Bigot Brother?

We reported earlier on Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty’s venture into the Celebrity Big Brother house in the UK. We thought things were going smoothly for her when reader Jai informed us that Shilpa was part of a reshuffle in the house where

“8 housemates voluntarily transferred into an adjoining, and significantly dodgier, “servants’ quarters”, with the intention that the 3 remaining celebrities would be treated like royalty by them. It appears that they all selected the lucky 3 on the basis of them having the highest status in the real world — Shilpa was one of them, along with Jermaine Jackson and a famous director called Ken Russell. So that’s an interesting indication of how they view her.”

Jai signed on again, despite starting a new job (congrats jai!), to let us know how things were progressing for Shilpa and the gang. It seemed she had bonded with the other major stars on the show, especially Jermaine Jackson and Dirk Benedict (Face from the A-team) who was crushing hard core on the Bollywood star. At the same time it seems, Shilpa was also the victim of a lot of bullying and even some acts of racism from some of the housemates (especially the ladies). Over the past few days, fellow participants have called Shilpa “dog, “”The Indian,” and have even mocked her accent. One of the Bullyers according to the Daily Mirror is previous Big Brother winner Jade Goody. Goody, who supports Act Against Bullying, an anti-bullying charity, was swiftly given the boot by the the charity because of her actions. Act Againts Bullyying called Goody’s behaviour “unforgivable”.

Jade’s mother Jackey too got in on the anti-Shilpa act. According to Caroline Malone, who was recently evicted, “Jade’s mum Jackiey hated Shilpa and constantly referred to her as “The Indian” which I found horribly insulting. Jackiey made life purposely difficult for Shilpa – shouting at her for no reason, criticising her cooking, attacking her for being bossy.” (link)

Hey, you don’t like someone? Call them names, use their race, ethnic origin, or anything that makes them different and mock that as well. Have your mom call them names, and have your boyfriend call them names too. That solves everything. It turns out Jade’s boyfriend Jack Tweed— who is also currently in the house, and was alleged to have called Shetty a “paki” when Jade’s mother was evicted last week; Channel 4, the channel on which Big Brother airs, has confirmed that Tweed didn’t call Shetty a Paki, but instead the clearly more civilized, “cunt.” Last night Shetty was in tears and is quoted as saying: “I’m the only one they are mean to, I don’t know why. Nobody is mean to anyone else except me.” (link)

The Hindustan Times reports that many viewers think Shilpa is being targeted out of jealousy. I was quite surprised to hear that Shilpa was being paid more than everyone else $680,000, against the standard fee of $610,000. She has also been more popular in the media than other participants, mostly B- and C-list celebs (link). Even though I am a fan of the reality tv genre, I am constantly amazed at how foolish and idiotic adults can act on these shows. Things have gotten so bad in the house for Shilpa that the BBC has reported that British Media watchdog Ofcom and Channel 4 have received almost 10,000 complaints about the racist behavior and bullying thus far. Showing solidairty with his Asian sister and his many British Asian constituents, Leicester East MP Keith Vaz even tabled an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons against the alleged racist behaviour on Big Brother. The motion reads: “…This House views with concern comments made about… Shilpa Shetty by other housemates; believes that Big Brother has a role… in preventing racist behaviour…; regrets that these comments have been made, and calls on the programme to take… action to remind housemates that racist behaviour is unacceptable.” While Ofcom has indicated that it is looking into each complaint of racist behavior on the show, no matter how much investigation they do, it won’t change the resentment/negative feelings that seems to exist in some segments of British society. You can’t investigate that away.

275 thoughts on “Bigot Brother?

  1. I understand the statements that Amitabh and Kush are trying to make (atleast that’s what I think).

    Watch any of these bollywood actors interviewing on TV channels etc…they answer every question in English…even when it is a Hindi news channel and all the questions were posed in Hindi. A good friend of mine usually says, that these are the kind of people that should be labelled “ganwaar” …those who don’t even know the basic rule of conversation.

