Skip to main content

I have wings



Can you impose a language on the birds? Can you make the pigeons in Delhi coo in Hindi, for example? Will they arrest the pigeons as antinational creatures for refusing to coo in Hindi?

In ‘The Last Lesson’, a short story written by French writer Alphonse Daudet [1840-1897], the protagonist, a very young student in a French school, wonders whether the Germans will make the pigeons sing in German since his province of Alsace has been conquered by Bismarck. One of the very first things that conquerors do is to impose their culture and language on the new subjects. The conquest is complete only when the subjects give up their own idols and embrace the new ones. The imposed ones.

One of the reasons why I never learnt Hindi properly though I lived in North India for the most part of my life is that I had wings. I was a pigeon that knew only one language. Coo. Coo-coo. Coo coo coo.

Can you take away that language?

You can take away my food. You can take away my dress. You can take away my properties.

You can’t take away my language. My coo coo coo.

My coo-coo is my passport to a wider world. Birds don’t need passports and Visas. Because they have wings. They fly and hence they don’t see the border fences erected by human beings. They don’t have to see them, of course.

The best thing about birds is their wings.

I have wings.

PS. Instigated by the latest prompt of Blogchatter blog Hop: If you could fly, where would you go?

I have wings. I always had them. But they were clipped all along. By politicians of all sorts most of whom wore religious garbs. I still live in a country where wings are clipped day after day with words. By an eloquent speaker. Words bereft of wings.

Comments

  1. Yamini MacLeanAugust 28, 2022 at 4:21 PM

    Hari OM
    What in interesting idea... of course the English did their best to wipe out the use of Gaelic and Scots when they invaded the Bonny Land (and Welsh in Wales and the Irish Gaelic...) and continued that trait throughout all their colonial activity; many English (and to be fair, some Scots too) who go to 'foreign parts for holiday' get all hot and bothered if the natives don't speak English... I detest that attitude. Language is so much part of culture and how we identify.

    On another note; the Currawong of Australia, a bird of beautiful voice, has been identified to have different dialects according to region and, in the example I saw, the community found on Lord Howe Island did not appear to understand what their cousins from Victoria were singing. If not different language, at least very different dialects. So I wonder if pigeons have 'accents'?!! YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 29, 2022 at 6:41 AM

      That's interesting about a bird having dialects. I wonder whether such variations occur among other species too.

      Homogenisation of language and culture is an integral part of empire building. India is becoming an empire, Rama Rajya.

      Delete
  2. AnonymousAugust 31, 2022 at 11:26 AM

    Surely, a language is way of communication which he/she develops from the surroundings when he/she grows up. It should be at consent and eagerness of one person if he/she wishes to learn any other language. Let him fee the need, if he feels it, let him learn, otherwise don't push him. Example of bird was really interesting. They don't see borders. Good piece of writing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 31, 2022 at 1:47 PM

      Language is also a medium of power. Taking away one's language is tantamount to enslaving one. When Hindi is imposed on non-Hindi-speaking people, it is a process of enslavement.

      Delete
  3. Anupama JoshySeptember 5, 2022 at 3:25 PM

    'The Last Lesson' still remains the first lesson to come to mind

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalSeptember 5, 2022 at 4:45 PM

      The first lesson of our last year at school 😊

      Delete
  4. Delhi Agra TripJanuary 21, 2023 at 1:53 PM

    Very nice information!
    Thank you for this precious information, your blog is very helpfull. I love reading your blog. we are working as tour operator in India. our Tour Packages.

    India Golden Triangle Tour With Haridwar and Rishikesh | Golden Triangle Tour with Mumbai.

