01. Errant codes and their erasing

02. Breaching my security wall

03. An issue of 180degree horizontal clockwise rotation

04. Daring standards of the valorous people

05. The tenacious training

06. Computers

07. Colluding with creepy negativity

08. Indian looks

09. Effect of lower indicants

10. Cosy comfort of the subordination

11. Dodging the negativity

12. Terrific illustrations

13. The invisible adjectives

14. A shifty situation

Now, let me move ahead and speak about the concept of improving. It is something that needs deep thoughts and contemplation. See this picture of two young children. {Refer to them as N & S}. They were like this before they became acquainted with Varuna and Ashwina. The facial expression of theirs is not that of poverty or lack of affection from their senior family members. It is more connected to a few social and familial issues.

One, they belong to the same lower caste as mine. They were not poor, for they had reasonable amounts of landed property owned by their parents. Now look at Varuna and Ashwina at that time. Those N & S were school going children, while Varuna and Ashwina were not going to school. Financially, comparing my personal property ownership (for I lived quite apart from my family strings at that time), Varuna and Ashwina were at that time quite poor in comparison.

However, there was no need to compare, as Varuna & Ashwina were at that time kept above the purview of social comparisons. If at all their financial condition was taken up for comparison by anyone in the society, it was an activity about which they had no information about nor were they bothered about. For, they knew only English in which there are no indicant word changes based on financial acumen and lack of it.

Even though I have had four-wheel vehicles earlier, at this particular time I had none. But Ashwina and Varuna were least bothered, for they used to travel to far-off areas, swim in the sea, speak of things of quite different levels, talked about English classics, saw an immensity of English films and did so many things in which they had no competition with others. However, in Malayalam, every human attribute is evaluated in comparison to others.

I remember the terrible change that came into Varuna and Ashwina when they were ultimately forced to join the local ‘English’ Medium schools. When I speak these things, it is not with any rancour. For, it is these contradictory events and connected observations that ultimately gave me the inputs to write my books.

Varuna came home with the problem that other students were pointedly mentioning the fact that she was not wearing any jewellery. For the first time in her life she was deliberately given an input that she was an inferior due to the fact that she was not wearing any jewellery.

I simply told her that it was not an issue and that it was not advisable for schoolchildren to wear expensive jewellery at school. I think the school also woke up to the issue fast, and wearing jewellery by the children was prohibited.

I remember one incident with regard to my second daughter Ashwina. Once I was driving my mother’s car and I happened to come behind the school bus in which she was coming home. I simply followed it.

I thought it better not to stop the bus and take her in the car. For, she may be quite happy with her schoolmates. However, when she reached home and came to know of this, she was quite cross that I did not stop the bus and take her. When I tried to explain to her, she looked at me abashed. ‘You should have stopped the car in front. My schoolmates would have seen the car, and they would know that I am rich’.

Known as being rich is a very powerful social component. However, in feudal languages like Malayalam, the power it lends to the codes is of the nth degree.

The problem for those two children {N & S} was that they were kept in the lower positions of the Malayalam feudal codes, by persons many of whom were of low social status. In Varuna’s and Ashwina’s case, if at all their family social status was low, it was not to connect to them as a lower indicant word in Malayalam. For they did not know Malayalam and no one spoke to them in Malayalam.

Fate was manipulated by someone in my household, and N &S and their family were taken as tenants in one of our fabulous family houses, in the same compound where I was living in another dilapidated house. (Their father came to me for learning English speaking many months earlier). Our house was thus, because I strived to keep away from the family setup, wherein there was an inimical competition to see that I was kept in my position.

This would easily mean that Varuna and Ashwina also should be kept in their position. It may be remembered that even in my own family (consisting of my brother, sisters and a parent) which was quite good in English, there was exasperation among other members that I was not allowing them to teach Malayalam to Ashwina and Varuna. My firm stand was connected to my aim to see what would be the positive change in individuals if they are kept away from the barbs of feudal language codes.