    Sadly, the likes of Lalu Prasad and Inzamam-ul Haq are usually branded “ganwaar” by people becuase they’re not comfortable while speaking English.

  2. brown_fob,

    Sadly, the likes of Lalu Prasad and Inzamam-ul Haq are usually branded “ganwaar” by people becuase they’re not comfortable while speaking English.

    Exactly!! I have noticed what you describe. People call Inzamam names just because he speaks to the media in Urdu.

  3. Speaking of Inzy, Pakistan / South Africa are having some race related grief. Herschelle Gibbs was handed two test ban. Some SA players received hate from Pakistan fans as well. Ugly scene all over. Kamran Abbasi and Telford Vice offer their opinions. Prolly calls for another post instead of threadjack here. Curious about SA mutineers’ take on this.

  4. “Curious about SA mutineers’ take on this.”

    i think the south africans are wrong to equate the objectionable behavior of Pakistani fans with Gibbs’ comments (saying one justified the other). the fans should be taken to task, just as south africa complained about racist comments from aussie fans during their tour there (and telford vice makes an important point about the south african reaction then and now). however, gibbs’s and the south africans’ contentions that his comments were not for general consumption doesn’t wash because surely the Pakistani players in close quarters and the stump mike would overhear his comments anyways. surely he would know that his comments would upset the Pakistani players, even if they were directed against the fans? if they expect Pakistani cricketers to just get on with it and not take exception then they should also ignore ignorant fans and just get on with it and not be goaded into complaining or reacting against it until they are off the field (although given the ugliness of some fans i can understand how hard this would be, especially when it is physical intimidation).

    they should follow the example of the west indians who had to put up with some ugly comments from a small section of indian fans in mumbai some time back. the west indians didn’t resort to making comments in front of the indian players, who bore no blame for what their ignorant fans said. this is not harmless (or even harmful) sledging, it goes beyond that. having said that, i think south asian and other cricketers who speak more than english have an advantage in that they can probably say things and get away with it more than the purely english-speaking ones ( but in this day and age, even their comments would be easily translated for general consumption).

  5. India has the largest English speaking population in the world!
    this wiki link puts the number of English speakers in India at about 350 million

    What a load of BS! The disregard for facts and the proud anglophilia should be embarrassing. India’s rural population is around 70% of the total. How many indian villagers do you think are english speakers? What percentage of urban indians speak english? Do the math.

    The percentage of indians who can understand english is easily less than 10% and probably closer to 5%:

    http://www.languageinindia.com/may2003/annika.html#chapter5

    “An estimated 4% of the Indian population use English; although the number might seem small, out of the total population that is about 35 million people (in 1994)(Crystal 1995:101). Although the number of speakers of English in India is somewhat limited (as compared to the total population), that small segment of the population controls domains that have professional prestige (Kachru 1986a: 8).”

    “Mark Tully (1997:161-162) points out that the élitist status of English in India creates problems for the economic development because that means that the education of the mass of people will be ignored.”

    Adopting English as the language of the elite, the language of science and technology, even the language of the Law is nothing but colonialism part II. The Colonial Master has left the house and the Macaulayite servants have taken over the mansion, leaving behind the masses of India as second class citizens in their native land. Is this the correct recipe for making India great? Just look at the list of non-anglosaxon nations that have adopted english and what do you see? The most impoverished and backward people on the planet:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language

    “In many other countries, where English is not a first language, it is an official language; these countries include Belize, Cameroon, Fiji, the Federated States of Micronesia, Ghana, Gambia, India, Kiribati, Lesotho, Liberia, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, Malta, the Marshall Islands, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Rwanda, the Solomon Islands, Samoa, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.”

