गणतंत्र दिवस- राहुल गाँधी को मिली छठे रो की सीट

PGurus’ Hindi outreach–still laudable, to be fair– hits a new and noxious, lamentable low. It is, honestly, hideous on its helpless and hapless Hindi chained in illiteracy out here. “मिला छते रो की सीट”:– “मिली छठे रो की सीट”could have been far more acceptable. “रो’ and ‘सीट” being English, there is relative freedom, so to speak, to choose the nouns’ gender (viz, masculine or feminine); but “मिला… की सीट” is utterly unacceptable. To add dark weighting to the desperate and distressing case, “छते रो” (alright, “रो” could be regarded masculine) is incomprehensible: only “छठे रो” can indicate “sixth row”, as “छठा” or “छठी” originates from the Sanskrut “षष्ठी” ( more precisely, “आठ”‘s origin in “अष्टमी” is rooted in “ष्+ ठ्/ ट्”).

Just to be in PGurus’ shoes, it could be illuminating to picture (i) Mr Sahil Mishra might be away on some work/leave, (ii) ‘automatic’ English transliteration of “छठा” or “छठी”, in his absence, would give “chhatha” or “chhathi”: this being a North Indian phonetic, it could be read “छता” or “छती” in South India, where “गीता” or “सीता” is written “Geetha” or “Seetha”, or else, (iii) Mr Sahil Mishra’s handwritten “छठे” might have been misread and mistyped “छते”.

As ‘they’ say, language is a ‘Hi-Fi’ means, loop or web of human contact, connection or communication, wherein something original is comprehended/thought/ideated and spoken/written/formatted from one end, to be heard, read or received and perceived, comprehended or databased on another target or nontarget end. “जैसा देश, वैसा वेश” = “When in Rome, be a Roman”: impersonal and individualist technoscience should never be allowed to render inaccessible any common, sociocultural harmony or bliss: otherwise, all impression and indulgence of immersiveness risks getting lost. Even rudimentary grammar and parlance may sufficiently serve one’s purpose of effectively reaching the inside of the human soul, simply because all it has got to do is to touch one’s child inside: it is Wordsworth who says:

“My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety…”

This again brings to mind the algorithmic affluence in modern communication, its abusive effluence and abrasive influence on human decency, decision and delight. Take English for example: it is getting littered so much with abuses and vulgarities. Or, in our own backyard, in the name of independence and innovation, our own Tamil: it is being hunted, hijacked, hacked and hurt by unruly, untaught and uncaring elements: it is getting shorn of all its sheen of sociocultural literacy. Short on viable means or meanings, such folks increasingly tend to short circuit all dialogue and decorum, falling back on precivilizational premises and rolling back onto base instincts and initiatives.

Sixth standard pass.वाले को छटी row