. They evolve, develop, stagnate, and die. Many languages in the past had reached their peak and they are not in use now. Rich language like Sanskrit which has influenced so many others is now in the archives. That shows that languages evolve and get enriched when used by the masses across their various layers of application and it dies when not used or it becomes the preserve of the privileged few.

Language Extinction is real and the consequences of it befall the society which is responsible for its extinction.

Is our language endangered? Are we aware of it? Are we allowing the demise of our mother language in our complacency, or we are doing it out of callousness that looks almost as if by design? Let us see the state of our language in comparison to the global and national trends and evaluate what, where, when, and how we need to intervene to stop its extinction and lead it to an enriching evolution.

Globally seen, of the world's 6,000 languages, 2580 (43%) are estimated as endangered. On the other hand, just 10 languages account for over 4.8 billion (60%) speakers of the world population of 7.9 billion. If the top 3 languages are analyzed; English 1.13 billion (Native 379, Non-Native 753); Mandarin 1.11 billion (Native 918, Non-Native 199); Hindi 0.61 billion (Native 341, Non-Native 274). That shows that few languages are growing at an exponential rate over the demise of many. Let us see our national trend. From 1991 to 2011 Hindi spoken as a percentage of the Indian population has grown from 39.29% to 43.63% whereas from Bengali to all other languages it has remained flat. The percentage of Odia has dropped from 3.35% to 3.10%. What are the factors behind this trend of the rising popularity of English and Hindi which is being adopted by the non-natives with such ease?

Globally English language has positioned itself as the bridge language for most non-natives. For the last few centuries has been the language that gave people access to higher economic opportunities. Electronic communication which shrunk the world into a global village with only the different time zones rode on the internet which was in English. Various language contents were made available in different languages on the web, but the highways, lanes, road signs, and driving rules are in English. IT has reduced personal communication to structured and mechanical business languages for easy processing and unambiguous facilitation by the service providers. The need for creating subtle expressions has been shunted out and the participants are encouraged to choose keywords that allow easy numerical evaluation at the processing level. Spellcheck, Grammarchecker, Predictive texting, Autofill, Emoticon, and GIFs are helping people not to go through the grind of mastering this language of opportunity and start using it and get the bulk of their needs met. In ease of adoption lies its popularity.

Coming to the rise of Hindi at the national level, the IT industry since 1990 has fuelled massive migration both at the national and international levels. English has always been practiced by the privileged few and has remained aspirational for many. The later cohort who was not very comfortable with English because of their medium of education and exposure adopted it with glee as the bridge language with their adoptive state. The soft power of Hindi movies and easy availability of entertainment content familiarized itself to the new generation from their time of birth. The kids of the current generation are as much at ease with Hindi as with their mother language. Hindi now enjoys the same fashion quotient which English enjoyed 4/5 decades back. This multilingual trend has a negative side too. This has given rise to a hybrid language which is a mix of Odia sentences peppered with subaltern Hindi expressions which is a pain to the ears of practitioners of classic forms of our mother language.

Despite the depressing trends of most languages, multilingualism does exist and is thriving. Prof. Jatin Nayak says that there hardly is a profession or sector in which one can survive with proficiency over only one language. He rues that education is the only sector that has callously neglected our mother language from primary through post-graduation. Be it in terms of improving the quality of language teachers, empowering them with newer tools to encourage students for creative expression both in its spoken or written form; the downward slide has been worryingly steady.

The discussion above is more on the spoken form of the languages.

But is the role of a language limited to communication between two entities or it's a tool of learning of the evolutionary past of the society?

Anil Dhir one of the leading conservationists of the state feels that invaluable knowledge exists at the community level which verbally gets passed from generation to generation. It has stood the test of time. But the recent trend of migration and remaining detached from their social context is doing irreversible damage to the knowledge base as these pieces of knowledge are not documented anywhere. It will die with the death of those persons. As migration for economic prosperity is unstoppable; he strongly advocates that many tribal dialects need help to develop their alphabets and lexicons. And with the advancement of AI technology that is very much possible. But it requires support from a compassionate state and sponsor. That will help them document those pieces of knowledge for future generations. The loss of this knowledge is a loss of humanity.

Let’s think of a scenario where the rock edicts of Ashoka had not been deciphered because the person who could read them was not available at that time. The world would have been so poor without knowing anything about Ashoka and the political life of that time. The same is going to happen soon here when the contribution and sacrifice made by our forefathers who could carve out a state based on the languages we speak will be lost in oblivion because the texts which have documented the past will be incomprehensible to most of the current generation. Who will be the loser? Not them but we as the society for sure.

Study shows that usage of mother language for reading, and writing is now limited to senior citizens who are well past 65 years of age. Most of the groups between 14 to 64 have no practicing contact with the language. Many of them can speak and not write well. Most of them don't read anything beyond the local newspapers. While the practicing population is 5.3%, 63.6% practice this haphazardly. The ones below 14 years which are 28.6% stand to see no better scene. Imagine a society where 92% of its population are disconnected from its heritage literature as there is no need for this either in their daily life or profession. It is not fashionable, nor does it assure any reward or career advancement.

We connect with our past from our heritage literature and the only way to get it is through our mastery over our mother language.

By not familiarizing themselves with the heritage literature of their language, we don't acquire a sense of the socio-political identity of the society we belong to; no knowledge of the major milestones in the past as no history book talks about the history of our state. We don't know about the evolutionary cultural processes our ancestors have gone through. What do you call such an ignoramus community and what would keep them bound together in the future?

It's said, never erase your past. It shapes who you are today and will help you to be the person you'll be tomorrow. We learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.

Preservation of mother language should be as important as our instinct for self-preservation. Where have we lost our humanity? That leaves everyone in some position of privilege with a set of very uncomfortable questions to answer on this International Mother Language Day.

How safe is our future in the hands of such people?

Is economic development the only sign of sustainable development of a society?

Can we risk such a scenario in the future?

What are we doing about it to prevent it?

How big should be the efforts?

What is going to be the roles of the state, society, and individuals?