  6. note on the “English” language — I get really irritated when people are accused of not speaking “proper” English due to the fact that they have transplanted themselves from the US/UK/Australia/South Africa/really anywhere in the world to another part of the world. The English arguments are circular — English is a LIVING LANGUAGE and has evolved differently all over the world. It’s futile to argue what is the right English, and for the most part, we can all understand each other whether we discuss long distance or trunk calls.

  7. musical, I worked in an upscale hospital in Mumbai and because of its location in the city it was commonly frequented by the filmstars and TV stars and other famous people. Personally, I had treated 1 current and 1 past Indian cricket team member, was around when Tendulkar’s back problem was being investigated. I also saw Kajol and Devgun in the waiting room, Govinda outside the ICU, Salman Khan’s younger brother ( I forget his name, it seems he was in the movies too)in the ER, Dharmendra in the Elevator, Amrish Puri as a referred case, and of course the biggest star I saw was TMBWITW ! She was nt that big in the movies yet, just your ex-Ms Universe. All this in just one year of working in that place.

    Enough of the name dropping…

  8. OK I just got around to watching the youtube clips and went thru about 6 or 7 of them. Damn stupid cows. They are ugly and stupid to boot. Shit I was never a fan of her but kudos to Shilpa for her poise and maturity in every single one of those insipid tirades those women brought on her. It’s simple the way I see it from all the clips…she’s attractive, nice, speaks well and the rest of them come across as complete losers next to her. It’s only a matter of time before this would have happened.

    As for the English argument. I grew up in India and come from a average middle class Maharashtrian family and we all always spoke English at home on both my mom’s and dad’s side. The everyday language in my family homes in India is English peppered with Marathi and now with Hindi and Gujarati because of family additions but predominantly English. If you woke one of my cousins in the middle of the night by throwing water on them (a Akbar/Birbal story) they’d wake up screaming in English. It really is just that common. We all spoke English in school when I was a kid as well.

  9. If you woke one of my cousins in the middle of the night by throwing water on them (a Akbar/Birbal story) they’d wake up screaming in English. It really is just that common. We all spoke English in school when I was a kid as well.

    Another fine example of the irrational desi tendency to think that personal anecdotes trump statistical data.

    You speak for a tiny minority of Indians. Its selfish, blinkered elitism to think that its you who represent India, not the great majority of Indians who arent english proficient.

  10. As for the English argument. I grew up in India and come from a average middle class Maharashtrian family and we all always spoke English at home on both my mom’s and dad’s side. The everyday language in my family homes in India is English peppered with Marathi and now with Hindi and Gujarati because of family additions but predominantly English. If you woke one of my cousins in the middle of the night by throwing water on them (a Akbar/Birbal story) they’d wake up screaming in English. It really is just that common. We all spoke English in school when I was a kid as well.

    I will not argue with your personal experience. But even the most generous estimates will not place percentage of Indians using english as a first language more than 10%. What of the other 90%? I don’t think anyone will argue that those who speak english are a lot more powerful and visible in India than those who don’t, and fluency in english is a strong asset in India (for some people its their only asset, hence all the snobbishness that surrounds english). This means that 90% of the Indian population is largely voiceless, and that is a serious problem which will not go away. If we hope to create a just, modern and equitable society in India, we cannot pretend the divide does not exist.

    I do not suggest that India should make an effort to forget english. English is the language of colonialism, but it is also the language of globalization and modernity. I’d support any effort that helps english reach to the people who do not have access to it, and indeed to spread the use of english in India. The aim should be that everyone in India gets the same opportunities irrespective of where they are born in the country, which is certainly not the case today.

  11. How much English in India?

    I would agree with sakshi and RC’s numbers. Somewhere ~10% or little less of the entire population.

    Interestingly, I found this survey. Disclaimer: The survey only cover salaried people in India not the entire population. The text below is from Indian Express, the emphasis is mine.

    English is being spread in India by the world of work. And, most interestingly, young India is gearing up to meet the challenge of English. An analysis by The Indian Express of the Indian Retirement Earnings and Savings (IRES) shows that nearly 40 percent of young earners — in the age group 20 to 30— have at least a rudimentary ability to read English.

