Choosing football, ballet or Hindi?

I guess you’d think I’d be biased towards Hindi and rightly so considering I teach it for a living. But this isn’t about what I’d choose. It’s about everything we put our kids through these days. Now more than ever it feels like the pressure on our kids of ticking all the boxes and getting involved with every activity under the sun is immense.

Though I have noticed that the priority of many parents in what they teach their kids and get them involved in is related to their root language and heritage. All the French kids are running about the playground speaking French, no matter whether they are in London or Austria. This seems to be the case with German, Russian, Italian, you name it. The need to pass on our heritage is considered of utmost importance by many.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the case universally. As one 5-year-old living in Mumbai said to me, "English is also an Indian language, so I only know English." I couldn’t help feeling sad listening to this. This child could well grow up not learning their local language felt almost heartbreaking.

A language isn’t just a common way of communication. Languages weave in memories and hold a great deal of emotional, culture and historical value. They can capture a lifetime of memories and develop a special bond between strangers, especially when they're far from home.

All this will be lost to the next generation if learning their root language and heritage becomes optional as it indeed seems to be. It becomes but another thing on the list of things we try to overwhelm our kids with without much of a sense of priority of what’s more important. So again I ask, in this day and age, what will it be, Football, Ballet or Hindi?

#LearnHindi #Hindi