Why I don’t judge poor English anymore
What you judge in others, is what you hold against yourself
When you graduate from an English medium convent school in India, one thing that happens for sure is your penchant to correct everyone’s grammar.English is prioritized more than needed in our schools. I remember a month during which we were fined for speaking in Telugu during class hours. Our teachers openly made fun of us, using “po ve” “ra ve” conversations.
Our native language is criticised so much that when we graduate we have no desire to be attached to it.
English is not my first language, but it made it’s way into my life, mostly because of my privilege. Now imagine a 16 year old girl with managable English skills in the middle of a teen drama. I was that girl in the argument who is waiting for you to mess up your sentences. You might’ve made the strongest sensible point out there, but I was that bully who picked on how you didn’t know your “your/you’re/yours”. Even today I cringe so hard when I read those old messages. And like that wasn’t enough, I used to make fun of my parents thick accent too.
But, I stopped and primarily for two reasons:
Meeting right people at the right time and right place
I carried the grammar nazi to engineering as well and it stayed like that for a while, but things started to change. Engineering colleges in India admit students with Polytechnic background in the second year. And I started meeting people from less privileged backgrounds, mostly women because men never engaged in a conversation with me. These women also never spoke, until I made an effort to have a conversation with them. Initially I didn’t talk much, but then a group of our friends fell apart. So I started interacting with more people and was slowly getting to know them. Within no time I realised how brilliant and funny they are and how ignorant I was to think that they don’t fit my idea of friends. It is almost beautiful when you give someone the space to be themselves.
I started to realise the stupidity of this whitewashing. Our aspiration to be the Sharma uncle’s son is so deep rooted in our system that the percentage of people who can actually read a warning sign on the road is bare-minimum. You may not agree with this because you heard your “help” speak their colors, fruits and vegetables or because some study says so, lets not forget who’s narrating these stories. This obsession over English language is nothing but an introduction of a new oppressive system that is slowly wiping out the indeginious cultures.
What you judge in others, is what you hold yourself against
I am not that person trying to change the world, although I want to, thanks to my insecurities. But I am always trying to become the best version of myself. The utter shame I felt when someone corrected my language or the immediate need to spell something right when my phone made a mistake, was just unforgiving. I was unable to let myself make a mistake, I knew almost immediately that the system took over me, and I had to change that.
The only way to let yourself be, is when you let the world be.
So I stopped judging, but it took a concious effort. I also started educating myself around the dogma, to alienate these limiting beliefs. I vividly remember a year later, when a friend of mine corrected my grammar, I did not feel a thing. Years later, now I’m not a grammar nazi anymore, and it’s quite natural.
I’m not saying I don’t appreciate someone who can speak great English, I do, don’t get me wrong. It’s just not a KPI anymore.