    • How widespread is the use of English in India?

    About 35 percent of the earners of India claim that they can “read” English. A note of caution must be added: all measurement of literacy is weak. A man who claims to read English can probably slowly read one letter at a time.

    • How do we know about this data?

    One good source is the Indian Retirement Earnings and Savings (IRES) database, released by the Ministry of Finance and ADB. This tells us about a randomly chosen set of 41,000 earners in the country. The focus is on earners – people who do not work for an income are not counted. There are 364 million earners, so each 1% of the earners is 3.64 million people.

    •

  12. Back on Greer, Ms. Shetty isn’t even Tamil. And then she berates the English for being ignorant….

  13. Whats so funny about Bipasha-its the name for River Beas (Vipasha in Sanskrit, Bipasha in Bengali).

    you’re giving me too much credit musical. i dont really have any point or reason. i do because i do. like the tiger riding a monkey.

  14. dirk benedict cured himself of prostate cancer via a macrobiotic diet? (via the link) okay, now i’m seriously laughing. hot diggity damn. now why wasn’t the new england journal notified? and shilpa shetty an A-lister? um.. not really. don’t those who want to revive their career/s go onto the show.. sorry she has to deal with the others, but she was paid to go into a house full of these um… people…and in the end, it’s all about ratings, no matter how they get them..the stupider people act, the higher the ratings.. just look at american idol, donald trump vs. rosie, and all that nonsense…

  15. Just to be clear JoAT, in other words, you and your family are not “Real Indians”. Officially.

    Yes apparently. Thanx shot down two days in a row. Yesterday I didn’t count as anyone, in fact I was fictional. Today I’m not even Indian.

  16. Does anyone have the OFCOM email address? The Brit tipster on the news tab asks Yanks to email them, but did not leave an email contact. We should all get on their backs.

  17. JOAT, are you from Bombay? Also, do you have relatives in other cities/towns in Maharashtra? If yes, is English their “primary” language?

  18. Back on Greer, Ms. Shetty isn’t even Tamil. And then she berates the English for being ignorant….

    Tamil, Schamil. What matters to Greer is she’s persecuted for being eunich, so she’s learnt how to play to the crowd, like this:

    Her only motive for parading in front of the other women in the house with whitener on her face was to show what utter hicks they are, how little they understand of her complex reality or of a billion people in the subcontinent who all want to have wheat-coloured skin. I bet thousands of brown-skinned girls in Southall fell off the sofa laughing when she did that.
  19. I find the cold-hearted-tactician Greer sees in Shilpa more fascinating than the crybaby image being projected everywhere else. Yo Shilpa, use their ignorance like a knife. 😉

    The most (unintentionally) comic line in Greer’s article is this:

    They have never seen a Hindi movie and never heard of Shilpa Shetty, or even Sharukh Khan, and they probably don’t have any Indian friends.

    Notice that she spelt Shahrukh wrong.

  20. Boy, where to even begin.

    Technophobicgeek: You’re right, we have always respectfully agreed to disagree on this matter. Please understand I am merely stating my opinion and feelings on this subject. I am not trying to define what “Indian” is (except insofar as I feel strongly about certain things, for whatever that’s worth). I certainly don’t have any more of a right than you have to define these issues or decide these issues.