There was one person in my family who expressed the idea that she was coming home to our family house just to practise her Malayalam. For, she was living in a professional ambience, wherein English can be opted for. The idea that Varuna & Ashwina were there for her to practise Malayalam was not the core issue. That they couldn’t be made to bear the subordination imposable by Malayalam lower indicant pejorative-affectionate word codes was the core issue.

Now coming back to N & S, their parents were not good in English at that time. The children were absolute zeros in English. They studied in an Indian tradition focused manner, wherein the theme of ‘respecting’ the greater man was the theme. The idea that the non-great man also has to be extended a reasonable amount of dignity is not there in such traditions.

Errant codes and their erasing

When they started living as our tenant, there was bound to be some communication issue. The father was in a way my student in that he had come to me for learning to speak in English. In that sense, I should be getting a disciple or at least someone to support me. However, the ingenious attitude of my own family members was to seek to inform him that I was his friend at first (not his trainer), and slowly to shift that information and to let me know that he is my equal. And then later on to get him to understand that I am his subordinate. For, professionally he had a professional qualification which if positioned on a good social platform could get him social acclaim.

At the same time, I was continuing my age-old stance that I will not go in for any formal Indian qualifications at any time in my life.

N & S knew little English, and in Malayalam, they were quite the extremely subordinated children. In fact, I do not recall seeing anyone like them. They must have been around 8 and 7 at that time. They had no training in walking on the road without anyone holding them. However, in spite of these issues, at home, they did take up a very truculent attitude to Ashwina & Varuna.

When Ashwina & Varuna were out in the courtyard quite preoccupied with various hobbies, N & S would climb up on the upper storey of their house and call them by name and make catcalls and boo. Now, there was this issue also. They were younger to Varuna and elder to Ashwina. The booing was a distraction and not much more. However, it perturbed Varuna & Ashwina. So I was compelled to do something.

The basic issue was that the children were kept at home with no permission to mix with the outer society, which was more or less totally Muslims. Culture conflict would be there. They came from a less cosy social area. As to them being with Varuna & Ashwina, there was the question whether they were willing to learn and speak in English.

Here I will have to take up the ancient question of why the British taught the ‘Indians’ English. It is generally taught in the schools that the British did it to enslave the ‘Indians’. Not only was that argument rank nonsense, but also wily. For anyone who knows the ‘Indian’ languages would understand that giving anyone the chance to learn English is the greatest liberation a man can be given. Not the opposite. Yet, people who do not know the benefits inherent in English simply fall for the cunning indoctrination and go around parroting the same.

The children’s father, being my trainee, did know the grandness in learning English. However, the mother had an opposite view. The question was, what was wrong with ‘Indian’ languages? It was a stance to display one’s shallow patriotism. This patriotism is there in many ‘Indians’. It survives till they or their children get a British or US visa. Once that is achieved, then they go around displaying cute photos of their children in the companionship of White kids or persons. A proximity to other colours is not that much appreciated. However, the GB or US tag, of whatever colour, is a very powerful one.

It was then that I was compelled to ask their father to take a definite stand about English. He later told that his wife and he had a long talk about it. He told me that the children were handed over to me for English training in whatsoever manner that I thought fit. It was decided that Ashwina would be their trainer. It was acceptable for everyone concerned, including the children.

Now this scenario has to be explained. Ashwina would be around less than four years of age. N & S were senior to her in age. Varuna was older than both of them, by a few years. In Malayalam it was quite easy for a youngster to accept a senior in age person as a trainer, for there are automatic verbal codes that assign the proper subordination. They immediately started calling Varuna as Varuna Chechhi (Elder sister).

Now, there was this correction to be immediately enforced. First of all Varuna was not their sister. If it was ‘respect’ that they meant by this verbal code, it was unacceptable. For it suggested a powerful link to Malayalam ‘respect’ versus ‘degradation’ codes. So, they were told to address Varuna as Varuna only.

