No, it is a sign of how insecure Indian people are… while ignoring the grander problems of India at large, they are narrow-minded and petty.

Yet I’m sure she doesn’t mind that so many Punj-Hindus don’t speak Punjabi. In fact you should have gotten on her case about that… most likely she would have told you that Punjabi is just a crude ‘slang’…which is a false but unfortunately all too common notion in some quarters, both in India as well as Pakistan. Imagine the self-hating mentality that looks down so badly upon its own heritage!

There are people and people. I can tell you about the close-minded bigots of TN who take great pride in knowing no language other than Tamizh. I have found something almost similar in Bangalore – only this time with Kannada replacing Tamizh. I have also argued endlessly with “North” Indians about various prejudices they hold. I also find it absurd whenever I have to talk a fellow Indian from another part of the land in English rather than some Indian language. The narrow-minded language bias that some Tamizh (and Kannada) speakers hold is not only directed at North Indian languages, but also against other South Indian languages. In TN, the DMK, when MGR broke away from the party, did a Shiv Sena on Malayali establishments and people all over the state – because MGR was a Malayali (although he was even more popular among the Thevars who adopted him, whom of course Karunanidhi’s thugs wouldn’t dare provoke. In Bangalore anti-Tamizh bias can get out of hand but anti-Telugu and anti-Malayalam hostility too isn’t rare. And the funniest part of all this is that around Chennai Central Rly.Stn., you ca find any number of auto/cycle-rickshaw operators, porters, and lodging owners who speak Hindi. Sowcarpet (or Sahukarpet) the Marwari/Kutchi/Gujarati trading neighbourhood is very close to the Chennai Central Rly.Stn. and inside there it is a world apart – the finest thelawala chat shops, Kutchi messes, and rows upon rows of shops run by Kutchi/Gujaratis/Rajasthanis.

53 · Apabhransha said

Not the north Indian sanskritised Hindi

All peninsular and north of India – Indian languages, Tamizh included are structurally similar. Take that structure, insert Sanskrit words and you have Hindi, substitute them with the Farsi and the rare Arabic and you get Urdu. The Sankritised Hindi makes sense to the entire South, even Tamizh speakers where there is a long history of Sanskrit words. Combine Urdu and Hindu and you get Hindi movies. Boston Mahesh, there are any number of out-of-state Indians in every Indian city who have taken the trouble to immerse themselves in the local language and its culture. I am from Madras and have had Kutchi, Marathi, Saurashtra, Gujarati, Sindhi, Asomiya, Oriya, Meghalaya, Punjabi, and Haryanvi friends, who can speak Tamizh fluently. A Bengali friend of mine took Tamizh in school and college and did pretty well at it. The Gujarati and Rajasthani Jains in Madras run a Tamizh medium school in T.Nagar. My cousins and Tamizh friends in Kolkata read and write in Bangla. All my non-mrathi grad school classmates in Bombay spoke fluent Marathi. Gujaratis from Kerala who have run the umbrella trade for many years speak fluent Malayalam. And of course Tamizh migrant labour in Delhi or Bombay speak fluent Hindi. Check out Dharavi and Antop Hill some day.

Boston Mahesh Wrote: I have a Bengali friend who was born/raised in Chennai, and he speaks fluent Tamil. As a matter of fact, I know 2 Bengalis who speak fluent Tamils. Bengalis, from my experience, are more culturally sensitive.

However, I apologize that I appeared hateful. I’m not one bit hateful, nor do I feel superior or inferior. I do, however, believe that North Indians are racist and arrogant towards S. Indians. I had a Goan friend who went to school in Annamalai University in TN, and he, being a neutral “Central Indian”, told me of this arrogancy complex. Moreover, when S. Indians visit Delhi, they don’t have much good to say about the racist and color-conscious people there. OTOH, the S. Indians enjoy the kindness of Bombay people. Finally, I’ve experienced arrogancy from a Gujju businessman at the Trivanderum airport.

On another occasion here in the USA, I was at a house party of a new friend of mine. There were many elder people and couples. I remember one lady who was old enough to be my mom was there. She was a Punj-Hindu with the surname “Bawa.” She totally scolded and tried to humiliate that us S. Indians don’t speak Hindi. I swear to god, it seemed that night that she was trying to get everyone on the anti-SouthIndian bandwagon that night. She told me to say a Hindi phrase, that when you translate it to english says “I will not speak Hindi, because I’m a Madrasi.” I could tell by her expression that she was angry as she did so. Her son, btw, was married to a Philipino. I could tell that her son heard a lot of bad about us Macaca Madrasis.

Not the north Indian sanskritised Hindi

All peninsular and north of India – Indian languages, Tamizh included are structurally similar. Take that structure, insert Sanskrit words and you have Hindi, substitute them with the Farsi and the rare Arabic and you get Urdu. The Sankritised Hindi makes sense to the entire South, even Tamizh speakers where there is a long history of Sanskrit words. Combine Urdu and Hindu and you get Hindi movies.

Boston Mahesh, there are any number of out-of-state Indians in every Indian city who have taken the trouble to immerse themselves in the local language and its culture. I am from Madras and have had Kutchi, Marathi, Saurashtra, Gujarati, Sindhi, Asomiya, Oriya, Meghalaya, Punjabi, and Haryanvi friends, who can speak Tamizh fluently. A Bengali friend of mine took Tamizh in school and college and did pretty well at it. The Gujarati and Rajasthani Jains in Madras run a Tamizh medium school in T.Nagar. My cousins and Tamizh friends in Kolkata read and write in Bangla. All my non-mrathi grad school classmates in Bombay spoke fluent Marathi. Gujaratis from Kerala who have run the umbrella trade for many years speak fluent Malayalam. And of course Tamizh migrant labour in Delhi or Bombay speak fluent Hindi. Check out Dharavi and Antop Hill some day.

The biggest misconception N. Indians have about Tamil is that the Dravidianist politicians in the 50s agitated to make it the natl language. Completely bogus, they wanted English to be the natl language with each state to do business in the local tongue. Kind of what happened in India organically despite all the sturm and drang. The fact is that the GOI is weak and doesn’t really offer any benefits except to the babus who pilfer from it, so why would anyone bother to acquire Hindi unless they want to “wet their beaks”? My relatives, except those in the armed services, remain illiterate in Hindi not out of spite but because there are zero economic advantages to acquiring Hindi (or any other Indian language other than your mother tongue).

You are attributing things that I did not say to me.

http://www.tumtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=cc92fc99b5a3609450cb&page=1&viewtype=&category=mr