meeku telugu vachaa ?

Forgetting... I feel it is much more complex than I actually thought or expected or, in fact, wrote about in the previous post.

Just yesterday, I had witnessed a scene which brought back memories of a very very small discussion I had with one of my friends seven years ago. I didn't even realize I had actually remembered that discussion until I saw this scene.

A foreigner was sitting on the stairs of a big shopping mall. While she was waiting for somebody, she opened her HINDI book and started reading it in that short time she had.

Immediately the topic of foreign language vs. native language struck me and my mind went back seven years. That was the time when the Andhra Pradesh government was planning to change all the boards on local buses to Telugu. The names of the 'To' and 'From' on all buses would be written in Telugu and I guess even the registration numbers. Now this friend of mine was strongly criticizing this idea of the government. He didn't want the boards to be written in Telugu as he could not read or write in Telugu though he could speak :(. To his benefit and to many others' like him, the government did not go ahead and implement that idea. Otherwise the publisher of "Read Telugu in 5 days" would be competing with Ambanis in wealth.

While the idea of learning the language just to be able to read a bus board is slightly nonsensical, but how many of you think one has to be a literate in his native language. Unable to read your mother-tongue - Wouldn't it be pitiful?
Globalization - that's the term we use most often to explain this. People prefer learning English, French, German etc, leaving the very own native language, to be part of the broader world. How good is it !

Then, there would be no difference between the foreigner who has just landed and the person who has been a native staying here for all his life. Both equally strangers to the language and seeking the help of others trying to figure out the name of a recently released movie.:)

Which one are you or which one would you rather be?