Matrubhasha as a foreign language? Never looked at my mothertongue, matrubhasha, from this perspective until recently, when I choose to teach Hindi in my town in England to the Indian children. The two years’ journey taught me a lot, at-least to revisit my language in real sense. Dialect, one of the traditional asset of my family, friends and relatives, I think I do not even need to make an effort to preserve it through. But it shall naturally be a integral part of my family’s identity. Why I think so, may not be quantified or justified at the moment. My logical, engineering sense subconsciously stresses its importance.
I wanted my 4 years’ young son to write and read my Marathi. Our personal at home coaching may not be sufficient to speed it up to catch the speed I needed. I thought to join a group where someone teaching at-least Hindi though not Marathi. I took my son to Balagokulam. At first he refused. I went to a superstore and bought a £1 car and went back in the class room. Other kids were learning to read and write. I was observing the efforts needed to initiate the kids in learning Hindi.
Once in a week, 20 mins, how much can be done in this short time? Sitting there I used to switch from parent mode to a teachers mode. How I will handle it if I am in front of those kids.. The wish came true and I was offered to teach. I was going to try something different, differently. I had almost 12 to 20 kids that with different dialect from India. Hindi, Tamil, Telgu, Gujrati, Asamese, Marathi, Bengali. They all are very good in English language. And very little familiar to matrubhasha. Is it not a challenge? It is, specially living away from India.
And since then my week- ends used to start with a fun-packed evening on each Friday!
You are welcome on the journey of linguistic with me on this blog.