Tag: India Rupee

The Hindi Rupee

I have often trumped up the many achievements of my better half on this blog. Rightfully so – he is an admirable man in many ways, but when it comes to Hindi, he falls flat. He is useless at Hindi. At this statement, he would rise up indignantly, puff out his chest and tell you that he is a Prathmic first class.

I shall save the deplorable state of examinations and education in India for another blog. Let us suffice to say, I do not agree with this assessment. I have witnessed his performance in Hindi for several years now, and feel that there was an examiner who, in an enormously benevolent mood after a full breakfast of parathas with ghee, corrected the papers.

I have tried conversing with him in Hindi. Just as an experiment: I have tried conversing with the ducks on a lake in Hindi. I have a tried conversing with the trees under the twinkling stars in Hindi. The ducks come first, followed by a large gap where the trees and the husband come panting in neck to neck in the conversation race. The ducks quack back, the trees stand there as though nothing happened, and the husband looks puzzled. When prodded, he cracks a joke about my Hindi not being Prathmic First Class standard.

I do not blame him – it is his circumstances. Always blame the circumstances. You see, in TamilNadu especially Chennai, there is a distinct indifference towards Hindi. A calculated ignorance. “IF I don’t know that Hindi is the national language, then Hindi is not the national language” mentality that I am sure the rest of India finds extremely trying.

On an unrelated note, Tamilians as a race are rather proud of their famous offspring. Every person from Kumbakonam will tell you all about Ramanujam. Of course, if he is old enough, the story becomes Ramanujam and he as buddies goofing off near the big temple. The Abdul Kalaams and P.Chidambarams of the World, are spoken of as their own sons. We are a welcoming race that way.

Well, here is the crux. The Indian rupee is now officially going to have a symbol. No more do we have to write ‘R’ and then an ‘s’, all we have to do now is this:

The symbol was adjudged a winner from thousands of entries and guess what? The winner was from Tamil Nadu. One would have thought that the rest of the country would be bored stiff with the boasting about how Tamil Nadu produces people who can come up with rupee symbols. I thought he was all set to go down in history as one of those tales grandmothers tell their grandchildren.

But alas, I will have to take you back to the beginning of this article and show you how Tamilians are allergic to Hindi. Apparently, this symbol resembles the Hindi ‘Ra’. The whole state is in a state of emotional uproar about how a Tamilian worth his salts, having bathed in the Cauvery river and played on its earth could come up with a Hindi symbol.

The fact that this man, Udayakumar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D_Udaya_Kumar), is a  Professor of Design at the Indian Institute of Technology is forgotten as Tamil Nadu marches its way to progress.