The Burden of Tradition and History...

A few days ago, while writing a shopping list in Hindi, I found out, not only have I degraded my calligraphy skills in Hindi (as if it were even possible in the first place), 6 years after I last wrote a sentence in Hindi in my board exams, I can barely write anything in my native language. My Hindi teacher at school had predicted this long ago. Of course, he meant it in a degrading manner. It is significant, that Hindi is the only Indian language I know of, so it is kind of scary that when the need arrives, I won't be able to communicate my ideas in writing through this language. Maybe, I am not a language person after all. It surprises even me that after having lived the whole of my life in Gujarat, I can barely speak Gujarati to this day, and can read it to a certain extent due to its proximity with Hindi.

But, during the same period, my English language skills have improved vastly. So, from where I see it, I have just evolved to get better connected to the Global community.

As the world gets even more globalized; tradition, heritage, and language will eventually become a burden passed on to the youth by their myopic elders. After all, India has more than 2500 years of history and culture; at some point we will have to let go of a few unnecessary things, get our culture in sync with the modern times. If we keep falling back on the excuse of conserving our age-old traditions, the Indian culture will stagnate overtime. Moreover, it is the open-minded questioning, and revolting attitude of the youth that can usher in new innovations both in science and life in general.

Why cling on to diversity and identity, when we all can unite under the umbrella of a global culture? Most of us here may not remember the song Vande Mataram, but if just a song were a yardstick of patriotism, then it would have been a cheap commodity. In an increasingly inter-connected world, we are required to know about the cultures and traditions of other countries too. So, it does seem selfish of our elders to make us remember and value all of their traditions in addition to everything else.

So, a day may come, when like Sanskrit, Hindi may also be lost at the altar of Globalization. It is also possible, that with our sheer numbers and hopefully strong economy we force a diminished version of Hinglish on the world. Either way, life and tradition as we know them now will definitely change over the course of our lives. That does not make us or our descendants any less "Indian" than the freedom fighters who fought for our independence. India, does not live in its languages and culture, it thrives inside its people and the spirit will always remain the same even if their mode of expression changes. That spirit is of humanity.

So, the next time you are degraded by the elders for alienating from the traditions, you can give a logical explanation, that of evolution. We have not forgotten the traditions, we just happen to know their latest evolved version.