The Hindi Day

 You are in Canada, may be, in Toronto. Which language would you get to hear there? English? But, of course! French? For sure! Hindi! Come again! Yep! Hindi is the third most spoken language there as it is in the whole world, too. Oh, yes, after Chinese and Spanish, Hindi is the third most spoken language in the world.

Wherever Indians went, they took Hindi along. Oh, yes, this process is as old as indentured labour. Fiji to Trinidad, you would hear Hindi. Sure, it would enjoy the local flavour as it does in India itself. The Bambaiya Hindi is vastly different from the Alahabadi or Lakhnawi Hindi, for instance. 

In 1951, on September 14, Hindi was formally adopted as the state language, and as a result, 1953 onwards, September 14 is celebrated as the Hindi Day. Actually, given the dominance of Bollywood, though now the South Indian films are The Don, the "Thalaiwa" of the Indian filmography, Hindi has permeated the consciousness of the speakers of other mother tongues.

Want proof of this assertion? Most Marathis "meet" a book, for instance, which is a literal translation in to Marathi of the original Hindi! Better hence to learn it, formally I mean, ASAP because it is part of the spoken lingo, anyways. Why, in the heydays of the Three Language Formula, it used to be taught from the fifth standard onwards. Hope, to balance out Hindi being taught in other states, some South Indian language or Marathi or Gujarati or Marwadi gets taught in the Northern, Eastern or Northeastern parts of India. 

Instead of getting in to that politics of hatred for the sake of hate, let us try to celebrate the Hindi Day more constructively. Here is a four-liner by Terrie Brushette. It reads as follows:                                                                "Never forget                                                           that all storms will clear                                     Remember brighter tomorrow's                                are always near."         

 Here is my attempt at translating it in to Hindi.                                                                                            "ना भूलना कभी/                                                               गुजर जातें हैं तूफान सभी/                                                   सुबहें सुनहरी, याद रहे/                                                       समीप सदा ही रहती हैं!''

Pratima@ Languages are cities to the building of which all human beings bring unique stones. Ralph Waldo Emerson, given his transcendental tendencies, would sure forgive me the minor changes I introduced in to his great quote.