Grading system was introduced to reduce unhealthy competition in the name of marks. But people are so smart that they started the trend of highlighting all A+ or all A!
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Why did it happen? Our country is not a very rich country that everybody who wants to have education is not gifted with a chance to have as he/she (especially girls in my opinion) pleases. One hindrance is financial one and the other is social one. Or atleast education has been made the most expensive "product" in the market! What market? The market for status. It is not a new thing that certain courses are considered to bring more status than the others. For example, professional courses (all professional course students forgive me). When I decided to go to BSc after plus two, many people asked me; "are you going for BSc"? You know what? BSc is considered as a very low level course! I even had a classmate who did BSc for one year and left to do some medical related course only because somebody asked her "Are you doing BSc?"
It is sort of rule of thumb that all those who have scored distinction in plus two science (since I'm a science student, its easy for me to talk about it), must go for either Engineering or Medicine! I knew a girl who scored distinction in 10th, wanted to learn commerce, but her family refused her to do that! What is this? One of my teachers had told us once in class that a student's interest or career is determined in UP school itself. So if a student wants to do commerce or humanities even when he/she has scored distinction, why can't you just let the person learn whatever he/she wants?I'll talk about the entrance exams later.
I'm very sorry to say that the attitude of parents regarding the education of their students is not a healthy one. They may be people who have never learned any Engineering or Medicine in their lives, but want to force their children learn what they don't want to. My own mother wanted me to become a doctor, which I never approved of, I didn't like learning too much physiology or chemistry, I liked Physics and Maths, so why on Earth would I go to do something in which I had no interest at all. Thanks to my own strong decisions, I never had to be sad like "Oh My God, why I chose this" or to have struggle mentally to cope up with something which I didn't like.
But the thing which I was talking is a different one, though not entirely. So children should be given the freedom to choose the course they want to study. So if somebody with whole heart wants to be an Engineer (like Rancho in Three Idiots (I recommend that film to all of you), he/she must be given the chance to become an Engineer. Its not fair to refuse a person's opportunity just because that person doesn't belong to a particular socio-economic-regional-lingual-caste-country-gender class. Because education is everybody's birth right. Rights should be sold and one should be aware that they belong to one. The "neo-urban-stylish-I don't care for the other one society-patronising-f-s and all other sorts of words" of India will not agree with this statement, because they are privilaged people who have always had their rights. But dear people, India is mostly rural, even now, and as Gandhiji said (I don't know whether you know who he is, or whether you believe in his principle) India will develop when the villages will develop. (One more point to be added about this particular kind of urban people (not all urban people); you are definitely stylish, can speak English (big deal) and talk eloquently about self reliance and all (not that you don't need that) but do you know anything about endosulfan? (One of my "urban" friend trashed an article which I gave him about such issues as endosulfan.) If you don't know, I can't help. Probably you may not even want to know. Sorry to say this again. I've 268 friends on facebook. Nobody reshared a post about endosulfan from me. Nobody cares unless they become unprivilaged. That's not a good trend.)
So if a child in an underdeveloped rural area scores 80% or 75% after studying in a school with no proper facility or cracks an entrance exam without any coaching mania, then that 75% shines more than the 100% of an over privilaged urban child. Not that 100% has value, but when this 75% waala/waali who is really brilliant wants to come out and study his/her opportunity is being refused just because of the score.
To be continued............................................