Here again problems come in the codes. If Varuna is called Varuna Checchi, immediately the other associated words for She, Her, Hers etc. automatically move into the higher indicant highly ‘respectful’ form. Removing the word ‘Chechi’ was equivalent to removing ‘respect’, which is not a thing any sensible person would ask for in Malayalam and other ‘Indian’ languages. Not only N & S, but even their other associates would also start using lower indicant words towards Varuna and Ashwina.

Now this was one major problem with trying to remove the negativity in these children. The possibility of them pulling down Varuna & Ashwina to social levels beneath their own levels.

How was I to handle this? The fact is that every ‘Indian’ instinctively know these things, even though the modern English natives do not have any inkling of these things and their powerful negative actions.

Now what about Ashwina? She was to be their trainer. Now this training was not the typical classroom training that is easily visualised when one mentions the word ‘training’. Ashwina would mingle with them, play with them, take them out, to the river for swimming, for outdoor games, for jogging etc. They would be insistently asked to talk in English. I saw Ashwina doing a fantastic job in this regard. Every minute she would be mentioning ‘Speak in English’ at least five times, in the initial days. Both N & S had been told by their parents to ‘obey’ Ashwina.

Breaching my security wall

Now, there was the issue of N & S’ parents. When the father first came to me for learning English, he did address me as ‘Saar’. That word was powerfully erased and he had been induced to address me with my name with a Mr. prefixed. This stance itself was a dangerous thing for a teacher to do. For, the word Mr. doesn’t last long. When he mentions my name in many other social areas, it might not get conveyed. Only my mere name might move into their social conversation.

However, if a Saar had been there as suffix, it would go along with my name, wherever and whenever I get mentioned. This is a very powerful code. For, it is a code that demands that I be ‘respected’, and that only higher indicant words for He, His, Him etc. should be used in my case. When I enter, there shall be a trigger in the codes that demand that many other people should acknowledge my superior presence. What I desire could very well become divine commands, as far as a great majority of the people present in the place. Moreover if there is any moral or ethical transgression on my part, it would be pure blasphemy to mention and discuss such things by the persons who ‘respect’ me.

Now what did I do? I was in many ways requesting that I be denied of all these positive attributes and allowing a powerful breach of social security around me.

Later his wife also was my student for some time. She was to address me with a Mr. prefixed to my name. She would be around 10 years or more, younger than me, while her husband would be around one year elder to me. She addresses her husband with a ‘chettan’ suffixed to his name. It is a very powerful introduction of her husband in all places she mentions him. However, my stance was pure madness.

When the husband and wife talk about any other ‘chettan’ or ‘Saar’, like Ravi‘yettan’ or Rajansaar, or Balan master, among themselves, the suffixes will not get removed. However, the moment they spoke about me, the Mr. will disappear and my mere name would get mentioned. Actually the mention of mere name signifies a subordinate or a servant in Malayalam, if not otherwise related.

Now, there is the presence of their children to be considered. When I said that the children also need to address me with a Mr. prefixed to my name, it had a really distressing effect on the father. For it more or less meant the elevation of the children to his own level in terms of communication and through that, to that of mental stature. He was of the opinion that the children should address me with an ‘Uncle’ suffixed to my name.

Well, that is a powerful placement. And all over India, children are made to remain at that level, just like the servants. For, it was in the language codes connected to various words and codes. However, it was a very stupid placement. For, I was not their ‘uncle’ in any sense of the term. And my training programme was to induce pristine English and not the tremolos version of English known as Gandhi or coolie English. I insisted that since I was bent on training pristine English, the children also had to address me with a Mr. prefixed.

Now what was I doing? It was pure madness when seen from the colloquial social context. For, persons who were very clearly on the lower side of personal stature are being allowed to rise up. Actually the immediate effect is not of their rising up, but the pulling down of me from my stature. My stature was not connected to any strong pillars (like a government job, financial acumen etc.), but was on more or less based on my own mental feelings that I was not below anyone.