    Desisiksha:

    Rest assured, I find your comments as annoying as you apparently find mine. And that’s not a personal attack. But no hard feelings, it’s a discussion after all. Just to address a few things you said: First of all I know you’re South Indian, I never implied that Hindi is your language. Although I was using Hindi in this particular debate, my argument extends in defense of all Indian languages. I also understand that you come from two different linguistic backgrounds parentally, and (as you’ve made clear) you’re very urbane and educated, so probably you don’t have a strong attachment to any one particular Indian language. No problem. But my point is, that English is rapidly taking over India, and people with your attitude only hasten the process. In 1947 English was an elite language. Today it is a middle class language (keep in mind the middle class is rapidly expanding). In a generation or two it will extend to the urban poor, and EVENTUALLY even the rural areas (probably more rapidly then we think). And just as has happened in your family, it will become people’s FIRST LANGUAGE. Although it won’t happen in our lifetime, would you like to see India become an English-speaking country one day, just like Canada, the US, UK, and Australia? (By the way, you’re not the only one here whose relatives all speak English…that’s true of me too, going back two generations at least).

    The problem with people adopting English as their first language is, that it necessarily (in most cases) means the loss of your own, inherited first language, which gets downgraded to second language status. This is fine if you’re an immigrant in a foreign land…it’s even fine if you move to a different part of India (like Technophobicgeek’s parents), or come from more than one linguistic background (like you)…but why should it happen to people living in their native region, surrounded by their co-ethnics? In other words, isn’t there something wrong if Punjabi parents, living in Punjab, opt not to speak Punjabi with their kids? If Gujarati parents, living in Gujarat, opt to make English their home language? Why? Where’s the pride?

    I notice that most of the Indian-raised defenders of English on this site are people who for various reasons, speak English as their first language, and want to defend that circumstance and that status at all costs, rather than admit there’s a problem here. They don’t want to question the way they’ve been raised, the values and unspoken assumptions/attitudes that have pervaded their home and school and social lives since they were born. Reality has to adjust to accomodate THEM. What they say goes, because they said so. If they declare that English is an Indian language, we must all accept that.

    Maybe this would be a good time to spell out my attitude towards English. First of all, on a purely personal level, it has helped my family a lot, since both my parents went to English-medium schools, became professionals, and moved to the US and became successful, in very large part due to their English skills. More generally, I acknowledge that it is THE global language, the language of commerce, science, technology, trade, travel, even entertainment. And I know India is benefitting tremendously by having a large English-speaking work force. I would never want to do away with that. BUT I hate the fact that it is marginalising and strangling (to death) Indian languages, one family at a time. I have no problem with it being a second language, a link language, the lingua franca (and I don’t think Hindi should be imposed on anyone either)…I hate the fact that is is becoming people’s first language (including my own relatives who still live in India). I hate the fact that it is rendering our languages more and more irrelevant, more and more obsolete and obscure. I hate the very things that Sakshi, Kush, and Doordarshan have alluded to, in terms of the use of English to maintain the status quo and the social/economic position and advantages of the few. Neo-colonialism would be a good term for it. Don’t get me wrong, it is a beautiful language (although no more so than Hindi or Punjabi in my view).

    Languages die when one generation fails to transmit them to the next. Look around you…in India that process is well underway. India is in the same position Ireland was in about 200 years ago…the majority still spoke Irish, but the necessary preconditions were already in place for English to take over, and it did just that. Today they struggle in a hopeless battle to revive their Irish language. India should make sure that never happens. My 2 cents. I could go on but I’m tired.

  21. Maybe this will make the Bollywood types realise that no matter how westernised they get and no matter how expert at English they become, they’re still Indian. Although Shilpa is better than most in terms of maintaining some Indian culture and representing. My comments are aimed more at the likes of Abhishek, Preiti Zinta, Saif Ali Khan, etc.

    Amitabh, you hit the nail on the head.

    I am waiting for the day when people will feel ashamed when they cannot talk, read, and write in their own mother tongue. I am waiting for the day when expertise in one’s mother tongue will be every society’s norm. Anything less will be a violation of expectations. And people will make fun of those (whichever country they belong to) who talk in their mother tongues with an accent.

    Languages are dying a slow death.