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Friday, July 8, 2011
Who wants us to be illiterate? - 2
When I was a child, I never cared about all these things or in other words I never bothered anything about my status in class. I remember that I never scored anything better than a silver medal in class (or A grade, which means that I was in the above average group) and if you told me something like first rank, I would ask what it was! But as I grew up and changed my school, in UP, i.e from my 5th std, I suddenly found myself in a limelight! I started becoming first in my class! From then onwards I found myself hurled up into the run for top position! Same happened again when I was shifted to high school also, but in the long run, I somehow used to manage to get to the first position almost everywhere and in everything which I did. So I was sort of enjoying the first position, when suddenly after BSc I became second and the hell I made out of it was so horrible that, I didn't believe in myself for a long time, due to which I made a hell out of me during my MSc also. But there's a lesson to be learned from what I had experienced when I was 20. Because, I was supposed to be one who will make it to the rank or something, which I knew I'd never make, but others had placed their genuine/fake expectations on me. So what is the lesson to be learnt? A person who scored 95.5% in her BSc started hating her mark only because she couldn't score 98% which she wanted to, (but other people thought I was a super girl or something that I'd score 99%!), and she had started rating herself on the basis of her marks only! Sorry to say this, but I learnt the lesson that one should never estimate one's own quality based on marks which they score in exams. Infact retrospecting truly I find that I'm a happy go lucky fellow who really wants to enjoy life and learn things not score, but who somehow got caught up in the "being brilliant" business just because I'm a bit above average! But I learned another very valuable lesson in life, that even when I was never a rank holder all over the state or all over India, I always went for higher studies. Its like not being the top scorer in each level in a game but a person who scores enough to go up the levels in it and be able to play it till the end. I hope I'll keep going. :)
What I wanted to tell using my own example is that, it doesn't really matter how high you score, because you've to be able to go up in life. So when the institutions put cut off of near cent percent, it is like setting unrealistic goals for people. I don't believe education is not something where you should encourage (directly or indirectly) unnecessary competitions. I've seen people copying in their exams to get high scores in exams. Then what is the point of having studied upto some very high classes? Score are not everything. If somebody sets 100% cut off and somebody score by treachery, the one who scored 60% or 80% by hard work or truthfulness is being subjected to injustice. Right? Its not that all who score are cheats. But young people should be subjected to so much pressure in the name of scores or excellence or whatever stuff. In my opinion those who had enjoyed childhood (when I mean childhood, I'm including teenagers also, because at my age, I feel that they are children) well have the best chance of blooming up in life. One should definitely study, and as the "above average student" I'm for studying, but not beyond a limit or the children should not be forced to study beyond their capacities. If one doesn't use his/her capacity to the full amount it is bad, but even forcing a bright student to score beyond his limit, (like for example, you score 95 and people tell you that you should have score 99%) one is very likely to be a victim of the following thoughts :
1) I scored well, even then my parents don't appreciate me. They love me only for my marks. :(
2) Nobody accepts my talent. Then why should I be talented?
3) I worked hard this much, even then I scored this much only, there's no point working hard (or even working) in life at all.
Consequence:
1) The person loses self confidence.
2) Feels distance to everybody and starts to turn away form everybody.
3)Stops doing the hard work/work he/she used to do.
Extreme step, thinks about suiciding.
Second extreme : depression.
So my question is this: What is the real purpose of education? To enlighten people and fill their lives with hope, or to hurl people into the realm of unhealthy competitions and expectations and depress them to the point of thinking about taking their own lives?
To be continued................................................
What I wanted to tell using my own example is that, it doesn't really matter how high you score, because you've to be able to go up in life. So when the institutions put cut off of near cent percent, it is like setting unrealistic goals for people. I don't believe education is not something where you should encourage (directly or indirectly) unnecessary competitions. I've seen people copying in their exams to get high scores in exams. Then what is the point of having studied upto some very high classes? Score are not everything. If somebody sets 100% cut off and somebody score by treachery, the one who scored 60% or 80% by hard work or truthfulness is being subjected to injustice. Right? Its not that all who score are cheats. But young people should be subjected to so much pressure in the name of scores or excellence or whatever stuff. In my opinion those who had enjoyed childhood (when I mean childhood, I'm including teenagers also, because at my age, I feel that they are children) well have the best chance of blooming up in life. One should definitely study, and as the "above average student" I'm for studying, but not beyond a limit or the children should not be forced to study beyond their capacities. If one doesn't use his/her capacity to the full amount it is bad, but even forcing a bright student to score beyond his limit, (like for example, you score 95 and people tell you that you should have score 99%) one is very likely to be a victim of the following thoughts :
1) I scored well, even then my parents don't appreciate me. They love me only for my marks. :(
2) Nobody accepts my talent. Then why should I be talented?
3) I worked hard this much, even then I scored this much only, there's no point working hard (or even working) in life at all.
Consequence:
1) The person loses self confidence.
2) Feels distance to everybody and starts to turn away form everybody.
3)Stops doing the hard work/work he/she used to do.
Extreme step, thinks about suiciding.
Second extreme : depression.
So my question is this: What is the real purpose of education? To enlighten people and fill their lives with hope, or to hurl people into the realm of unhealthy competitions and expectations and depress them to the point of thinking about taking their own lives?
