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

Yesterday

With students of Carmel Margaret, are you grieving / Over Goldengrove unleaving…? It was one of my first days in the eleventh class of Carmel Public School in Kerala, the last school of my teaching career. One girl, whose name was not Margaret, was in the class looking extremely melancholy. I had noticed her for a few days. I didn’t know how to put the matter over to her. I had already told the students that a smiling face was a rule in the English class. Since Margaret didn’t comply, I chose to drag Hopkins in. I replaced the name of Margaret with the girl’s actual name, however, when I quoted the lines. Margaret is a little girl in the Hopkins poem. Looking at autumn’s falling leaves, Margaret is saddened by the fact of life’s inevitable degeneration. The leaves have to turn yellow and eventually fall. And decay. The poet tells her that she has no choice but accept certain inevitabilities of life. Sorrow is our legacy, Margaret , I said to Margaret’s alter ego in my class. Let
25 comments
Read more

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
37 comments
Read more

William and the autumn of life

William and I were together only for one year, but our friendship has grown stronger year after year. The duration of that friendship is going to hit half a century. In the meanwhile both he and I changed many places. William was in Kerala when I was in Shillong. He was in Ireland when I was in Delhi. Now I am in Kerala where William is planning to migrate back. We were both novices of a religious congregation for one year at Kotagiri in Tamil Nadu. He was older than me by a few years and far more mature too. But we shared a cordial rapport which kept us in touch though we went in unexpected directions later. William’s conversations had the same pattern back then and now too. I’d call it Socratic. He questions a lot of things that you say with the intention of getting to the depth of the matter. The last conversation I had with him was when I decided to stop teaching. I mention this as an example of my conversations with William. “You are a good teacher. Why do you want to stop
15 comments
Read more

Thomas the Saint

AI-generated image His full name was Thomas Augustine. He was a Catholic priest. I knew him for a rather short period of my life. When I lived one whole year in the same institution with him, I was just 15 years old. I was a trainee for priesthood and he was many years my senior. We both lived in Don Bosco school and seminary at a place called Tirupattur in Tamil Nadu. He was in charge of a group of boys like me. Thomas had little to do with me directly as I was under the care of another in-charge. But his self-effacing ways and angelic smile drew me to him. He was a living saint all the years I knew him later. When he became a priest and was in charge of a section of a Don Bosco institution in Kochi, I met him again and his ways hadn’t changed an iota. You’d think he was a reincarnation of Jesus if you met him personally. You won’t be able to meet him anymore. He passed away a few years ago. One of the persons whom I won’t ever forget, can’t forget as long as the neurons continu
16 comments
Read more

Uriel the gargoyle-maker

Uriel was a multifaceted personality. He could stab with words, sting like Mike Tyson, and distort reality charmingly with the precision of a gifted cartoonist. He was sedate now and passionate the next moment. He could don the mantle of a carpenter, a plumber, or a mechanic, as situation demanded. He ran a school in Shillong in those days when I was there. That’s how I landed in the magic circle of his friendship. He made me a gargoyle. Gradually. When the refined side of human civilisation shaped magnificent castles and cathedrals, the darker side of the same homo sapiens gave birth to gargoyles. These grotesque shapes were erected on those beautiful works of architecture as if to prove that there is no human genius without a dash of perversion. In many parts of India, some such repulsive shape is placed in a prominent place of great edifices with the intention of warding off evil or, more commonly, the evil eye. I was Uriel’s gargoyle for warding off the evil eye from his sc
12 comments
Read more