01. Presence in negative versus positive environment

02. Lending stature to low stature persons

03. About improving Indians and about their ambivalences

I have seen white women walking around almost in a nude pose in the Kovalam beach area in South Kerala many years ago. They are unperturbed by the lewd looks and vulgar comments of the local Malayalam speaking folks. It is not just an issue of not understanding. In those times, the local people were quite backward technologically. Many of them did not speak English. {It may also be noted that most of the Whites here were not from English nations}. The feeling of superiority gave a protective shield to the semi-nude females. In many cases, it was just like being naked in front of an animal.

There was still the issue of lower indicant words being used. However, in South Kerala, the tendency to use lower indicant words about presumed superiors were not much in practise. {This is entirely connected to the different language code structure between Travancore Malayalam and Malabar Malayalam}. So a limited amount of security was attained. However, if Kovalam had been in North Kerala, the mental reaction would have been quite bitter. For the local dialect would immediately pull the women folk to near stink level in words and indicant levels. May be this could be one reason that a beach area like Kovalam did not come up in North Kerala, despite the fact that there were huge stretches of pristine coastlines in Malabar.

This issue may be connected to another issue. Currently many females are posting their nude pictures online. There is actually a need to study the exact input it is giving to their virtual codes. Will a lot of admiring persons viewing their naked loveliness add a numerical value in their personality codes? Would it lead to a mental exhilaration, tranquillity and a feeling of superiority? Well, actually the idea is connected to my other book: CODES of REALITY! WHAT is LANGUAGE? The theme is actually of very powerful inputs. And it may be mentioned in passing that the native language of the viewers would definitely have powerful affects on the person whose image is online.

Presence in negative versus positive environment

That part need not be taken up for discussion here. However, there is the issue of posting where it would bring in positive energy and posting it where would bring in negative energy. For example, if a female’s nude picture in a very suggestive pose is posted on an English website, even if the commentators do use bad words (usually they do not), there is no indicant value depreciation. However if the same person’s figure is posted on an Indians’ viewing website where the comments are in Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu etc. the words used would be quite of a lower indicant level.

The words like Aval, Avalude, Ninte etc. would be used lavishly. Moreover, the dirtier words for buttocks and breasts would be used. For instance, in Malayalam, the word Kundi for buttocks would be used. Even though it would be argued that this is a standard word, the fact is that it is used in a depreciatory sense. For, only the totally impertinent subordinate would say in Malayalam, ‘Look at her (avalude) Kundi’ with regard to a female who is understood as superior. When such words are used, the sense of addressing or referring to a lower-class-female sets in.

I would give an illustration. Suppose the nude picture of a young female IAS officer (the highest group of Indian ‘officers’) is posted on a British-based English website. People admire her and say so many things. No one knows that she is this person. Now the same picture is posted on a Malayalam based nudity website. The commentators would rapidly address her as Nee, Edi etc. and also refer to her as Aval, and mention her features as Avalude. Her buttocks and breasts would be vehemently mentioned as Kundi and Mula. The fact is that there are higher levels words for higher level females. However being displayed in lower levels in front of Malayalam-speaking people can really be a most tugging-to-the bottom experience.

Now if later the female is understood to be the IAS officer, what would be the gravity of the situation? Well, even if the lady had been a senior government official in Great Britain, there would be a repercussion on her. For, she might lose her job for doing such a thing. However, if she was not the culprit, then the only issue would be the problem of facing the people who had seen her nudity. However in the Malayalam context, the issue wouldn’t stop here. It is not merely the issue of her nudity being seen by others, but the more turbulent issue of her having been ravished in the lower indicant words like Nee, Edi, Aval, Avalude, Kundi, Mula, Pooru etc.

This is an issue that really moves beyond the traditional understanding of human dignity in English. And it is this issue that has to be dealt with properly and very stiff parameters set, as English nations become more and more filled with people who speak quite un-understandable languages. This issue can be connected to that of persons who are in the midst of a feudal language speaking people.

For instance, a young domestic help among Indians and a young domestic help among native-English speakers. Would there be any qualitative difference in the two persons who are viewed by two totally different groups of people? Well, the answer is that the domestic help among the Indians would have a much dirtied looks. While the domestic help among the native English speakers wouldn’t have much of personality depreciation.

Being poor or being an employee of another person is in many ways, a denuding of one’s personality, as well as removing of walls that screens one’s privacy. However, the person is literally in the hands of others, who have money to buy the person’s various attributes, including time, physical powers, intellectual abilities etc.

Now, who are these others? If they are persons who are native speakers of planar languages like English, then the ambience is positive. If they are native speakers of feudal languages like Malayalam, then the ambience is negative. This is irrespective of whether the persons are good or bad. This is what makes the difference. Similar to being viewed in the nude by English or Malayalam speakers. The English speakers cannot despoil human personality by their ordinary words. Malayalam and other feudal language speakers can make the denuded person literally a stinking dirt, just by using ordinary words.

DIGRESSION:

See the video that I have mentioned here. Look at the appearance of the maid. This is the typical looks of an Indian maid who works under Indians.

But then there are the other claims that she has, not on the family of the household, but on the nation itself. How come she is in such terrible plights, in a nation where actually wealth is in plenitude? Isn’t she being addressed in the pejorative by the household people? Isn’t it a crime as per the Indian constitution to be discriminative and degrading? Moreover Indian constitution mentions the right of the citizen to dignity. By being addressed and referred to in the lower indicant words, surely these rights have been infringed.

Lending stature to low stature persons

But then there is the other side of the Indian social equation. Suppose the household dare to allow her claims to right to dignity and addresses her and refers to her in the higher indicant codes. What happens? Well, that is a very pertinent question. I need to narrative an experience of mine many years ago.