The other issue was that these persons, even though they became quite comfortable in addressing me with a Mr. prefixed to my name, were still on the lower side of many other communication strings with their various relatives, social seniors, professional senior etc. who themselves were not of very good social stature. For they themselves existed on the bottom layers of various communication codes.

An issue of 180degree horizontal clockwise rotation

Actually the placing of Mr. before the name is not an easy thing. It has a connection to the particular codes in feudal languages, wherein a suffix of respect is required. Otherwise the person would tumble down from the heights to the abysses of lower indicant words. I have discussed this issue in my book: CODES of REALITY! WHAT is LANGUAGE?

Now look at this: Lake Victoria. And also: Victoria Lake.

Or see: Aunt Sheela. And: Sheela Aunty

The first stance is from the elevations of pristine English. What about the other? It is from the low self-confidence stature of lower class people in feudal language societies. Now this ‘lower class’ is not always connected to financial weakness or low social stature, but more connected to mental training that has been given.

I remember the fury that was caused in a nurse in a private hospital in a village when I used the words: ‘What did Dr. Moidu say about this?’ in Malayalam. She was an uneducated woman who became a staff nurse through work experience in midwifery and other general nursing activities. She repeated the words ‘Dr. Moidu’ with a terrible rancour, bitterness and fury. She obviously wanted me to say Moidu Doctor. That is the how the codes of respect work in Malayalam. Other way for placing the ‘Doctor’ in front is an action that could signify impertinence, which could trigger an outrage.

Actually the virtual code issue is connected to —180degree positioning for the Malayalam mentality when compared to pristine English.

Now the very placing of Dr. as a prefix is not possible for a lot of Malayalam speaking persons initially. It requires a real mental reprogramming. It is slightly akin to asking a Malayalam person to address the local Police Sub Inspector with a Nee (Lower YOU). Well, not exactly similar, for in this case, then the police would beat him into a pulp. However the Indian police can and would address a local man with a Nee. That is the known standard of the free people of ‘India’.

Daring standards of the valorous people

When speaking about people standard, this much has to be mentioned. People are quite brave and also of adventurous disposition. When a police official is in the vicinity, they have the mental stamina to gather and call him obscenities, challenge him and to inform him with a massive mob power that he is just next to nothing. They would use the words ‘Nee’ ‘Avan’, ‘Aval’, ‘Poda’ ‘Podi’ etc. in these events.

When there is an obstacle in their path, they are adventurous enough to jump over it, even if it is someone else’s property.

At the same time, if youngsters or people without much social clout, come and ask for permission to take ball that has fallen into the compound to the householder, he would be brave enough to distress them with ominous words.

To stand in a queue is almost an impossibility for most people of this nation. For, they would show the daring to stand without a queue. Or to break it.

However the other side of bravery, which is really of much softer content, cannot be contemplated or practised by the people. For example, the minor action, which in England would not be equated with bravery or daring, of going to a police station, asking for a seat in front of the sub inspector and addressing him with a Mr. prefixed to his name and discussing an issue with a lot of dignity; well, this level of very soft daring is not there in the ‘Indian’ people.

Nor have they been trained to think that it requires more mental stamina to avoid encroaching into someone else’s compound and to go round the wall, through the proper road. This level of mental stamina is not trained or shown as exemplary.

As to the householder, he or she doesn’t have the mental calibre to politely ask of the people as to what is their problem and to discuss the issue in a non-truculent manner.

As to standing in a queue, well, it really requires a lot of bravery to do that. For, it is almost sure if one does it, another man would simply bypass him with no qualms and poke his hands through the counter window. The daring and mental quality to request everyone to stand in a queue is not there in ‘Indians’.

But then, they are not the persons to be blamed. The ultimate blame should fall on the people who took over the nation from the British with no idea as to what is it that they had to train the people in. As to the super British nut called, Clement Atlee, he had no idea as what he was denying to the huge mass of people when he handed them over to the Indian governing class.

