Hello everyone.
Here I am with my first article in English.
Please bear with me. I am not a profound writer of the English language. India had a history of slavery under British Raj. Many Indians are still paranoid by their great English speaking capability. People are concerned about their knowledge of English grammar. A good thing for perfection but not at the cost of their native language. We proudly judge the people of India on their knowledge of English. I am not prejudiced against any language or culture. Just trying to explain my difficulties in judgmental based society, where people used to predict knowledge by your language speaking ability.
Here, I am taking one of the hilarious incidents of my life. I was in the 5th Standard. My parents completed their education in Gujarati medium school. So, they decided to put both of their children in Gujarati medium. I was a brighter student (Just assume for a while) but never got ranked in the top 15 positions. The definition of bright students can differ from person to person. Separate issues. I was quite an introvert person. I can’t imagine that era of foolishness. From the starting of my career, my parents told me about the English language and also given some advice to succeed in it. I understood the importance of language or expectations. In the beginning, I am confused with the pronunciation of English words. Like I used to formulate anyone’s name in English with manner (Of course a Gujarati name). I had a big confusion about English spelling and its construction. Let me explain it through an example. I used to spell cat as “CET” because I used to write a Gujarati name Ketan as Ketan. Have you understood my problem?
Might be it’s just a matter of joke or fun for you, but that’s the biggest concern for me. I don’t know about tables just because we pronounce that thing differently in Guajarati. Now you have some clarity about my struggles. Let me take you through my horrible experience. I still remembered the day I cried. It was a day before our test in the 5th standard. Our school is very liberal in English subjects, so they gave us important topics before the exam. Our English teacher told us about the short note, which had a higher chance of presence in the question paper. The short note was about a Hungry Fox trying to catch grapes. Everyone is knowing that shit. Even I had a very clear idea about that story in Gujarati. I started mugging up the story at night and suddenly cried out loud. The reason behind that was funny. I could not know the meaning of a hungry word. The height of insanity. From childhood, I cannot mug up things but, I am profound in making sentences and stories in Gujarati. Here, it’s English. I don’t know the fucking aspect of grammar and spelling. My whole concentration was digested into mugging up the spellings. So after a certain point of time, I just felt exhausted and burst into tears. My sister was sitting next to me. She just laughed at me and started doing mimicry of mine. I felt very humiliated. My grandfather was good at English literature, but I didn’t listen to his pieces of advice about seriously studying English. My father came and told me to sleep but I didn’t want to. After a classic melodrama, my mom came and told me to not take a bit of tension about the exam. She told me that no one will scold you for getting lower grades in English subject. I slept with tears in my eyes. Next morning that short note was there in question-paper, but not present in my mind.
I got 33 marks out of 50 in that secondary test of English subject. My fear of the English language got bigger and bigger but ironically I got 95 marks out of 100 in my SSC board examination in the English subject.
What happens?
I just feel the same as you. I couldn’t figure out that thing. I used to believe, whenever your marks got up from 90 in any subject. They would have to check out your paper 3 times for any possible mistakes in checking. I got 95 and still doing some of the miserable mistakes. You might be encountered in this article as well. From that day of my life, I felt very deep condolences for our answer paper checking system. Even my English teacher surprised by my performance. He used to call me by my surname. He said Gandhi are you sure? 95 in English. I said yes with confidence but couldn’t spell confidence correctly.I am improving in English to this day. I have a good command over Gujarati than above an average Gujarati medium student. I just want to say thanks to my parents, who didn’t put me down in the English medium school. I wouldn’t be able to enjoy childhood books if I am in the English medium. I was used to reading RAMAYANA and MAHABHARATA’s Gujarati translation because of my interest in tales. If I ended up in English medium schools than my parents could only afford academic books, and I wouldn’t be able to read any of the religious books.
Anviksiki 