Teaching is Learning

The IM strikes again.. interestingly after claims of Ahmedabad police of capturing masterminds of serial blasts. This time it is the national capital Delhi. The Ahmedabad blasts occurred when I was in Delhi and the Delhi blasts have happened when I have moved to Ahmedabad ..Terror knows no boundary and definitely doesn't recognise any fear and that is precisely why the argument of stringent acts to fights terrorism doesn't hold any logical validity. But I am not writing here to discuss this... This posting is to share what I wrote on the morning of 27 th July.. while reading the newspaper articles on Ahmedabad blasts of 26 th !! Below is the article that I wrote then... many things that I wrote then doesn't hold true anymore now and few actually does...Here it is for you to read it and share your views.. Gujarat is in news again; 16 serial blasts rocked Ahmedabad on Saturday the 26 th . The images of the blast sites, charred bodies and veiling relatives of...

Another striking feature of the Gujarat that I have returned to is the language..The Gujarati - in its absolute sense - seems to be dying. There is so much of influence of Hindi and English in all sphere from household jargon to public sphere as the 2007 state assembly election slogans for two major parties where not fully Gujarati..Chak De Gujarat (Punjabi) an d Jeetga Gujarat (Hindi) seemed like slogans of some northern states. At micro level, within households too, we are obsessed with teaching our children angrezi. We teach them to recognise nose and eyes instead of naak ane aankh. Our children doesn't recognise gai or kootaroo as they only know what cow or dog look like (and mind it, they ain't being taught to say a cow or a dog, jo beta, cow is what they are being taught..a typical Gujlish). The other day, I was standing at a medical shop near a paediatrician's clinic and I overheard a young child of six something asking her mother ' mummy, pandar etle' ?....

I have returned to GUjarat after spending seven years away from it..so much has happened during these years and I am no more the same Gujarati youth. I have changed and so is my perspective. I am now observing Gujarat and my people from this new perspetive and realsing how different I have become from the person who left GUjarat on August 4th, 2001. There are certain things about the society here that i amn ow finding very peculiar. It must have always been like that but I am getting more aware about it with my improved conscience. There are three points that I have observed during teh first week of my stay here and would like to write about it. Here is the first one to begin with: Extreme consciousness of caste (not religion) in Gandhi's Gujarat: At a rented accomodation in a poshed residentail township in Ahmedabad, we have hired a help to do sweeping, mopping and cleaning tasks. She happily agreed and started work. I instructed her to do dusting and use toilet cleaner for cle...