Music is another of my favourite pastimes. I cannot sing, but I have a flair to listen to good music. It limits to our local Classical style of music, but mostly songs from Hindi and Kannada movies - labeled as evergreen. They belonged to the era before around 1980. Songs of those days had meaningful lyrics and pleasant tunes sung by famous singers. Those songs have no death whereas songs produced in recent times die a quick death as it has no stuff in it. So I have taken plenty of pains to choose the songs I wanted and then got them taped (there was a known person who did it for a price from his collection). That became my collection and I prize it very much - and also I have used good quality tapes like Sony, TDK, Maxell because I want it to last long. There was another colleague of mine that had the same interest and we got them done (some of the tapes) together. Somehow, I did not develop a fancy for western music from the early days, though there was a great craze for BoneyM, etc. selling aplenty here in Mysore in that era. Probably because here in my house, my aunt was a classical music teacher with the string instrument called Veena, this fancy did not take off. My cricket friends used to listen and even murmur the hits from BoneyM, ABBA, etc.
The music cassette collection..
Lots of tapes, Dinu. I don't believe I've heard of any of those titles! :)
Also, I have a question - Three people were sitting in front of us on the bus Fri evening. (We took a bus from just outside of Sioux Falls to Minneapolis to pick up our truck. DH thought it would be relaxing, rather than me having follow him home in a different vehicle.) These kids (University of Minnesota students) were definitely not nationals. They spoke excellent English but with an accent. I believed them to be perhaps Pakistani or Indian. My question is, regarding language, how many people in India or your province speak only English? Do many folks speak another language at home and English in business?
Well, I don't expect almost all of the DG members to know either Hindi or Kannada! I thought of sharing what I collected and enjoyed doing that. There were days when people could not afford to possess even a gramophone player. At that time, new releases had a wonderful market and people sometimes had to form a queue lay their hands on their plate!
India has 26 states and almost each one of them has its own dialect and vernacular as their mother tongue. Kannada is in our state of Karnataka. Hindi is our national language that is forced down by the government in schools as a compulsory language - either the student has to study it as a first language or a third language. English is common in most schools, except in the rural areas. By virtue of this system, many people are able to converse and write in a minimum of 3 languages (usually). In the big cities, speaking English is almost a fashion! Their accent is weird! They call it style. Ha ha. The teaching medium is English in schools other than the govt. The govt. makes it compulsory for schools aided by it to have the state's language as the teaching medium. The business language is English, though it is threatened by the local language activists. English has never been a spoken language for me though I have studied in English all through. So, expressing and converting thoughts into sentences does not come as naturally as the English speaking people. But from experience, we learn to write and converse as freely as them (I'm an exception, being a poor speaker).
Dinu
Thanks, Dinu.
...speaking English is almost a fashion! Their accent is weird! They call it style.
You may be a poor English speaker (your opinion, smile) but you are doing very well with written English. :)
Laura
Yes you are right, Laura. Private schools usually are run by a Trust sort of group and has committees of its own. The Govt. tries to interrupt their activities as they don't abide by certain rules laid down by it. But the education from here is far superior than its govt. counterpart for obvious reasons. Govt. salaries are low but job is secure. Private, salaries high, no job security.
These language activists -they center more on fanaticism than the real purpose! That is the bad thing.
Dinu
Thanks, Dinu. I enjoy learning more about your country. :) I don't know if you are comfortable with talking about it, but I've been wondering about the caste system in India. Questions like, how strongly is it observed in your province and also in comparison to other provinces. Also, what caste your ancestors are members of and of what ranking? I'm sorry if this is a topic not to be mentioned. If so, please let me know that. All that I hear about it is that it was outlawed by the govt many years ago but is still very much in practice. I've read stories of wife-burnings but I don't know if that had anything to do with caste. Again, Dinu, if this is a subject that is not discussed, please feel free to say that. I don't want to squish any cultural toes, just learn more about your country. :)
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