I am sorry that I did digress to the issue of daring. But then it came into my mind now.

Now coming back to the issue of placing the proper words in a name, it is an absolute reversal of codes when Sheela Aunty (most ‘Indians’ would say: Sheela Anti) is reversed as Aunt Sheela. Likewise everything such as Victoria Lake is reversed to Lake Victoria. Now, the latter stance really requires a particular kind of mental stamina.

I don’t know if it is true, but then it may be possible to see the Asian version coming into popularity in such English nations as the US, as more and more people from the feudal language content arrive over there and inflict their own negative mental statures to innately English social settings. The nations will slowly atrophy. Lake Victoria will turn into Victoria Lake. It is a mental state of lowly stature on the opposite side of English standards. A 180 degree negative component.

So, I was to be addressed with a Mr. prefixed to my name. However, it was a very perilous arrangement. For, after every interaction, N & S would go back to the area where their parents would talk to them of me without a Mr. That is, a mere name, which would decode me in their minds as of a person of low stature.

That was only one part of the issue. Varuna and Ashwina were quite noticeably different from them. Ashwina was able to make them talk in reasonably good English within a short period of two months. It was school holidays for them.

The tenacious training

They were taken along for long walks, jogging and to the river. For some time, they did not join them in the river for swimming. However, later, much later they started swimming also. The boy was quite frightened. Both of them gave me a quite a fright when they came out of the water, gasping for air after water had entered their windpipe. It did happen a few times.

In my own life, it was a time of terrible happenings in my family life. That needn’t be the matter for discussion in this context. However, there was this streak of behaviour that I could notice in N & S. They were actively trained by Varuna and Ashwina to improve their individuality. However, on their side there was active competition. They wanted to beat Varuna and Ashwina in all aspects. This was a streak that was not quite felt by Varuna, for she was elder to them both. However, Ashwina did feel it, and I could see it. For, in their own codes she was their junior, and once the capacity to speak in English was achieved, they were under the impression that they were senior to Ashwina.

It was quite a painful experience, in that I could see Ashwina trying hard to improve their English and other qualities. At the same time, they would be using sly manoeuvres to become superior to Ashwina. In many ways, this could be equated to the issue of Asians arriving in English nations, and then prompting their children to beat the native-English speaking children in all kinds of capacities, including academic as well as physical competitions. When it is achieved, it is deemed as a great achievement. However, the fact that the local society had given them all the encouraging ambiences is easily forgotten. A platform to act out their claims to superiority.

The fact is that once a person arrives from India on the platform of an English nation, any minor capacity of his is on a huge elevated platform. He is in the midst of English speakers. It is really a great elevation. However, in all achievement that he makes, very rarely would he mention the platform that gives him and his actions the glow and heights.

Computers

In the case of Varuna and Ashwina, the issue was that they had no tone of competition, while the other side had an incessant striving for defeating them. This I have seen in the case of many other kids also, who were trained by Ashwina and Varuna. At times, Varuna and Ashwina did seem to get a bit distressed by this competitive mood in the trainees, when the actual mood should have been to create a congenial atmosphere for all round improvement, rather than competition. However, the Malayalam speaking kids were actually at home in a different mental environment in which each point gathered would create a value improvement in verbal codes.

I did see that neither Ashwina nor Varuna were least bit bothered about positioning themselves in the middle when they were moving with their friends. However, being in the middle is a very powerful plus point in the feudal language indicant codes when other see this position of theirs.

Varuna started using computers at age four, when I got a computer at home. She learned typing very fast, and was good in Adobe PageMaker also. However, at that time I did notice an attitude in many parents that children should not touch computers. It was not really connected to a feeling that the children would spoil a computer, but rather connected to a feeling that children should be placed in their inferior position, as a means of regimenting discipline. In the case of N & S also, this was seen. Their father exhibited a mood that a computer was something of a divine entity that should be displayed to the children with the minimal of direct interaction with them.

