So you speak Hindi and I speak English. How do we communicate? Sign language.
Here's another situation: You speak English and I speak English. How do we communicate? In a version which is understood by both.
Days of sign language existed primarily in rural areas where foreigners went to explore 'real' India and faced language issues, apart from dust and clothing ones. With rural India becoming urban at a decent pace (yes, ours is a brilliant country, and we are embracing technology as fast as possible - yet with the size of our country and the uncommon platforms, decent is what we can muster in such a short span of time), foreigners are coming face-to-face with a new problem. How to converse in English.
What is known as British or American English has been adapted by people in India (for promoting tourism, or pocketing money for showing visitors around), but is vastly different from their rendition of it. The conversion wasn't such a good idea frankly. For the problem of visitors getting lost or confused in the maze of roads and people jostling and zero directions still holds true.
Sentences such as 'I show you' and 'Best price, you wait here I come soon' might be a thing left for movies and past images, yet the educated people who can make living and travel easier for visitors are busy interacting with important clients and globe-trotting. With this trickle down effect, what remains is the command over broken English which visitors have to wiggle their way around.
Let's turn some tables over here. The tourism industry, instead of claiming to build food joints for 'Americans' such that they can't get food poisoning, should teach people the art of talking to those who qualify as foreigners in our country.
This goes for taxi drivers, people at railway stations who are there for assistance at platforms (expecting all coolies to learn English will be stretching the band a bit too much), traffic police (yes, this is of utmost importance - their role is not restricted to collecting bribes or issuing senseless tickets in the name of law), and auto/rickshaw drivers. (Including manners and how-to-behave lessons is a separate issue, and will be covered some other time).
Our country has spare money that can be used to make a trip to India a hassle-free journey. Let's make it work. Communication is the key - we have the monuments, the heritage and the culture to back us up. It's time to make the travel memorable - one happy traveler will lead to many. And as the numbers grow, we will be the ones happy, and proud.
#1 Our country has spare money...as far back as I remember you were an Economics student.
ReplyDelete#2 Promoting tourism and creating a friendly environment for foreigners is obviously a great thought, but wouldn't you want to teach the people skills that are going to help in the country's development.
1. Fact is that we are floating in money, though there is none for the common man.
ReplyDelete2. This post is focussing only on tourism, though I do agree that people need to be taught skills for India's development. Good idea though, will write sometime in the future about this issue!!!
#1 Correct me if I am wrong, but I think its a section of the society that is floating (and some even drowning) in money, but the Government is poor. I guess we need stricter Tax slabs.
ReplyDelete#2 Fair enough.
I am curious to know how you believe the government is poor - politicians have the power to misuse money.
ReplyDeleteuhhmmm..
ReplyDeleteIndia’s external debt, as of Jan 2010, was US$242 billion.
Politicians have the power to misuse money??
They are not misusing any money, though most of them have obscene amounts of personal wealth which they have amassed misusing their powers, which is again our fault if they keep getting elected every election.
When I say that the govt is poor, I mean the country is poor and not the politicians who constitute the govt. The govt is responsible for spending money on the common man, which it is making efforts to do (see recent food bill proposed by Sonia Gandhi). But the govt needs to earn that money as well (and not make it). I would recommend India 2020 by Dr. Kalam for some insight on how can India earn that money by technological development.