I remember watching Woody Allen’s Love and Death as a college student. There is a scene in which the humourist is making a half-hearted attempt to ready himself for a war with the French. He hesitantly asks his sergeant as to what would happen if the French ultimately won the war. “What! Do you want to eat soufflé all your life?” blurts out his senior. We in Bharat have weathered many such issues. The latest is whether the new dispensation would like to push for compulsory learning of Hindi all over the country. Eminent mass leaders from Tamil Nadu have come up with protests.
Sure enough, there was a time when this was a highly charged issue. In 1967, when I was selected to a residential school in Ooty, then in Madras, the Congress had just been voted out and the DMK had been handed over the reins of power. I watched in wide-eyed disbelief Hindi signboards at railway stations being blacked out. “Hail Tamil, to hell with Hindi” went some of the wall posters. Much water has flown down the Cauvery. Ironically, two southern states have never got it quite correct as to how to divide the river’s bounties. Far too many events, national and international, have occurred in the meantime, convincing people south of the Vindhyas that mastering Hindi is the collateral damage they have to suffer to move up in life here and abroad, and what’s more, with Hindi, they get to enjoy the Bollywood productions better. Nor has it been a one way street.
Now, when a Rajinikanth movie is released, it is no longer a provincial affair. It sweeps across India and as far as Singapore and the US. A few years ago, I saw Aishwarya Rai gush on a TV programme that she was going to co-star with Rajini sir in a mega venture. If it was people going up north for better prospects in the first half after Independence, the traffic is heavy in both directions now.
Coming to think of it, northernisation has been going on for some time now. Paneer and rajma and flavours of chaat and chole bhatura have slowly been moving beyond Gopichettipalayam. The nine-yard sari has been replaced by the salwar-kameez and jeans. As for the half-sari, you do not even see it in the movies. Some time ago, there was a debate about whether girls should be allowed inside Kerala temples in dresses other than the traditional sari. I understand it is a non-issue now.
Our former English rulers will aver that it is they who cobbled together 530-odd warring provinces and made it into a nation. No matter! “Mera Bharat Mahaan” is what I would like to shout from the rooftops. All the same, it will be a tall order to have all sarkari communications in Hindi. Understanding spoken Hindi, and managing to speak in the language, or at any rate, making oneself understood is still a long way to go. A new, happy formula will have to evolve. Yes, I would like to have my soufflé and eat it, too.