It transformed into the verbal idea that computers are much above the mental standard of a child to deal with. However, it had been my experience and understanding that computers are quite intelligent, and the most minimal of intelligent person can work with a computer. For computers are designed to work with the minimal of efforts from the side of the user. Computers are intelligent. The more intelligent it gets, the more easier it will be for operating.

So, N & S were given access to use of our computer by Varuna and Ashwina. Very fast their computer skills improved. Slowly they started getting their father’s computer also. I could very easily see that most of the computer skills of Varuna and Ashwina were getting imbibed by N & S also. Actually, it was a moment for me to be in a competitive mood.

For, even though I was trying to disseminate English qualities in others, I was living in a Malayalam world, where every person is evaluated on a regular basis, on the basis of what all things he has as unique and above others. It was a moment of introspection for me. By giving N & S unrestricted access to learn the varied skill that Varuna and Ashwina possessed, was I not allowing a competing group to gather exquisite skills at that time (around 2005-07) in a remote village area?

I have seen this issue in the case of various trades in India. For example, I know about traditional carpenters, who learnt their trades as a traditional vocation, right from childhood. When they have apprentices who work to learn the trade, they will not allow them to learn the intricacies. When a specific complicated calculation is involved, they would just tell their ward to take the chisel and sharpen it from afar. They do not want their knowledge to go to even their apprentice, so easily. For, it is by the exclusiveness of their skills that they retain their ‘respect’ in the trade, guild and society.

We had then in our possession two CDs of around 1000 games. It had been my observation that children playing skill games on computers and becoming adept in them, really improves their mental and physical agility and speed of response. Varuna and Ashwina mentioned to N & S that they had with them these 1000 games. Varuna & Ashwina came and asked me to give the CDs to N & S. Again my Malayalam mood sparked. Should I allow this training also or not?

Colluding with creepy negativity

There was a related issue that was bothering me, and more or less was affecting my logic in regard to the above question. The children were improving and more or less arriving at very near to Varuna and Ashwina in many qualities, including physical games, including swimming, jogging, cycle riding etc. For, I used the allow them to go cycling even on the road, under my supervision. In many ways, it was a powerful mental calibre improvement that all these things were giving them.

However, what was the affect on Varuna & Ashwina from this interaction? Well, they were getting identified with children who were being kept at the Nee, Oan (Avan), Oal (Aval), Chekkan, Pennu, edi, eda levels by varying kinds of persons, which could include their parents, their servants, teachers, neighbours, relatives and even casual acquaintances of their parents. Well, is there anything wrong in these things? Well, ultimately it is these things that create the ‘Indian’ looks. ‘Indian’ looks itself has to be discussed in detail.

Indian looks

I will briefly mention Indian looks. Later, I will try to elaborate. There is no such thing as a single Indian looks. Each language decides the looks of the persons who speak it as a native language. Even native-Malayalam speakers’ children, when they are born and bred in other native language atmospheres, do not have the Malayalam looks. If they do not know Malayalam at all, then there is very much limited Malayalee looks in them.

However, inside each of the ‘Indian’ feudal language speaking groups, there will be diametrically opposite stances in the expressions and physical looks and postures. This is directly connected to which part of the indicant code level a person exists. For, individuals are affected by a lot of different kinds of indicant words from varying locations. The resultant of this will have to interact with the inner virtual codes to exactly form a person’s looks and features. Here such things as mental connectivity to persons and social locations also effect. As also the issue of what level was the father, and the mother’s evaluation of the person who copulated with her to create the child. This theme is quite a complicated one, and I cannot go deeper into it.

Effect of lower indicants

Now speaking about the effect of each of these lower indicant words, I need to elaborate this much. Each of these words is a lower indicant, pejorative word. However, the effect they create on each person varies much depending on who is targeting whom. It differs: affectionate tone of a parent, the taunting words of a boss, the sniggering derision of a servant, a companionship of a friend, intrusive pose of an outsider, an impertinent stance of a neighbour etc. all have different affects.

