English, Simply Silly! Poem by Padmanabhan Ananth

What's so much in a language, silly?
Do I call it a 'she' or a 'he' with certainty?
No perfect way to share human thought
Fraught with faults, when sharing sentiment

But there's indeed so much in a lingua
Ask the many passionates here in India
Across length-n-breadth of this country
You'll get answers like it, such a variety!

This craze, no unique only to Indian national
Or even this sub-continent, it's universal
Communities, counties, countries stay divided
Merely on their local-folks' speak-sound

But what's in a language - a mother tongue?
Why should we all be so very strung?
I must get to the bottom of this, I said
I must know on this, why're passions so stirred.

I think it's inherent weakness of the human
It's turf war, played to preserve comfort zone
Or else why should one be so passionate
And animated about this - so inanimate?

Politicians, linguists here clamour for vernacular
They say English's alien, vitiates local atmosphere
Brought by East India Company's colonisers
But at home, their offsprings: English lionisers!

I'm not here to trivialise any one tongue
Thai or Tamil, Hindi or Somali, Wu or Telugu
Each-one's mother tongue is no less key
But for global reach English helps, I believe

See it differently: is not English a factor
That binds such varied peoples together?
Wiki says officially used in countries over 50
Spoken by massive numbers - million 380!

English grew from West Germanic dialects
So it's not even original to England's folks
Pyjama, sofa, replica, samba, villa, cola
All added from other speaks, cool eh?
To this first modern global 'lingua franca'

Shouldn't we use this to reach out to more corners
And not being too caught up in talk wars
At least mustn't this be just a medium
To contact, communicate among humans?
- - -