Why I reject Hindi today.

The story starts with my grandfather, a crazy fan of Hindi films, naming his three boys with names of actors of Hindi films. Thus my father was a fan of Hindi films too, and the language. My brothers and I too grew up watching Hindi films. It was in fifth grade that I started learning Hindi. And the history of watching hindi films helped me grasp the language easier. When I was doing my pre-degree at Arts college. Trivandrum, watching all the SRK, Salman Khan, A Kumar films, first day-first show was a thing. I used to watch about 10-14 Hindi films every week. I was in love with Hindi. For someone who lived all his life till 18 in Kerala, I could speak Hindi at an enviable level. The love didn’t last long. I got my first job at 18, travelled outside the state (apart from Nagercoil and Kanyakumari) for the first time. There were around 1500 of us trainees, majority of who were from Bihar and UP, just about 50 Malayalees. The racism, the mockery and such made me question my love for Hindi. For the next 4 years, I moved around different parts of the northern part of the country. The experiences didn’t change much. The racism and mockery continued. By then I had realised that most North Indians were not anyway close to what they showed in films. They seemed stupid, silly and delusional. There was this one guy who laughed at me while yelling out loud to his friend that ‘Arey yeh depojit ko deposit bolta hein.’ 🙄 I had had enough of that job and went for an interview in Delhi. While talking on the phone they were impressed and wanted me to join them. But when I reached their office and handed over my resume, the lady who spoke to me earlier said ‘I didn’t know you are from the South, sorry we can’t hire South Indians coz you have ‘accent’. That was I being done with North India. Then came the era where internet was wide spread and even the ‘unpad gawar’s’ too had access to it and could say all the shit they could. They would troll us for silly things. By then, Bollywood had become so classy that the love for Hindi films vanished too. Then came the worst thing that has ever happened to India. The rise to power a man on a mission to divide and rule. I am very ashamed to admit that I was a supporter too. The whole Hindutva agenda and the way it is glorified is unbelievably ridiculous. The glorifiaction of cowmother, its urine and poop, the confidence with which stupidity is celebrated…the corona celebrations to kill the virus, the ‘micro-chip wala 2000, the radar can’t work in cloudy weather…are just a few examples. All that is forgivable, but Kerala being called a land of terror-@&&. and anti-Hindu is unacceptable. Just because we have religious harmony better than others? Why would that make us anti-nationals? Born a Hindu, I studied in Christian schools, made friends of all religions, yet, never once discussed religion or caste. I didn’t even know my caste till I had to fill in the application form for SSLC. I have been to temples all over the country. Even a small temple in Kerala observes rituals and such with devotion, while up north every Tom, Dick and Harry can get inside the sanctum and touch the idol. While we have grand festivals with chenda n stuff, they groove to devotional songs that are remixes of Bollywood item songs. The most powerful tantriks are from Kerala and the rest of South India. Yet, we are not HINDU enough for them! We have the world’s best ayurvedic treatments. Yet, we don’t know enough of traditional treatments. Sometimes, I wonder. Had it not been for Tamilians opposing Hindi what would have happened to Malayalam and other South Indian languages? The British were here for a long time, yet they didn’t impose English on us. It’s not that they didn’t have the power, but coz they were smart. Why is Hindi being imposed on us? Why should we give our Mother tongue, which is way older and way richer, lesser importance than Hindi? Is our tolerance our weakness? Isn’t it our responsibility to preserve our language? Awadhi which was way older than Hindi is now considered a dialect of Hindi. That’s the power of language imposition do! Every language is beautiful in its own way. So is Hindi, but if it comes at the cost of my mother tongue, then ‘I’ve got two words for Hindi’ ഭാരതമെന്നു കേട്ടാല്‍ അഭിമാനപൂരിതമാവണം അന്തരംഗം; കേരളമെന്ന് കേട്ടാലോ തിളയ്ക്കണം ചോര നമുക്ക് ഞരമ്പുകളില്‍.. P.S. I was triggered by that dumbass 100% literacy Saar shit. Sleepy AF, so forgive the errors. And about the mockery and stuff: Man was too much of a thug to be bullied and always had a mallu brigade to deal with such things (including കായിക നേരിടൽ)