  22. The problem with people adopting English as their first language is, that it necessarily (in most cases) means the loss of your own, inherited first language, which gets downgraded to second language status.

    i was at a reading of native writers this evening. the need to perpetuate their language among the new generation was discussed. one interesting point a writer made was that languages do not serve the communication function alone. for instance the equivalent for ‘baby’ in mohawk is ‘little spirit’. language is a prism into the world and is thus irreplaceable.

  23. i remember reading an article about how many languages were dying each year or would soon become extinct, and it was eye-opening. can’t remember the exact source though.

    but this project is interesting: http://www.rosettastone.com/en/endangered-languages

    the rosetta stone people are involved in an indigenous language preservation project.

  24. hairy_d:

    one interesting point a writer made was that languages do not serve the communication function alone. for instance the equivalent for ‘baby’ in mohawk is ‘little spirit’. language is a prism into the world and is thus irreplaceable.

    That was v nicely said.

    Amitabh:

    Languages die when one generation fails to transmit them to the next. Look around you…in India that process is well underway. India is in the same position Ireland was in about 200 years ago…the majority still spoke Irish, but the necessary preconditions were already in place for English to take over, and it did just that. Today they struggle in a hopeless battle to revive their Irish language. India should make sure that never happens. My 2 cents. I could go on but I’m tired.

    I think you are being a tad too pessimistic. In my family everyone still uses their mother tongue. Its not a pride issue-we just do it because we are more comfortable with it. Also look at the growth of vernacular language news channels in India. I do not believe english is the death knell for Indian languages. Its easy to know enough english to get by, and still remember your mother tongue.

    What I am desperately waiting for is someone to start serious translations of works of non-english Indian literature into english. That might provide the much-needed financial boost to save Indian literature from dying out (the situation is dire – a bestseller will sell 2000 copies in most languages).

  25. and (as you’ve made clear) you’re very urbane and educated, so probably you don’t have a strong attachment to any one particular Indian language.

    Are you therefore implying that anyone with a strong attachment to an Indian language is unsophisticated and uneducated?

  26. Amitabh – You have nicely summed up your feelings in #125. I can easily identify with a lot of things that you have said, but at the same time, a part of me feels that you are magnifying the problem. The ground reality is not so bleak ..at least not yet.

    I’m from the hindi speaking belt, did my schooling in a catholic school and grew up speaking Hindi at home. My school was quite strict in enforcing students to speak English all the time, and occasionally ‘fined’ the defaulters. In spite of all this, most of my friends spoke English only when specifically asked to do so. This was in the mid 90s. Now when I go back and meet those guys, I find it odd that they’re talking to their 3 year old in English..with a few hindi words sprinkled in between. Yet I’m sure that the kid will grow up just fine, inherit all the cultural ‘fortunes’ from his parents and speak both Hindi and English with ease. I’m contradicting myself..but for some reason I don’t find this setup as something artificial.

    What I do find artificial is the fact that people in India talk to their dogs exclusively in English 🙂 Tommy…sit, come here….go there…nice doggie.

    still take pride in my mother-tounge.

  27. Sorry for the typo. The last line wasn’t supposed to be there (though its true) 🙂

  28. Hi, I just found this blog–

    I don’t really anything to say about Ms. Shetty except that the whole incident seems vastly overblown and a little embarrassing. Mocking her accent, cooking, background etc. might seem a little extreme but it’s a reality show. They go for conflict. I don’t think it reveals the dark underbelly of British race relations or anything. It’s just not that significant.

    About the native languages and English–I’m so glad someone brought this up because I’ve been thinking about it a lot for a while now. I’m an Indian-American (born in America) and in my family, we all speak our native language (Bengali) at home and I used to think that was the norm. I’m now seeing that it’s not so. I’m concerned about the declining importance of Indian native languages. I don’t want Hindi and Punjabi and Gujurati and Bengali to go the way of Irish. Language is such an important marker of cultural identity. I just don’t understand why it’s not possible for Indians today to view English in the way that the earlier generation did: as an important second language but still, clearly in a completely different category from their mother tongue.

