Do you ever analyse what difference does a simple spoken language create in the minds of the people?
A group of children singing two types of verses when Rain is melting the smell of soil.
"Rain, rain, go away
Come again another day
Little baby wants to play
Rain, rain, go away"
And
काले-काले बादल छाओ,ठंडी-ठंडी हवा चलाओ,तपती धूप से हमें बचाओ,बारिश बारिश जल्दी आओ!
How deeply language carries the experience of the people who create it.
In English, one of the most popular childhood rhymes teaches children to ask the rain to leave while in Hindi it is the opposite.
What a beautiful difference...
In India, rain is the wait of an anxious farmer, the smell of dry soil coming alive, and a relief from a scorching summer. It is the promise of food, water, and surviving.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that children learn far more than vocabulary from the songs they sing.
Every rhyme quietly teaches a way of looking at the world, a way of deciding what is a problem and what is a blessing. What should be feared and what should be welcomed.
Neither poem is wrong.
Each was born from the realities of its people.
Perhaps, it does build and shape the child for the future.
What do we want to pass on to the next generation?
VC: video belongs to original creditor