To be continued................................................
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Who wants us to be illiterate?
Disclaimer : I'm not an expert on this matter, but I can't help expressing my own views in this, because if I ever try to turn my thoughts away from it, I'll be doing injustice to me; if I don't express my views, it is even more injustice to me. Out of the 25 years of my life, I've been a student for the past 22 years.
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My motivation comes from latest news about the impossible cut offs for admission set by some universities and about the prospect of implementing a common syllabus in Tamil Nadu. I'm not going into the technical details about the news, but I'm going to write on what I feel about the matter.
First the cut off thing. Universities set conditions that a student should have scored 100% or near 100%marks in plus two examination, to be admitted for degree courses. Excuse: "It is to select the best students". So isn't atleast above 90% a good mark? Or , are the students who score below 90% dumb? So, doesn't the hard work of a student who has worked hard to score near 90% or above 95% have no value? What is this? Is the trend going to be so that, in future you've to score 200% to get an admission in the so called universities or places which are "hi-fi" ?
Isn't it a renewal of cast system in one way? I mean the society is already divided drastically by economic standard, then by standards like those who are "stylish" and "simpleton". Then again according to those who do "highly paid white collar jobs" and "lowly paid mean jobs". Education was supposed to be a divine thing. And lately it has also become a criteria for diving people!
As far as I can remember, the division of students who study in "English medium" and "regional medium" has always been there. And then even in an English medium class, those who were "below average,average, above average and brilliant" were there. (Along with the general belief that all regional medium students are poor quality students! I don't know the origin of this belief, but I'm sorry to say that many of the very brilliant people I know have studied in regional mediums during their schooling.)
To be continued.......
*************************************************************************************
My motivation comes from latest news about the impossible cut offs for admission set by some universities and about the prospect of implementing a common syllabus in Tamil Nadu. I'm not going into the technical details about the news, but I'm going to write on what I feel about the matter.
First the cut off thing. Universities set conditions that a student should have scored 100% or near 100%marks in plus two examination, to be admitted for degree courses. Excuse: "It is to select the best students". So isn't atleast above 90% a good mark? Or , are the students who score below 90% dumb? So, doesn't the hard work of a student who has worked hard to score near 90% or above 95% have no value? What is this? Is the trend going to be so that, in future you've to score 200% to get an admission in the so called universities or places which are "hi-fi" ?
Isn't it a renewal of cast system in one way? I mean the society is already divided drastically by economic standard, then by standards like those who are "stylish" and "simpleton". Then again according to those who do "highly paid white collar jobs" and "lowly paid mean jobs". Education was supposed to be a divine thing. And lately it has also become a criteria for diving people!
As far as I can remember, the division of students who study in "English medium" and "regional medium" has always been there. And then even in an English medium class, those who were "below average,average, above average and brilliant" were there. (Along with the general belief that all regional medium students are poor quality students! I don't know the origin of this belief, but I'm sorry to say that many of the very brilliant people I know have studied in regional mediums during their schooling.)
To be continued.......
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Broken threads
When do threads break?
Nobody knows.
Why do threads break?
Nobody knows.
But everybody knows,
That threads do break.
The answer may be found,
Within the deepest corner
Of the heart.
When one translates his
Memories in time,
The space when there were unbroken
Threads comes into mind.
Then he remembers.
This many days/months/ years ago,
I shared space with this person.
Only memories remain,
Persons will have gone.
From our lives or the world itself.
Some threads can't be joined
If ever they break.
They broke because they were
Very fragile.
Some threads break because you swerve them,
Deliberately, because they are too strong to break themselves.
Pain remains in heart, tears swell in eyes.
But you ignore both and move on.
You have all memories in your heart,
But you try deliberately to erase them.
You may succeed, or may not succeed.
But you will try for ever.
And its better to swerve certain threads.
Or else you'll be accused of being connected,
To somebody who is somebody else's.
Its good to swerve threads,if they give you the
Burden of being attached.
And when you break them, you feel free;
Of course it pains; but there are no pains
That time can't cure.
For even memories will be erased as time passes,
And the threads will cease to exist.
Nobody knows.
Why do threads break?
Nobody knows.
But everybody knows,
That threads do break.
The answer may be found,
Within the deepest corner
Of the heart.
When one translates his
Memories in time,
The space when there were unbroken
Threads comes into mind.
