RAVI
NEEDS OUR HELP AND SUPPORT
SRB
Ravi
is a common man, intelligent and educated. He is proud to be an Indian and has
great respect for Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of our Nation, and his philosophy.
He has genuine concern for aam admi.
Ravi was keen to
meet fellow Indians living in other parts of his beloved country, experience
the delight in mingling with other cultures and enjoy the varied beauty of Nature.
So he decided to travel to other states.
He
started with a bus journey. He was to reach his destination by next morning.
So, he woke up at dawn and was looking out of the bus window to find out where
he was. But all the signboards he passed were in a script that he could not
understand. He reminded the conductor about his destination and had a shock
when he was told that he had passed it. The conductor told him by which bus he
could get back to his destination. Ravi got down and waited. He stopped each
bus that came by because he could not read the signboards on these buses, which
were written in a script unknown to him. The bus conductors shouted at him for
not looking at the signboard and wasting their time. The passengers in these
buses and those waiting with him mistook him for an illiterate villager and
laughed with contempt. He felt ashamed and lost in his own country. Ultimately,
he got into the proper bus and got down at his destination with help from a
co-passenger. He looked around for a place to eat. A kind gentleman gave the
name of a hotel and the road in which it is located. But all road names and
signboards were in an unknown script and he again felt lost in his own country, besides feeling very hungry.
He could not
do anything without help from others! Even this posed problems
because only few could understand him. He continued to have such problems and
frustrations wherever he went, in his own country.
During
his travels through many states, Ravi felt unhappy when he saw vast expanses of wasteland
after wasteland. Being idealistic, he decided to buy some wasteland and develop it as a model
farm to demonstrate use of waste lands. The sale deed was in an
unknown script and he had to seek help to check whether his name, area of land
bought, survey number and other important details were correctly mentioned in
the sale deed. He went to a bank to take a loan for developing his land and was
asked to sign some forms in a language that he could not read. When he went to the post office to authorize
his local manager to receive mails in his name, he was asked to sign a form
that he could not read. He had similar difficulties in many other offices also.
When he sent his man to buy things, he returned with a cash bill that he could
not read. He had to face many such problems of different types. Then he decided
to learn the local language. Being intelligent and observant, he realized that learning the
script was the most difficult and uninteresting part of
learning another language. After learning the script, it was not difficult to
attain a working knowledge of any language.
After
he learnt the script of the local language, most of his difficulties were over.
He could read and understand names of places, things, cash bills etc. of common
use, even without mastering the language. But, there are so many Indian
languages! How
many language scripts could he (or
any Indian) learn?
It dawned on him that these problems could be solved if we have a common script
for all Indian languages. How helpful it will be for all Indians!
Any Indian can then travel around his country and manage day-to-day
requirements, without much difficulty and need not feel ashamed and lost in his
own country. A
national
script will also make it easier for
any Indian to
learn other Indian languages. After all, a script is only a means to convey ideas
and the richness
of literature of any language can be enjoyed even when it is
written (rewritten) in a national script.
Not
being selfish, he wanted to find out whether having a national script will
cause problems for others. He contacted a learned professor, who was known to
be progressive minded. The latter was full of admiration for Ravi who came to him
with a pragmatic solution to the difficulties faced by many
Indians and who was deeply concerned to know whether his solution will create problems
for others. He told Ravi that out of the total population of 1,027
millions in 2001, only about 562 millions, who were literate, have to learn the new
national script also. But, this will not be a vain sacrifice even for them
because they will benefit
a lot
by learning a script used by all languages, as explained earlier. On the other
hand, there were 465 million persons who were yet to learn any
script. Further, about 220 millions would have been added by now and every
year about 20 millions more will be added. Thus, an enormous number of present and future
Indians would have to start learning a
script for the first time, in any case. For them,
learning a national script (used by all languages) will not pose additional
problems and will be a great help. The professor told him that having a national script will
lead to much more inter-mingling of persons from different states and to mutual
appreciation of the
literature in various languages of India. This will, no
doubt, accelerate
national integration much more than any of the steps taken so far.
He told Ravi that our efforts over more than 60 years at national integration
by having Hindi as the national language had failed partly because the vast majority
had to undergo the trouble of learning an additional script – the Hindi script. They also felt that this had given users of
Hindi an advantage that they did not have to learn an additional script, unlike
all others. Hindi would have been more widely used all over our country if all
languages had a common script. Having a national script for all languages avoids these and many
other irksome
problems and will remove the blocks in national integration to a large extent.
This will also help to counteract
the disintegrating tendencies that are, unfortunately, spreading their
tentacles. Moreover, a national script makes it easy to use computer in any Indian
language, without special efforts. He congratulated Ravi for his excellent
pragmatic idea.
Thus
assured, Ravi is keen to develop a national script to be used by all
Indian languages. Being a common man, he alone cannot achieve this worthy goal.
He needs
support and help from all of us to develop a national script,
even if it means little
sacrifices on our part, for the good of all our Indian brotherhood. It is
important for all of us to realize that by supporting and helping Ravi we are
in fact helping
ourselves and our future generations to become true Indian citizens.
“Dream, dream, dream. Dreams transform into thoughts, and thoughts
into action.” A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (Ex-President of India)
“Boldness has genius, power and magic
in it” - Goethe
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