Moreover, it also depends on the size of the targeted person in terms of age, social position, professional stature, financial condition, physical size etc. Even though the lower placed person is usually the target of this attack, the negative effect is more if the targeted person is of a higher stature. He or she will feel it terribly more. As if he or she is pulled down from a high platform right into the gutters.

Cosy comfort of the subordination

Now coming back to N & S, they are the targets of such words. Even though their parents use it as an affectionate tone of subordination, it is taken up by others and used in the tone of compelling subordination.

When they get addressed as Nee, and referred to as Oan (Avan) or Oal (Aval) etc. they do not feel much discomfort in the same manner an ‘Indian’ servant wouldn’t feel any distressed on being asked to sit in the kitchen floor to eat while others eat at the dining table.

Dodging the negativity

In the case of Varuna & Ashwina, these words and their social meanings are not used. For, they do not know Malayalam and the behaviour to them is as per the codes in English. Neither high nor low. Yet, on being acknowledged as friends of N & S, their stance gets compromised. Even though what they act out may not seem cantankerous in English, in Malayalam their casual stand would be a sort of impertinence. However, that was not an issue, for they were identified as being different, and so such a categorisation was not there.

Ashwina used to take training of senior persons in our English training programme, right from around age 5 or even below. However, this was done by placing Ashwina above the word codes, by not allowing pejorative lower indicant words on her. Since she did not know Malayalam, there was no issue when she addressed the senior-in-age trainees by name.

For, she did not have any feeling of having transgressed any limits. However, when N & S accompanied her in the training programme, I could see that her capacities were being compromised. For, as N & S had improved much in their English, they had no qualms in competing with Ashwina as an equal. The only effect it has on Ashwina is negative, for others who are trainees get a feeling that they are dealing with some youngsters from the Malayalam group.

For, way back in Malayalam, Ashwina’s stature was easily lowered by the use of powerful lower indicant words, which were not mentioned in front of us, but definitely used by N & S’s parents in the privacy of their home. In many ways, this is one sly character of ‘Indian’ social communication. One expression in front of others, and the exact opposite when they are not there.

N & S were at home in Malayalam, and for them to call senior persons by their name was equivalent to rank discourtesy and outrageous impertinence. Now this was a problem in the training programme. For, then I had to powerfully introduce them as separate from Ashwina. It could be identified as discrimination. However, if I did not discriminate, then the trainees would naturally get agitated and furious. For, when N & S addressed them by name in English, it naturally has to appear in the Malayalam codes also. There it becomes criminal and highly provocative.

Apart from this, by the very identification of N & S as equal to Ashwina or possibly senior to her in age, the English stature of Ashwina was quite obviously seen as diminishing. So there were times, when I had to really worry about how to combine everyone together in the training programme.

However, when one moves around with persons who are understood to be lower in some manner, the lower stature rubs on the other. In two ways. One in the eyes of the others. Second, in themselves the lower positioning gets encoded.

Terrific illustrations

From my own life, I can relate two different incidences that can cast an illustration on this aspect. Many years ago, around the year 1983, when I returned to the village where my parents had bought a house many years back, I was not much known by sight by everyone. Since one of my parent was a very senior government officer and such other frill reasons, the house was treated with ‘deference and respect’ by the local people. When people came to our house, I was also addressed and treated with extreme honour, not usually lend to a local youngster. The senior people in the society also treated me with deference not shown to a youngster.

Being quite bored with monotony of the existence in a village wherein the people seemed quite removed from a city-life, many of them treating a menial job in an Arab’s house in the Middle East as the greatest achievement in life, and also due to certain sly limiting actions on me by my own family members, I used to go to the local river for swimming. At the time, the servant boy in the house also would be there with some of his companions.

