A sentence in Mr.ÃMohammad Sultan's letter in The Daily Star dated 02 March, 2005 intrigues me: " The locals speak a language which is not Bangla proper." He is perhaps referring to the Kutty dialect of old Dhaka. I came to Dhaka to work as a Creative Director in an advertising agency in 2001 and discovered few Bangladeshis speak "Bangla proper" standard Bangla. Standard Bangla is generally accepted as the dialect prevalent in Shantipur in Nadia district of West Bengal or at least, that is the base. The dialects of Bengal did not develop from Shantipuri Bangla; they developed independently. The Shantipuri dialect gained supremacy at a time when the region was considered the seat of learning and culture. The Assamese language, in fact, is more nearly related to the Shantipuri dialect than the Chittagong dialect is. As a copywriter writing in Bangla, what I found strange in Bangladesh was the obsession with standard particularly 'sadhu' Bangla. Everywhere in the world, the language of advertising is the language that your target audience speaks the colloquial spoken by a particular group. Here, advertisements tend to be written in stilted, strange Bangla. My family originally hails from Narayanganj district; in my childhood, I heard the dialect spoken at home. I was therefore not entirely unfamiliar with the language I heard on the streets of Dhaka. However, when I presented an advertisement created in dialect for a product to be sold in semi-urban and rural markets, the response was, "Bhashata boro gramyo hoise!" the language is too rustic. When I pointed out that it was deliberately done keeping the desired market in mind, I was asked, "Kintu... amago imaz-er ki hoibo?" what will happen to our image? That was my first exposure to the bundle of contradictions in Bangladeshi nationalism. Bengalee first or Muslim first? Do I represent the Bangladeshi nation or the greater Bengalee nation? And so on...I personally believe it is wrong to tie down a language. Chain it in classical fetters, and it dies. A living language will change and evolve. The "Bangla proper" of Bangladesh is already evolving away from the language of Tagore and Bankim. Indeed, even the standard Bangla of West Bengal has come a long way from those times. Dialects are not a matter of shame they enrich the language with their diversity. And if, through the course of history, a region or a nation evolves a different form of language, that should be accepted with pride. As it is, the difference between the Bangla developing in Bangladesh and that in West Bengal stems from a strange dichotomy based on the religion of speakers who use a different vocabulary even when they resided side by side. 'Jol' and 'pani', 'dawat' and 'nemontonno' the list is endless. Then there are differences of regional forms or terms. The hawker in front of our Kalighat Metro Station would look blank if you asked him for 'boroi' though he has a basket piled high with the fruit. His counterpart in Dhaka would take some time to understand what you want if you asked for 'kool'. No Sir! Let our language evolve the way it will. Let us borrow words and steal, let us exchange vocabulary, let us turn the religious to the secular. Let 'jol' and 'pani', 'kool' and 'boroi' be freely interchangeable.While in Bangladesh, I was overwhelmed with the warmth and hospitality of my Bangladeshi friends and colleagues. But there was one thing that hurt me. Many people seem to have difficulty in believing that Bengalees also live in India; or that Indian Bengalees are genuine Bengalees. Last year, when the BBC conducted a poll forÃthe greatest Bengalee, a colleague opined that if more Bengalees from West Bengal had voted, Sheikh Mujib would probably not been voted to the top. "But," he hastened to observe, "You're not real Bengalees... you're Indians. "There, I think, you have lost some objectivity in becoming a homogenous nation. I am a Bengalee and proud of it. I am an Indian and proud of it. I take pride in India's diversity.ÃI respect all the nations Panjaba-Sindha-Gujarata-Maratha-Dravida-Utkala-Banga that went into making our country great. In this I follow Tagore and Nazrul and all else who madeÃBangla one of theÃrichest languages in the world. It makes me able to love and respect Bangladesh. It makes me love and respect India.
Bangla is my mother tongue. I would have no other. Whatever be your mother tongue, you should feel that way. If I have got it right, that is the spirit of Ekushey.
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