As a Hindi medium student, my poor English language communication was always questioned by my friends. For the first time in this lockdown, I engaged myself in non-academic writing for Youth Ki Awaaz, Countercurrents, Forward press, and Velivada, Many friends and well-wishers are asking me the reason behind these writings. I just replied to them that its nothing, I am free in lockdown so engaged myself in such writings. It would be one of the reasons that I am writing, but it’s not the prime reason.
The prime reason is some of my friends have a concern about my English communication, or I can say they questioned it. One of them even said, “you should leave dreaming of academia because your English is anyway not good.” And they are right because I can’t speak or write English correctly, my grammar is not proper, I don’t have much idea about tenses, I can’t pronounce words properly, I have a minimal vocabulary, etc. And that is why I never presented myself as someone who could speak in proper English.
Before going back to my educational background, I want to put all the achievements that I have earned with my poor English. And I am proud of it. I have written four research articles in reputed journals and have presented nine papers in various national and international conferences amidst my poor English vocabulary.
Now coming to my educational background, I studied in a government school in rural Rajasthan, unlike many of you who have studied in International schools and other reputed English medium schools. I learned A for Apple in class sixth; you might have discovered it way before even reaching school, I guess. From class six to nine, we had an English teacher who taught us some sense of English, or you could say she taught us some vocabulary.
I can tell you would have started speaking in English. But after class nine, that teacher got transferred, and until 12th, we had no teacher to teach us the English language. It is quite common in government schools in rural areas where teacher positions are always empty. So at that time (from 9th to 12th class), one mathematics teacher taught us, and with his teaching, we appeared in board exams in 10th and 12th class and got passing marks. At that time, you would have started speaking fluent English and decided to take admission in college. So, unfortunately, I could not learn to speak or write in English during my entire schooling.
You were studying in an English medium school, but I just had English as a subject that was taught in Hindi. So for us, English has never been a language of communication but just a subject, and we studied it to pass our examination. Now I don’t want to talk about my graduation time because there I have nothing to say.
You studied in one of the top colleges in Delhi University, and in my case, I could not get admission to a Government college in Ajmer due to the low percentile in higher school. So I completed my graduation via correspondence, where I only had to write exams. Special books were available for individual college students to crack the exams, i.e., one-week series, which means prepare for the exam in one week.
Hence, we used to study only a few days during exams (All my papers were in the Hindi language, so here I completely left English for the entire three years). That’s why I said I could not make any comparisons here. Now, if you have any questions as to what I was doing in these three years, I was working as a carpenter in the same university where I pursued my post-graduation.
I started working as a carpenter in The Central University of Rajasthan (CURAJ) under the supervision of my cousin brother. When I used to paint the doors, I would see students my age sitting and studying (Same thing you were doing in Delhi University at that time). To be honest, I have never been an intelligent student, but at that time, I wanted to study hard and go to a college or university.
My curiosity brought me in contact with some excellent students who filled my admission form in CURAJ, and luckily, I got admission. I was happy and sad at the same time, happy because I got admission and worried because the course was in English. I studied and completed a master’s in social work; I would like to acknowledge one of my batchmates and a few faculty members who helped me throughout the course.
It was not easy to study here. My friends used to laugh at me in the class when I could not speak in English. They used to make comments during my presentations. They used to make comments on my report writing. But I had few (just a few) who helped me, who used to teach me during exams.
So now, I hope you would have got my English education background. One more thing, I wrote my dissertation in English and also published one paper out of it. I had felt the same inferiority complex during my MPhil time, where my language was judged by privileged MSW students, as well as faculty members.
At that time, I had decided that I won’t look back now. Despite all the hurdles, I shall go ahead, and I did. The best thing that happened with me is I got a very supportive guide who understood my issues and always motivated me.
The caravan kept going, and I reached here, where you are questioning my English. I know why you are questioning because you have a fear in mind, fear of losing your status-quo. I would suggest that you please continue to question my English because it helps me to write more and as I write I learn.
Stay Home Stay Safe.