Well, well.
What can I say?
This is the most common statement you hear from un-educated people who would have stereotyped foreigners as someone who pray on their country and put their country in a juicer and drink it off. During my 3+ years of stay in the UK, I never faced any intimidating situation except for this one situation. The only other time was when a drunk maniac was shouting "This is my country .. You black, fuck off". I dont consider the drunk guy's comment because I knew that guy and what kind of a person he was , as he stayed right above our flat !!!!!!!
Now for the most famous statement " You should go back to where you came from".
This happened in Reading almost 2 years ago, dont ask me why I am writing this now. May be with the same reason why I wrote about my visit to the jail when I was in France a week after the incident happened. (I will post that after digging from my emails).
I lived in the UK with the same feeling as I lived in Bangalore. Both places are little alien for me, one for the language and one for lots and lots of factors. I never felt ashamed of speaking in telugu at any place , Bangalore or UK. I have always loved to converse in telugu with my son and wife. Now, I only converse with my son in English at school only if it is a general topic and when I take names of any of his classmates, (for example, why dont you play with A, why dont you say hello to B, etc) otherwise still happy to talk in telugu.
When I moved to reading in 2010, it was quite difficult for my son. He was 4 years old and he did not have any foundation in English, he could not even answer what is your name? He had to start at the nursery soon, my wife was very anxious when she took him there on the first day that she literally cried there. Now the beauty of UK is the amount of money the government spends to make people who move in to UK settle happily and with all the necessary aids to make their life and the life of the people in the UK happy. The most significant of this being the ability to converse in English. So, why do I converse in Telugu, when I know English very much? Just one answer, I cant think in English. Just like JRD Tata could only think in French and not English, I can only think in Telugu and only have to translate to English. It only happens quickly many times but sometimes, I cant get the translation in time and people think I am sluggish or rude in not responding. Now coming to teaching English, my wife had a free course from the local council to help her learn the techniques to teach my son English.
Now, for the surprise to all of the people reading this.
What is the best way for a child who has never spoken in English to learn English well?
- Watch lots of cartoons on iplayer (BBC iplayer is only avaiable for those in UK, cant view it from India)
- Read lots of English books?
- Speak to him a lot in English?
- Leave him in a crowd of 100% English speaking Britishers?
None of the above.
The best way is to speak to him in his mother tongue, that is what my wife was told at the week long course. To speak with him very much in Telugu . If he knows Telugu correctly, it is very easy for him to learn English.
During the time my son was learning to speak in English at the Nursery, I used to borrow almost 10 books from the library every week and read him all the books. This also helped him tremendously as he learnt new sentences and ways to construct a sentence, etc. He had so much of exposure to the correct ways to speak and write, that when he was 5 years old, he pointed out to a grammar mistake in a phonics book written by professors of Oxford!!!! May be not reviewed properly.
Since I didnt have a car at that time, we always used to take out a Group pass on saturdays for £5 and roam around Reading town center shopping in the mornings and go to ASDA in the afternoon for the groceries. During one of those days ,we three were at the bus stop waiting for the bus.
There was a lady also sitting at the bus stop and my son was playful on that day and we were little bit playing near the bus stop all the time conversing in telugu. There was a nice lady who was sitting next to us.
Lady : Does your son go to school?
Me : Yes, he goes to a nursery.
Lady : Does he speak in English? The reason I am asking this is if he cant speak English properly, he will have difficulty to converse with other students in the nursery and the other kids will have trouble with him around.
Me : No, he is fine, he speaks English at the nursery and does not have any difficulty, yes it is a bit difficult, but he is learning and he is improving.
Lady : May be if you have so much difficulty, you should go back to where you came from.
Me : Actually it does not matter much because even if I go back to Bangalore, kids speak English very much there and he wont be still be able to converse in his mother tongue.
At this point I realized that the lady turned her head to the other side and was not interested in the conversation at all, all that she was interested was in saying "Go back to where you came from"
May be she does not know that I am highly skilled migrant filling up a space which no one in the UK can fill.
I did feel a bit agitated after I came home, but did not say anything to the lady while I was at the bus stop. May be my brought up and culture prohibited me from saying anything. I am normally not aggressive except when I hear about corruption/traitors/cheating spiritual leaders.
I am glad I kept my cool on that day and not stooped down lower than the lady.
I have not since faced the problem again, it is a lone incident but something I can never forget.
I wonder why we asked this question only in 1947??????????????????????????
Any ideas mate????