There was one time during the monsoon months, when the waters were quite a torrent. I was swimming. Quite nearby were the servant boy and his companions. In the swimming dress (at that time only a thin cotton towel), all of us looked the same, with nothing to identify me apart from the servant boy and his companions. There was a wooden bridge across the river, with pillars in the river.

There was a man crossing the river the bridge. He was a person who used to come to our house. When he came addressed me, he would put on a very deferential pose and use quite ‘respectful’ words of address and referring. As he moved across the bridge, he saw my head protruding out of the waters, and me holding on to one of the pillars of the bridge to escape the tremendous pull of the torrential waters.

He saw me as one among the servant boy’s companions. He went into a terrible stream of words, meaning, ‘Leave the pillar’. However, if the same sense of the lower indicant words he used were to be translated into English, it would more or less, ‘Bloody Stink, leave the pillar’. However, if the same words were addressed to the servant boy, it wouldn’t seem thus to him. For, Indian feudal language codes allow such words to be used to the servants, and they are not discomforted by them.

The invisible adjectives

Here I need to digress a bit and mention that almost all ‘Indian’ feudal language lower indicant words and sentences (when they are used in the degrading sense) when translated into English, an adjective of ‘stink’ or some other words actually needs to be added to convey the correct word sense.

On the other end, when higher indicant words and sentences are translated into English, an adjective words like that of ‘gold’, ‘golden’, ‘precious’, ‘priceless’, ‘invaluable’ etc. would need to be added to convey the correct sense. The tragedy with the current-day understanding of feudal language speaking persons’ words and speech is that modern English nations do not understand this ‘stinking-dirtification’ of their nation that is incessantly taking place.

For, as in the example given above, only the ‘Leave the pillar’ gets understood in English as the other part is slyly hidden during translation. However, the ‘dirtification’ of persons, institutions and events goes on, and the nation and its refined common man go down, making themselves despicable to their own national ‘higher’ level citizens.

A shifty situation

Now, the incident that I mentioned is only a very tangible illustration.

Being on close proximity to N & S, Varuna and Ashwina was connecting themselves to people who would not only use the lower indicant words to N & S, but also about them also. For, the words ‘aval’ and associated words would come in their conversation. Now, in this regard, even the parents of N & S were not above reproach. For, they would use such words only about their children, and they would have no compulsion to use a higher word about Varuna & Ashwina. Or to refrain from using such words.

Now, here I need to insert another fact. Whenever I introduce Varuna and Ashwina as trainers, I would mention the issue of lower words in Malayalam and give a fair warning that such words are not to be used about them. They can use the names, but for such words as Her, Hers etc. they were not to use the Malayalam lower indicant words, but to use the name instead.

Almost everybody directly connected to them did concede to this request, for they had no problem. However, persons who stood one or two steps away from this connection, like a parent of the trainee, his or her friend, teacher etc. were not bound to this obligation. It was here the atrophy couldn’t be managed.

Look at this video. [Occasion of the video is this. One of the trainees was going abroad for getting a job. There was a celebration party in the house. At that time, our trainees along with Ashwina and Varuna went to the nearby riverside. The trainee’s house was in a remote mountainous area. This event took place in 2008. Varuna was twelve and Ashwina six. I did not go with them to the riverside].

What you see are Varuna and Ashwina with senior persons who are their trainees. It is a very strange situation, not at all possible in current day ‘Indian’ languages, unless some superb degrading of the trainees and some supernatural ennobling of the young trainers are induced. However, in the pristine form of English, it is possible.

Here again, many native-English speaking readers may not understand what the essential issue is that I am pointing to, unless they have already understood the issue of indicant words. Even though Ashwina and Varuna are here as trainers, there is no ambiance of them being superiors. However, if the other side, that is the feudal language speaking side, were their trainers, they would have gone into words of degradation.

When feudal language-speaking person are made teachers in English nations, no one tells them that lower indicant words are not to be used upon or about the students. It is an act of criminal negligence that native-English children are made to go into the subordination of feudal language speaking teachers with no security barricades in position.