    And in any case, the world’s dominant language of diplomacy and intellectual exchange doesn’t remain static. It won’t be English forever.

  29. The problem with people adopting English as their first language is, that it necessarily (in most cases) means the loss of your own, inherited first language, which gets downgraded to second language status.

    I don’t think that’s true. Many people are truly bilingual. And it’s not like you can get through the Indian schooling system, no matter how elite of a school you go to, without learning an Indian language or two.

  30. @namitabh

    Aishwariya is a Kannadiga! (sorry, feeling a little home pride there)

    home “pride” :)? i am kannadiga too, and this is an enduring source of shame for me—she is pretty of course, though i think she stands out for her height and PR more than looks (i am thinking of my high school class… those were the days, but i digress). but she is equally phony and pretentious, something the pretty girls of my class were not :).

  31. What I do find artificial is the fact that people in India talk to their dogs exclusively in English 🙂 Tommy…sit, come here….go there…nice doggie.

    That’s funny…my dog is the only person I talk to in Malayalam 🙂

    I just don’t understand why it’s not possible for Indians today to view English in the way that the earlier generation did: as an important second language but still, clearly in a completely different category from their mother tongue.

    Because that would necessitate people marrying only within their own linguistic group, or for one spouse to give up speaking their language in favor of the other, or for both spouses to become fluent in both languages. English is my mother tongue, and I’m not ashamed of it. On the other hand, my grandmother, with whom I usually converse in English, made a lot of effort to encourage me to use Telugu, and is quite proud of the fact that I can read and write in it when none of her other (100% Telugu, and Telugu speaking) grandchildren can. So just because I am defending English doesn’t mean I am undermining any other Indian language, or the importance of keeping languages alive.

  32. @desishiksa That’s funny…my dog is the only person I talk to in Malayalam 🙂

    um.. desishiksa.. your dog is not a person

  33. um.. desishiksa.. your dog is not a person

    He is too. And he wants you all to know that he only barks in his mother tongue and has no interest in learning English whatsoever.

  34. Wow. This thread is not even closely related to Shilpa now..

    Anyway, though I am under some pressure to be supporting a sister and all that, from the few Youtube clips that I saw, she is pretty bossy and quite irritating at times. I am not trying to rationalize any of the racist behaviour, but some of the stuff she says is quite .. ‘blah’

    Anybody else feeling that??

  35. Because that would necessitate people marrying only within their own linguistic group, or for one spouse to give up speaking their language in favor of the other, or for both spouses to become fluent in both languages.

    Yes, I can see the logic there.

    I, for one, see english as an Indian language: it is certainly spoken by a significant portion of the population. My only issues are with the have/have-not divide it creates in India, and also that it might swamp out other languages.

    I remember once when I was in India, there were a group of middle to upper-middle class kids playing on the street. A kamwali-bai left her kid nearby while she went to a shop to get something. The group of kids kept trying to talk to the bai’s kid in english, who kept mutely staring back with wide-eyed fascination. In the end they started pushing him around and making comments to each other, such as how dark/dirty he was (the kid, of course, could not understand a thing). I had to move the little kid away cos they might have hurt him. I am not suggesting that all kids in India are like that, but I have never been able to forget that incident, and how blatantly it brought out the class and language divide.

  36. I am waiting for the day when people will feel ashamed when they cannot talk, read, and write in their own mother tongue.

    I feel terrible that I can’t speak or write Bengali as good as English.. I know a few people who are in similar circumstances, and feel the same way. That is not a completely alien emotion.

  37. I’m from the hindi speaking belt, did my schooling in a catholic school and grew up speaking Hindi at home. My school was quite strict in enforcing students to speak English all the time, and occasionally ‘fined’ the defaulters.

    Yeah.. Something similar happened in our school. That fining business was the most ridiculous thing.

    On a slightly unrelated note, I was wondering why people haven’t bitched about Macaulay yet??