Then he remembers.
This many days/months/ years ago,
I shared space with this person.
Only memories remain,
Persons will have gone.
From our lives or the world itself.
Some threads can't be joined
If ever they break.
They broke because they were
Very fragile.
Some threads break because you swerve them,
Deliberately, because they are too strong to break themselves.
Pain remains in heart, tears swell in eyes.
But you ignore both and move on.
You have all memories in your heart,
But you try deliberately to erase them.
You may succeed, or may not succeed.
But you will try for ever.
And its better to swerve certain threads.
Or else you'll be accused of being connected,
To somebody who is somebody else's.
Its good to swerve threads,if they give you the
Burden of being attached.
And when you break them, you feel free;
Of course it pains; but there are no pains
That time can't cure.
For even memories will be erased as time passes,
And the threads will cease to exist.
Monday, June 6, 2011
A Silent Farewell
Good bye friend,
Forever, for we won't meet
Ever again in life.
Not even by chance.
Our times together
Were over long ago.
And now gets over our
Short acquintanceship.
Because our paths are
Different and life has,
Taken us to different shores.
Whether I'll be in your memories,
Is out of question, since we had
No memories together.
Always surrounded by someone or the other,
You've forgotten me.
I don't complain for that
'Coz that's what you chose to do.
So where's place for me in your heart?
I don't dare even ask.
For I know the answer beforehand.
And that is ; "nowhere".
So dear friend, let me bid
You a silent farewell;
For we have lost words
In the deep silence between us.
Forever, for we won't meet
Ever again in life.
Not even by chance.
Our times together
Were over long ago.
And now gets over our
Short acquintanceship.
Because our paths are
Different and life has,
Taken us to different shores.
Whether I'll be in your memories,
Is out of question, since we had
No memories together.
Always surrounded by someone or the other,
You've forgotten me.
I don't complain for that
'Coz that's what you chose to do.
So where's place for me in your heart?
I don't dare even ask.
For I know the answer beforehand.
And that is ; "nowhere".
So dear friend, let me bid
You a silent farewell;
For we have lost words
In the deep silence between us.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Pain
Once there lived a man;
He had no nerves; to feel;
Neither touch nor pain
He fell in love.
The girl said "I will only love a man with nerves".
Then he felt what pain is.
PS : Translation of a Malayalam poem I wrote.
He had no nerves; to feel;
Neither touch nor pain
He fell in love.
The girl said "I will only love a man with nerves".
Then he felt what pain is.
PS : Translation of a Malayalam poem I wrote.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Some thoughts on Malayalam
Well, I don't think that what I'm going to write will be an authentic thing, because I myself have doubts about it, but I can't help expressing my views on this matter.
Even though this is about the status of my mother tongue I don't feel like blogging about it in Malayalam because the transliteration option is very difficult to post long things (atleast for me) and I can type English faster than Malayalam.
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This idea got into my head because of an edition of Mathrubhumi weekly, the theme of which happens to be the state of Malayalam. I happened to know from the articles that Malayalam is considered as a dying language or fundamentalists think that Malayalam is facing extinction! ( I don't understand how a language spoken by atleast 3crore people will become extinct.) The main points struck me (though these are from different articles by people who have different opinions) are these:
1)Malayalam doesn't have many works in the field of literature, but it doesn't have anything (or anything major) in the field of science.
2) Malayalam is facing grave danger from English since parents are eager to send their children to English medium schools!
These are points on which I anted to comment, because I'm a science student and I studied in English medium. When I say English medium, only my medium was English, all my schools were where ordinary Malayalam speaking students studied, unlike "the English medium schools".