    Visit For More Information
    Delhi Agra Trip

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ivan the unusual friend

When you are down and out, you will find that people are of two types. One is the kind that will walk away from you because now you are no good. They will pretend that you don’t exist. They don’t see you even if you happen to land right in front of them. The other is the sort that will have much fun at your expense. They will crack jokes about you even to you or preach at you or pray over you. This latter people are usually pretty happy that you are broke. You make them feel more comfortable with themselves even to the point of self-righteousness. Ivan was an exception. When I slipped on the path of life and started a free fall that would last many years before I hit the bottom without a thud but with enormous anguish, Ivan stood by me for some reason of his own. He didn’t display any affection which probably he didn’t have. He didn’t display any dislike either. There was no question of preaching or praying. No jokes either. Ivan was my colleague for a brief period at St Joseph’s
14 comments
Read more

Joe the tenacious friend

AI-generated illustration You outgrow certain friendships because life changes you in ways that nobody, including you, had expected. Joe is one such friend of mine who was very dear to me once. That friendship cannot be sustained anymore because I am no more the person whom Joe knew and loved to amble along with. And Joe seems incapable of understanding the fact that people can change substantially. Joe and I were supposed to meet one of these days after a gap of more than two decades. I scuttled the meeting rather heartlessly. Just because Joe’s last messages carried words that smacked of intimacy. My life has gone through so much devastating fire that the delicate warmth of intimacy has become repulsive. Joe was a good friend of mine while we were in Shillong. He was a post-graduate student and a part-time schoolteacher when I met him first. I was a fulltime schoolteacher teaching math and science to ninth and tenth graders. My dream was to postgraduate in English literature an
11 comments
Read more

Machiavelli the Reverend

Let us go today , you and I, through certain miasmic streets. Nothing will be quite clear along our way because this journey is through some delusions and illusions. You will meet people wearing holy robes and talking about morality and virtues. Some of them will claim to be god’s men and some will make taller claims. Some of them are just amorphous. Invisible. But omnipotent. You can feel their power around you. On you. Oppressing you. Stifling you. Reverend Machiavelli is one such oppressive power. You will meet Franz Kafka somewhere along the way. Joseph K’s ghost will pass by. Remember Joseph K who was arrested one fine morning for a crime that nobody knew anything about? Neither Joseph nor the men who arrest him know why Joseph K is arrested. The power that keeps Joseph K under arrest is invisible. He cannot get answers to his valid questions from the visible agents of that power. He cannot explain himself to that power. Finally, he is taken to a quarry outside the town wher
13 comments
Read more

Kailasnath the Paradox

AI-generated illustration It wasn’t easy to discern whether he was a friend or merely an amused onlooker. He was my colleague at the college, though from another department. When my life had entered a slippery slope because of certain unresolved psychological problems, he didn’t choose to shun me as most others did. However, when he did condescend to join me in the college canteen sipping tea and smoking a cigarette, I wasn’t ever sure whether he was befriending me or mocking me. Kailasnath was a bundle of paradoxes. He appeared to be an alpha male, so self-assured and lord of all that he surveyed. Yet if you cared to observe deeply, you would find too many chinks in his armour. Beneath all those domineering words and gestures lay ample signs of frailty. The tall, elegantly slim and precisely erect stature would draw anyone’s attention quickly. Kailasnath was always attractively dressed though never unduly stylish. Everything about him exuded an air of chic confidence. But the wa
9 comments
Read more

Levin the good shepherd

AI-generated image The lost sheep and its redeemer form a pet motif in Christianity. Jesus portrayed himself as a good shepherd many times. He said that the good shepherd will leave his 99 sheep in order to bring the lost sheep back to the fold. When he finds the lost sheep, the shepherd is happier about that one sheep than about the 99, Jesus claimed. He was speaking metaphorically. The lost sheep is the sinner in Jesus’ parable. Sin is a departure from the ‘right’ way. Angels raise a toast in heaven whenever a sinner returns to the ‘right’ path [Luke 15:10]. A lot of Catholic priests I know carry some sort of a Redeemer complex in their souls. They love the sinner so much that they cannot rest until they make the angels of God run for their cups of joy. I have also been fortunate to have one such priest-friend whom I shall call Levin in this post. He has befriended me right from the year 1976 when I was a blundering adolescent and he was just one year older than me. He possesse
8 comments
Read more