In an age, where one speaks one language with his boss, talks with his fiance in another, and his parents in yet another language, how much relevance does 21st February hold? How much significance does the fight of those hallowed martyrs of Bangladesh several decades back, who laid down their lives for the sake of their love for their mother tongue, still count? 21 st February is widely celebrated all across the globe as the International Mother language day, since UNESCO's declaration in late 50's.
Being a Bengali, it gives me an immense sense of pride that lives were laid down for the cause of my mother tongue. But 21st February is not only about the Bengali language. Its stands for the victory of every language, be it Hindi, be it Gujarati, be it Tamil or be it Tulu. Its about tolerance. A friend of my had once expressed her view that she used to think that mother tongue is the language of the land where a person is born. Thats one interesting perspective, though. So after living in a place for , say, 3 decades , if one says that I still don't know the native language, there's no act of smartness in it.So. if one says , to live in a place , you need to learn the language of that place, one can not be completely ignored. Learning the language of a place you are staying in gives you better understanding of its culture, of its essence and a sense of security.
Barring a chunk , most, dream in their mother tongue and resort to peace of mind in it.
Some years back,I had watched this Bengali movie , which few of my generation has watched. There a character , seeing that the protagonist was speaking only in perfect Bengali, asks him, 'You don't like to speak in English, right?'The protagonist's reply comes as "Actually , since I know both the languages perfectly, I don't feel the urge to mix them up and converse". That essentially justifies the cause of khichdi language that we at times resort to.And since the main aim of a language is communication, getting the message across is what matters. But when a mother says to her son, "Beta bottle ta pick it up kore okhane put it down kore dao", ("Beta,woh bottle wahan se pick it up karke wahan pe put it down kardo" , you wonder , whether its too much?