Let me start with my education. I'm a Malayali and I'm damn proud of it. [Though I don't admit it at home. ;)] When I was a child I was crazy about Hindi and I took effort to make sure that I can handle my national language well. I don't regret that. Because it still is one of my favorite languages. I studied in English medium schools right from LKG, (well the fact that I studied in LKG implies the fact by default) to tenth. Why tenth? Because, after tenth, everybody is in plus two, where the medium is definitely English (atleast in Kerala). [This is one thing which I don't understand, if people are so crazy about everybody learning in Malayalam medium, why not make higher education too in Malayalam? ] But I always had Malayalam to learn and I never felt any difficulty handling that, except I was slow in writing it. But it never meant that I couldn't or can't or won't be able to convey my ideas in Malayalam. I had classmates whose English was horrible despite the fact that they were in English medium! I even had a friend who studied with me till 7th, and after we changed school, he was unable to cope up with the medium and had to be shifted to Malayalam medium. So what is the hype about being in English medium? I don't understand. As far as I remember I hated the shoes, socks, tie system of the schools where I studied and was extremely happy to be in DBHSS where the only compulsory thing was blue bottom and white top. Is it that you can boast that your child is in English medium? After all English is just another language. The only thing which makes it different from other languages is that it can be used globally. But as I grew up, I started suspecting that too, because natives of many other countries don't even know English! In that way Indians are well advanced! They can use a global language and it saves them from being a closed system. People should be ashamed or make so much hype about saving languages in the name of making education compulsory in mother tongue. Because saving a language doesn't mean that you've to educate children in your mother tongue. I've a good example to present. That's me. :) The fact that I studied in English medium didn't stop me from reading Malayalam or writing in Malayalam. [This is a funda which I don't understand, why should I not read things in my own mother tongue. Some people had asked me whether I know my mother tongue. I had always felt that it was a ridiculous question. Why shouldn't I know my mother tongue? May be its time to change that thought considering that there are people who want to make it a point that they don't know their mother tongue.]
OOpsss. I've drifted far from my point. The point was the lack of Malayalam's contribution to science writing. I admit that as a science student who did here schooling in English medium, I don't know the Malayalam terms for any of the scientific terms. For example I still can't distinguish between "prevegam and twaranam". I don't know which one is velocity or which one is acceleration. [I think the former is velocity and the later is acceleration.] And what happens in science education (for I don't know what happens in arts education) students who learn things in regional languages ( I think there's no point telling regional language, because I asked my Bengali officemates about the names of integration, differentiation, velocity and acceleration only to find out that the words are the same, "Sankalan, vyavakalan(I'm supposing vyavakalan is differentiation, he gave me "avakalan"), veg and twaran"; which means they are not any regional language's own, they are from Sanskrit! [This is my conclusion; it may be wrong too.] So what is the point? After learning "vibhanganam (my search shows that it is diffraction), aakernanam(dispersion),vikiranam (raditation)" etc upto tenth, they are suddenly forced to learn diffraction or dispersion or radiation! Why? I used to wonder "why this double trouble"? Why couldn't students be taught those English names in their syllubus, which would eliminate the need for an extra learning when they came to higher secondary? I found the answer (or atleast I think I have found the answer) to this question. There's no science publication in Malayalam! [Or atleast the bhashavaadis say so. When I read about it I too agreed completely, but after sometime I had to disagree by 1% because I grew up reading a Malayalam science magazine whose name happens to be Sastrakeralam. (Atleast there's a Sastrakeralam as a Malayalam science publication.) ] Why would anybody use these seemingly tough words after school or higher education? ( I must admit that it would be fun collecting these words, because once you understand the proper meaning they won't sound difficult; may be that's the case with those who had learned them in their syllabus.) Tell me one thing, what is the English word for "tara samuham"? Its galaxy. [I got this from an online dictionary. Pls don't blame me if its wrong.] To me galaxy sounds mesmerising than tara samuham. And it saves time. Right? Pls try speaking out these words. I think the English ones will take lesser time and lesser effort. [I think this is an opinion of my science mind trained in English.] Ok fine, I searched for pulsar, quasar, active galactic nuclei, quarks, leptons and the names of the four fundamental forces. I got "Vaidyutakaanta sakti for electromagnetism", "gurutwakarshanam for gravity " and "sorry we couldn't find anything for "strong force and weak force"! and active galactic nuclei ". Probably I can define "weak force" as "asaktabalam" and "strong interaction as sasaktabalam". [But I got the definition of strong force as "ശക്ത ന്യൂക്ലിയാര് പ്രവര്ത്തനം" from a a site which gives its translation in different languages! The same site gives me the meaning of galaxy as "tarapatham"! Who knew tarapatham meant galaxy (better than tara samuham)! There's so much ambiguity in the different meanings I find that I don't want to believe any of these and concentrate on my good old English words which I'm familiar with.