Many years ago, may be around the year 1980, I was living in the Travancore areas of Kerala. My family had started a medical shop in an interior village in Malabar, with me as the owner as per official records. I would have just reached official maturity. Since I was required to do some official paper signing, I came to this interior village from my far-off place of residence.

A young un-educated looking man was in charge of the shop. From my disposition to treat others with a demeanour of equal dignity, I addressed him with Ningal (higher You). He was holding a statutory position in the shop. For, he was a D Pharm (Diploma in Pharmacy). It simply means that he has had experience in working in medical shops and has studied a very low standard pharmacy course. However, he was required. Being from his very looks, a totally un-educated person in English, he understood my attitude as subordination and he addressed me with a Nee (totally lower level You).

I, who was quite well-read, studying in a good college, a user of English interaction codes, had good reading knowledge of English classics, well-travelled and much else, had literally no defence to his single sly use of lower indicant code on me. A simple Nee, and I was powerfully positioned below him. And he a totally un-educated in English person. Since I stayed in the locality for only a few days, I could escape from a very powerful social downgrading in which, if I had stayed on, I would be positioned under a third rate Indian-police-constable-like guy.

Now, this is one danger of being affable to the lower classes without posting up strong barricades of security of indicant codes. Actually all that I needed was someone to powerfully introduce me to him as his senior. However, usually my family had the habit of not doing that, just to see the discomfit that I faced in such occasions. Yet, in the long run, it is these minor bits of discomforts that gave me the input for powerful and profound thoughts.

I think that it would be quite appropriate to add something about the ‘great’ Indian system of management. There was a time when there was a lot of hype about this. The fact is that Indian system of management is connected to keeping the lower guys in their proper verbal slots. To allow the lower man to come out of this slot would be quite dangerous.

For, it would be like my experience. Yet, the whole system is rotten to the core. It only creates a hallowed layer of superiors who look like divinities and various layers of inferiors, who have putrefied looks of varying intensity. It never can create an English social or professional atmosphere. Professional areas in India where there is a pseudo feel of positive aura, actually would be entwined in a wide mix of English at least in the background.

DIGRESSION

Speaking about equality through being under the same masters in the same level, there is this argument that was used by the Ezhavas to claim that the Thiyyas are of their own community. That both the castes were under the same feudal overlords. That is really a great point. Any class or race of people, when they are under the Indian master class for long would acquire a class-and-demeanour equality and similarity. For, both with be degraded by the same lower indicant words. END OF DIGRESSION

About improving Indians and about their ambivalences

When improving a section of the lower class population of India, there are two mutually opposite items that I can mention here. It is possible that the English colonialists did experience these things. The idea involves the input of gratitude to the efforts at improvement. In a nation that is socially graded into several layers, the higher classes very fast reach out to a feel of equality to the English folk or even that of superiority.

For, they would very fast imbibe and learn the use and speaking capacity in English. Then there is nothing to denote a particular English family as superior. This issue is because the higher middle class Indian family would immediately go back to its own codes of evaluation. What is the job of the Englishman, what is his wife, how much land do they have back home, what is his and her father, what is the age of their child and such things. Their language codes immediately work on this data. Naturally the English family members are just ordinary persons and not lords and ladies.

The next extension of this discovery is that they are immediately placed into a lower indicant level by the Indian family. There is basically no level of equality. The concept of equality is a very un-understood theme. Equalising a person to any other person is actually raising him or degrading him to a particular social level. The other egalitarian [English] idea of equality cannot function in feudal languages.

Now, this type of sly and unilateral positioning of the English families and their members can be quite unnerving to the English side. For, they have no defence against it. Any attempt to mention anything against it will only trigger accusations of racial repulsion, social insecurity, paranoia and even an individual level fear of the Indian native. So, it is generally understood that is not quite safe to be on very friendly terms with the Indian family and it members. A slight distance is good. And an aura of superiority.

Now, this is only one side of this issue. There are natives of India who have been placed at a very lower side of the social setup. They would feel a tremendous change in their demeanour as they get a chance to learn English. They would experience and understand that English is not just a language, but a social-position-altering machine. (At that time, no one had any idea of a software). However, this idea is still not known to the native Englishman.

The problem with this level of society is that a friendly connection, as possible in English, is not healthy with these people. For, they are placed on the very lower ends of the Indian society. Too much friendship with them can really be suicidal. They can be improved by keeping a safe distance from them. They will be quite loyal, committed and grateful. However, they do have an innate deficiency. Even when they develop as per English systems, the local feudal society still maintains them in a lower level in Indian languages.

The codes in them make them positioned in a web of strings that attach them to their social seniors. So when they are commanded by their own suppressor-classes to go against the British aims, they have to obey these commands. Actually, there is no need for any formal commands. Just speak to them, with the correct indicant codes that can dislocate the Englishmen, and the attack naturally commences. May be not physically, but in the powerful virtual code arena.

Yet, on the whole the British folk in India, especially during the Crown rule would have been a bit cautious and insecure about the higher middle class ‘Indians’. For, they were like the animal that has been let loose, and one really doesn’t know what all things it would do.

I do not want to speak more about these possibilities. I hope the reader would get some idea about the problem. If not, what can be done?

There was this man who, when I motioned on Twitter that the auto-rickshaw driver to whom I talked to Cochin, did not know that there was a language in which he could extract equal dignity from the police, send a messaging that he was FALLING FROM HIS CHAIR LAUGHING OUT LOUD! The spirit of conceited arrogance was quite perturbing.