Just yesterday an uncle, whom I knew from childhood, came on a visit. I knew it was not entirely innocent as he claimed because he only visited when he wanted something…His first sentence and I knew that his job was with me. His opening lines were "Ahh...my journalist friend!!" and he gave his more-obvious-now gummy smile...Hesitantly, I looked up from Wilbur Smith's 'River God' and gave up my contemplation of ancient Egyptian characters. To my great surprise and even greater shock, he told me that he had recently started a new magazine and he was the Editor. This person had always dabbled in new things all his life but this was totally out of the blue!! I realized where his practiced speech was heading...he tried to ask me, albeit what he thought very casually, about what I was doing after my course...the conversation is not of much use here but the end result was that he wanted me to contribute an article for every issue of his magazine...I showed him one of my articles which has recently been doing the rounds with most newspapers as I'm job-hunting...Curiously, I wanted to see his reaction as I had got good reviews for it...He read thru it and even asked if I had done an in-depth study of Indian history to write it...I flushed and grinned and tried my hand at modesty...But his next statement left me flummoxed!! His magazine, he said, catered to students from the age of 8 to the PG level...It didn’t hit me just then because I didn’t understand what he was trying to convey…His argument was that they wouldn’t understand my language because it probably had more words than he cared to admit he knew!! But my frown had him back-tracking…He said that in the end it was entirely up to me to do as I pleased with it and it was just his view…I told him I’d think about it as he prepared to leave and I was, thankfully and very gratefully, interrupted by a phone call from an old friend.
I argued heatedly with mum that I couldn’t and wouldn’t change my article nor my style of writing for anyone…She then asked me if all the students who read it would understand what I wanted to say…I reluctantly conceded that my classmates never used to understand what I wrote even in 10th although they claimed to like my vocabulary!!! But his words had set me thinking….I read the first issue of his magazine which contained numerous spelling mistakes and random sentence association…It dawned on me that most people I’ve met outside my school and college circle spoke that way!! Probably they understand English only when it is written that way…Well hell!! Maybe the masses understand only that much English! There lies the hitch...Do I write with my usual flair and panache for a limited section of the society or in broken English because it will be more readable by the common person on his treacherous road to knowing Shakespeare??? My ego at being able to understand, read and write English effortlessly always wins hands down but at the end, it always leaves me with the nagging after-thought that the message is for the masses and what is the use, after all, if it doesn’t reach them, touch them, just leaves them clueless…….
I argued heatedly with mum that I couldn’t and wouldn’t change my article nor my style of writing for anyone…She then asked me if all the students who read it would understand what I wanted to say…I reluctantly conceded that my classmates never used to understand what I wrote even in 10th although they claimed to like my vocabulary!!! But his words had set me thinking….I read the first issue of his magazine which contained numerous spelling mistakes and random sentence association…It dawned on me that most people I’ve met outside my school and college circle spoke that way!! Probably they understand English only when it is written that way…Well hell!! Maybe the masses understand only that much English! There lies the hitch...Do I write with my usual flair and panache for a limited section of the society or in broken English because it will be more readable by the common person on his treacherous road to knowing Shakespeare??? My ego at being able to understand, read and write English effortlessly always wins hands down but at the end, it always leaves me with the nagging after-thought that the message is for the masses and what is the use, after all, if it doesn’t reach them, touch them, just leaves them clueless…….
2 comments:
a dilemma being faced by every writer of some quality! I guess writing for that mag is not a bad idea, as u can perhaps elevate its status if u are the sole good writer.
good english is like good wine. there are very few and the ones that there are is the best. dont change your language for anyone, keep writing your way. at least there stands a chance that your readers may improve their vocabulary.
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