Even if I want to write a pakka Malayalam article (ie. where I'll call my neutral current events and charge current events ( now it strikes me that I've never read a malayalam word for charge! And now I can't find any equivalent word for charge in any of the Indian languages. So we can adopt charge as charge to our languages. [There may be some word, I don't know.] [Are! Just now have I remembered that wikipedia has regional language pages! Even there I couldn't get the apt word for charge.] [Wow! Wikipedia doesn't have regional pages for things like "Flavor-changing neutral current"! ] I can't figure out how I'll ever do that! [Probably I'll become the biggest contributor to Malayalam science writing after that! :) ]
[It might have happened because of the fact that most of the modern science things were developed in the 20th and 21st century and by that time people might have given up the effort to translate things into regional languages! I don 't know whether this seems correct or not.]
So, coming back to my point. After tenth everybody leaves Malayalam terms behind and embraces English terms. And 99% of those science students end up going to Engineering or Medicine where you don't have to bother about "galaxies, neutral current or ring fields" [though this is a very crude approximation {now, I'm searching for the Malayalam of approximation, but I can't find it (probable because its Malayalam analogue couldn't be shortened as approx, I started using approximation}! And, even if I write a purely Malayalam article, how many kids would read it and decide to persue pure science? [It happens that out of some 50 students who subscribed for Sastrakeralam in 8th, I was the only one to continue it till my post BSc days.] My father usually tells me. Write something and send to Sastrakeralam. How am I supposed to write? I can write a science article easily in English, but in Malayalam, it will be a "Thumbiakkondu kalleduppikkuka" process. [See this is the peculiarity of Malayalam; I can easily find literature analogues or std literature expressions in Malayalam. And I can express my most cherished feelings or my most painful feelings beautifully in Malayalam, when I fail to do so in English at times. It has become an extremely poetic language in the sense that one can pour his/her heart beautifully out, in it but it becomes sort of awkward when one tries to write something as matter of factly as science, in it. Its not that it is impossible, but it is difficult. It needs extreme patience to do such a thing . Even for Malayalam blogging one needs patience. But isn't it a wonderful fact that transliteration to Malayalam is available and that Malayalam fonts are available in document editors?
Now my 2nd point; about Malayalam facing threats from English. As far as the issue of death of Malayalam is considered, it will live as long as there are Malayalis. Even when there are Malayalis who don't know how to read and write Malayalam. Well you'll find Malayalis even on the moon, then how will this language die? And why should one hype about making primary education in Malayalam only? It would in some way make a closed system. I'm not telling that English medium education is better (not am I supporting that show off, where you've to pay huge fees and suffer to show off that your kid is a kutti sayipp), but everybody should be given the freedom to choose the medium. Those who study in regional medium are not fools and those who study in English medium are not show offs. What ever be the medium, the knowledge one acquires is what matters in the end. And I don't understand why people are so ashamed of studying in regional mediums. My parents studied in regional mediums, my cousins were in Malayalam medium ; that didn't reduce the amount of achievements they have had in their lives. That didn't make them dumb people. And I don't think that my being in English medium had made me extra super or whatever or spoiled me. Nor has the same happened to my other cousins who are in English medium. And we all appreciate all kinds of things in both languages. I still read Mathrubhumi, which I had started from my 8th std, I still watch Malayalam movies. And my greatest luck is that I have friends with whom I can talk in Malayalam, where ever I go. Afterall when you have a severe headache the first language which comes to your mouth is your mother tongue. :) Atleast I find it very difficult to communicate in English or Hindi or Tamil when I'm suffering from one. :)
So, my sweet language is not going to die at all. It needs a little bit of makeover. That's all. :)
Even though this is about the status of my mother tongue I don't feel like blogging about it in Malayalam because the transliteration option is very difficult to post long things (atleast for me) and I can type English faster than Malayalam.
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This idea got into my head because of an edition of Mathrubhumi weekly, the theme of which happens to be the state of Malayalam. I happened to know from the articles that Malayalam is considered as a dying language or fundamentalists think that Malayalam is facing extinction! ( I don't understand how a language spoken by atleast 3crore people will become extinct.) The main points struck me (though these are from different articles by people who have different opinions) are these:
1)Malayalam doesn't have many works in the field of literature, but it doesn't have anything (or anything major) in the field of science.
2) Malayalam is facing grave danger from English since parents are eager to send their children to English medium schools!
