Mother tongue twigs and ax work

- Internet Poetry - Anil Chawda

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I don't understand,

Whatever it is, it is not Gujarati.

- Khalil Dhantejvi

Tomorrow is World Mother Language Day. We are the oppressed people of the day. When Valentine's Day comes, love happens, when Mother's Day comes, mother is remembered, when 15th August comes, let's run to get flags immediately. Knowing that it is Mother Language Day, many people will start looking for quotes, poems, stories and so on instead of celebrating Mother Language Day. Will go to the market to upload selfies or photographs reading Gujarati books. We all have the attitude of digging a well when there is a fire. You may have heard a story about the life of Kalidasa. He is considered a great poet, but before that he was illiterate and foolish. Then it is like knowing how the great poet came to be.

It is said that Vidyottama, the concubine of the king of Ujjain, was very wise and learned. When it came to her marriage, she decided that I would marry the one who defeated me in knowledge. Many scholars came to marry this beautiful maiden, but all of them ran out of water against the maiden's erudition. Even the greatest scholars began to fade in front of him. Thus Vidyottama became proud of his knowledge. The defeated scholars, on the other hand, felt humiliated. To avenge his own humiliation, all the scholars came together and conspired to marry this insolent virgin to a fool. They all started shouting at a foolish man. Suddenly one day a scholar saw a man in the forest. The man who was sitting on the branch was cutting the same branch. Seeing his stupidity, the scholars decided that this fool should be married to Vidyottama.

And this foolish man is Kalidasa. Then he was taken to Vidyottama and his stupidity turned into erudition and he also got married to Vidyottama. And the story goes on. But the basic thing to sit on the stalk is to cut the stalk. We are sitting on a branch of a language called Gujarati, but we are doing the same foolish thing that Kalidasa did. We are cutting the stalks on which we are sitting. The sharp ax of our attraction to English is responsible for this. Our illusion that a person who speaks fluent English immediately catches everyone's attention is also responsible for this. We are also afraid that our children will be left behind if all our friends' children are studying in English medium schools. All this scare works like an ax. The fashion of this language, the fear of being left behind, is all like an ax in a way. Which is cutting the branch of our language name.

Khabradar wrote, "Wherever a Gujarati lives, there is Gujarat forever." Umashankar Joshi wrote, 'Sada Soumya Shi Vaibhav Ubharati, Mali Matrubhasha Mane Gujarati.' Khalil Dhantejvi is also doing the same in the above share, those who do not like my khumari, my sanskar, my texture are not Gujarati. I mean you have to understand Gujarati to understand me. Understanding one's mother tongue is essential to understanding any culture.

Our poets-creators are tired of glorifying the mother tongue, but the direction of the wind has remained the other way. To quote their grammatical or spelling mistakes, many people quote Akha's line, 'Bhur, who cares about language, whoever wins in the desert is brave.' We are brave in covering up the mistake.

One thing is for sure. Being proud of one's mother tongue does not mean opposing English. Anyone who opposes English is a fool, and one who opposes the mother tongue is a great fool. English is a global language today, so it will connect you to the world, but mother tongue will connect you to the self. Language is hope in a sense.

Isaac Basevic Singer, a great Jewish writer, has a great deal to say about the mother tongue. When he received the Nobel Prize, he was asked: 'What work do you write in a dying language like Yiddish?' In response, the author said: 'I am convinced that millions of dead Jews will one day sit in their graves and ask the question: What is the latest book published in Yiddish? For those people, Yiddish will not be a dead language. I know only one language, in which I can speak the whole. Yiddish is my mother tongue and my mother never dies. '

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Rather than die, O God!

To make Gujarati also Gujarati?

- Hardwar Goswami