  38. I was watching the Big Brother controversy on FOX News and CNN, and I was saying to myself “Please don’t let Jermaine Jackson be among those making fun of Shilpa. We’re already ticked off at Michael, Janet and LaToya.”

  39. JOAT, are you from Bombay? Also, do you have relatives in other cities/towns in Maharashtra? If yes, is English their “primary” language?

    I do have relatives spread in Nasik, Pune and Nagpur and some other places, most of them are actually educators and while there was more marathi in their house than English, English was always around. I see however with my cousins kids the grandparents talk to them in English and it’s quite common.

    What I do find artificial is the fact that people in India talk to their dogs exclusively in English 🙂 Tommy…sit, come here….go there…nice doggie.
    That’s funny…my dog is the only person I talk to in Malayalam 🙂

    I talk to my cat in Marathi as well so does my mother who will turn around and talk to me in English, which I didn’t think there was anything wrong with till someone said something to me about it.

    I feel terrible that I can’t speak or write Bengali as good as English.. I know a few people who are in similar circumstances, and feel the same way. That is not a completely alien emotion.

    I know so many people who feel the same way. I have a very close friend who was born here and his parents always talked to him in English and never passed Marathi on and I swear I hear about it every day how he regrets not absorbing it. My brother who was 7 and spoke Marathi very well when he came here has for the most part totally lost it because no one spoke to him at home because of language issues with my stepmom. He will understand a little if you talk to him but spoken, nope. He has however as a result of all the desis he hangs out with picked up Hindi. Go figure.

  40. Amitabh, I dont think English is taking over India, yet. Let me give an example. – In 1991 when STAR News (Murdoch company) started a 24 hour news service in India, it was followed by “Aaj Tak” a 24 hour news channel in Hindi. – Soon STAR news found that “Aaj Tak” which did the news in Hindi had several times more viewership than their news which was done in English. – They soon changed to Hindi news and had a chance to really compete with “Aaj Tak”.

    So even today those who use spoken English exclusively at home/work in India are a small elite minority. When it comes to consumer product (news channel is one of them) the language medium is still the local langugage.

    Another data point about the flourishing local language is the health of the print media in India. Print media (news papers) is experiencing a boom in India (which is mainly in local languages) while it is declining rapidly in the US.

  41. I realized that the language debate is going on in a thread about the Shilp Shetty situation.

    How completely ridiculously blown out of proportions is the whole thing?? Some MP in the UK brought it up in the UK house, WTF? TOI is all over it too.

    Another gem from TOI is a headline “Shilpa’s racial slur won’t hit Indo-UK ties: FM “

    Can this get any more blown out of proportions??? Geez!!

    Its a stupid “reality” show, where most things are not “real”.

  42. Maybe this will make the Bollywood types realise that no matter how westernised they get and no matter how expert at English they become, they’re still Indian. Although Shilpa is better than most in terms of maintaining some Indian culture and representing. My comments are aimed more at the likes of Abhishek, Preiti Zinta, Saif Ali Khan, etc.
    Amitabh, How did you miss the pretentious Aishwarya Rai who was complaining “Why do people think I dont know English” on Oprah.

    She also said “People think I am educated abroad” Anyways. Coming to think of it Paz Vega speaks in Spanish and is proud not to be forcing english onto herself. That is so sexy.

  43. How completely ridiculously blown out of proportions is the whole thing?? Some MP in the UK brought it up in the UK house, WTF? TOI is all over it too.

    It’s beyond that. The Indian government raised the issue formally with the UK high commissioner … while Gordon Brown is visiting India, undoubtedly to reaffirm the Indo-British “special relationship.” My only hope is that some feckless Indian lad doesn’t decide to self-immolate in protest.

  44. Well hey, I can’t blame her. Just as she should have expected that a reality show would have been filled with jerks, her rivals should have understood that she would use any leverage she could get. Calling them out on their racism is pretty damn smart strategy.