These are points on which I anted to comment, because I'm a science student and I studied in English medium. When I say English medium, only my medium was English, all my schools were where ordinary Malayalam speaking students studied, unlike "the English medium schools".
Let me start with my education. I'm a Malayali and I'm damn proud of it. [Though I don't admit it at home. ;)] When I was a child I was crazy about Hindi and I took effort to make sure that I can handle my national language well. I don't regret that. Because it still is one of my favorite languages. I studied in English medium schools right from LKG, (well the fact that I studied in LKG implies the fact by default) to tenth. Why tenth? Because, after tenth, everybody is in plus two, where the medium is definitely English (atleast in Kerala). [This is one thing which I don't understand, if people are so crazy about everybody learning in Malayalam medium, why not make higher education too in Malayalam? ] But I always had Malayalam to learn and I never felt any difficulty handling that, except I was slow in writing it. But it never meant that I couldn't or can't or won't be able to convey my ideas in Malayalam. I had classmates whose English was horrible despite the fact that they were in English medium! I even had a friend who studied with me till 7th, and after we changed school, he was unable to cope up with the medium and had to be shifted to Malayalam medium. So what is the hype about being in English medium? I don't understand. As far as I remember I hated the shoes, socks, tie system of the schools where I studied and was extremely happy to be in DBHSS where the only compulsory thing was blue bottom and white top. Is it that you can boast that your child is in English medium? After all English is just another language. The only thing which makes it different from other languages is that it can be used globally. But as I grew up, I started suspecting that too, because natives of many other countries don't even know English! In that way Indians are well advanced! They can use a global language and it saves them from being a closed system. People should be ashamed or make so much hype about saving languages in the name of making education compulsory in mother tongue. Because saving a language doesn't mean that you've to educate children in your mother tongue. I've a good example to present. That's me. :) The fact that I studied in English medium didn't stop me from reading Malayalam or writing in Malayalam. [This is a funda which I don't understand, why should I not read things in my own mother tongue. Some people had asked me whether I know my mother tongue. I had always felt that it was a ridiculous question. Why shouldn't I know my mother tongue? May be its time to change that thought considering that there are people who want to make it a point that they don't know their mother tongue.]
OOpsss. I've drifted far from my point. The point was the lack of Malayalam's contribution to science writing. I admit that as a science student who did here schooling in English medium, I don't know the Malayalam terms for any of the scientific terms. For example I still can't distinguish between "prevegam and twaranam". I don't know which one is velocity or which one is acceleration. [I think the former is velocity and the later is acceleration.] And what happens in science education (for I don't know what happens in arts education) students who learn things in regional languages ( I think there's no point telling regional language, because I asked my Bengali officemates about the names of integration, differentiation, velocity and acceleration only to find out that the words are the same, "Sankalan, vyavakalan(I'm supposing vyavakalan is differentiation, he gave me "avakalan"), veg and twaran"; which means they are not any regional language's own, they are from Sanskrit! [This is my conclusion; it may be wrong too.] So what is the point? After learning "vibhanganam (my search shows that it is diffraction), aakernanam(dispersion),vikiranam (raditation)" etc upto tenth, they are suddenly forced to learn diffraction or dispersion or radiation! Why? I used to wonder "why this double trouble"? Why couldn't students be taught those English names in their syllubus, which would eliminate the need for an extra learning when they came to higher secondary? I found the answer (or atleast I think I have found the answer) to this question. There's no science publication in Malayalam! [Or atleast the bhashavaadis say so. When I read about it I too agreed completely, but after sometime I had to disagree by 1% because I grew up reading a Malayalam science magazine whose name happens to be Sastrakeralam. (Atleast there's a Sastrakeralam as a Malayalam science publication.) ] Why would anybody use these seemingly tough words after school or higher education? ( I must admit that it would be fun collecting these words, because once you understand the proper meaning they won't sound difficult; may be that's the case with those who had learned them in their syllabus.) Tell me one thing, what is the English word for "tara samuham"? Its galaxy. [I got this from an online dictionary. Pls don't blame me if its wrong.] To me galaxy sounds mesmerising than tara samuham. And it saves time. Right? Pls try speaking out these words. I think the English ones will take lesser time and lesser effort. [I think this is an opinion of my science mind trained in English.] Ok fine, I searched for pulsar, quasar, active galactic nuclei, quarks, leptons and the names of the four fundamental forces. I got "Vaidyutakaanta sakti for electromagnetism", "gurutwakarshanam for gravity " and "sorry we couldn't find anything for "strong force and weak force"! and active galactic nuclei ". Probably I can define "weak force" as "asaktabalam" and "strong interaction as sasaktabalam". [But I got the definition of strong force as "ശക്ത ന്യൂക്ലിയാര് പ്രവര്ത്തനം" from a a site which gives its translation in different languages! The same site gives me the meaning of galaxy as "tarapatham"! Who knew tarapatham meant galaxy (better than tara samuham)! There's so much ambiguity in the different meanings I find that I don't want to believe any of these and concentrate on my good old English words which I'm familiar with.
Even if I want to write a pakka Malayalam article (ie. where I'll call my neutral current events and charge current events ( now it strikes me that I've never read a malayalam word for charge! And now I can't find any equivalent word for charge in any of the Indian languages. So we can adopt charge as charge to our languages. [There may be some word, I don't know.] [Are! Just now have I remembered that wikipedia has regional language pages! Even there I couldn't get the apt word for charge.] [Wow! Wikipedia doesn't have regional pages for things like "Flavor-changing neutral current"! ] I can't figure out how I'll ever do that! [Probably I'll become the biggest contributor to Malayalam science writing after that! :) ]
[It might have happened because of the fact that most of the modern science things were developed in the 20th and 21st century and by that time people might have given up the effort to translate things into regional languages! I don 't know whether this seems correct or not.]
So, coming back to my point. After tenth everybody leaves Malayalam terms behind and embraces English terms. And 99% of those science students end up going to Engineering or Medicine where you don't have to bother about "galaxies, neutral current or ring fields" [though this is a very crude approximation {now, I'm searching for the Malayalam of approximation, but I can't find it (probable because its Malayalam analogue couldn't be shortened as approx, I started using approximation}! And, even if I write a purely Malayalam article, how many kids would read it and decide to persue pure science? [It happens that out of some 50 students who subscribed for Sastrakeralam in 8th, I was the only one to continue it till my post BSc days.] My father usually tells me. Write something and send to Sastrakeralam. How am I supposed to write? I can write a science article easily in English, but in Malayalam, it will be a "Thumbiakkondu kalleduppikkuka" process. [See this is the peculiarity of Malayalam; I can easily find literature analogues or std literature expressions in Malayalam. And I can express my most cherished feelings or my most painful feelings beautifully in Malayalam, when I fail to do so in English at times. It has become an extremely poetic language in the sense that one can pour his/her heart beautifully out, in it but it becomes sort of awkward when one tries to write something as matter of factly as science, in it. Its not that it is impossible, but it is difficult. It needs extreme patience to do such a thing . Even for Malayalam blogging one needs patience. But isn't it a wonderful fact that transliteration to Malayalam is available and that Malayalam fonts are available in document editors?
Now my 2nd point; about Malayalam facing threats from English. As far as the issue of death of Malayalam is considered, it will live as long as there are Malayalis. Even when there are Malayalis who don't know how to read and write Malayalam. Well you'll find Malayalis even on the moon, then how will this language die? And why should one hype about making primary education in Malayalam only? It would in some way make a closed system. I'm not telling that English medium education is better (not am I supporting that show off, where you've to pay huge fees and suffer to show off that your kid is a kutti sayipp), but everybody should be given the freedom to choose the medium. Those who study in regional medium are not fools and those who study in English medium are not show offs. What ever be the medium, the knowledge one acquires is what matters in the end. And I don't understand why people are so ashamed of studying in regional mediums. My parents studied in regional mediums, my cousins were in Malayalam medium ; that didn't reduce the amount of achievements they have had in their lives. That didn't make them dumb people. And I don't think that my being in English medium had made me extra super or whatever or spoiled me. Nor has the same happened to my other cousins who are in English medium. And we all appreciate all kinds of things in both languages. I still read Mathrubhumi, which I had started from my 8th std, I still watch Malayalam movies. And my greatest luck is that I have friends with whom I can talk in Malayalam, where ever I go. Afterall when you have a severe headache the first language which comes to your mouth is your mother tongue. :) Atleast I find it very difficult to communicate in English or Hindi or Tamil when I'm suffering from one. :)
So, my sweet language is not going to die at all. It needs a little bit of makeover. That's all. :)
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