What’s with English?

Incident 1 –
So this Monday I was at my school going to the class for next lecture with a very close friend of mine. And we were gossiping pretty loud, in Hindi (but to mention here, we were neither abusing nor using any slangs). To reach the class, we have to cross the main door of the Prayer Hall (yes, our school has a prayer hall, since it’s a Christian convent school). So we were walking across the Prayer Hall talking and we, somehow, failed to notice Sister (the Nun) walking right behind us. By chance, one of us looked back and instantly greeted her as politely as we could. She gave us a disgusted look. And we couldn’t figure out why. We stood there, waiting for a reply. ‘Are you two from this school only? English medium?’ She asked. Which was quite a rhetorical question since we both had our uniforms on. ‘Yes sister.’ ‘You both are losers you’re speaking in Hindi.‘ She murmured under her breath. Even though I had heard it, but still I asked her pardon as I just couldn’t believe my ears at that moment. ‘You are losers both of you! Speaking in Hindi. Losers!’ She repeated with a face as straight as a line and walked away. I said nothing but stood there in utter disbelief at what we just heard.
‘Did you hear what she just said?’ I asked my friend who looked rather disinterested in what all happening, just to reconfirm.
‘Yeah. You heard it right. She just called us losers. Now let’s go to the class. I don’t want to miss the lecture.’

Incident 2 –
This other day, one of my brother’s friend came home to see him. All three of us sat in the living area chit-chatting et cetera et cetera. Somehow, something led the topic to Facebook.
‘Man, I don’t even understand what posts your sister uploads on FB.’ He said to my brother, and then turning towards me, ‘You’re a real nerd, girl. I don’t get half of your what stuff you post over there. Such hi-fi English you write.’
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just said, ‘it’s no hi-fi English, just simple English.’
‘It’s hi-fi for us. We only know Hi, how-are-you, and get-well-soon in English.’ Of course, he was kidding.

So these incidents occuring one after the another sailed my ship of thoughts into the oceans of deep thinking.

Somehow, with the peer pressure of getting modernised with the young generation, people started to frame criterias to judge the ‘modernity’ of one another.And being smart or intelligent is one of them.

English became a sub-criteria for intelligence.

A person who speaks fluent English is considered smart. Or intelligent. Whereas someone who is weak at English or doesn’t speak English at all is taken to be dumb.
Somewhere between judging each other, we forgot that intelligence doesn’t depend on what language we speak or how many languages we can speak or understand properly.
For instance, someone speaking fluent English might be as dumb as others who don’t, or someone who can’t speak in English might be even more wise than people who do.
So you see,

English and Intelligence are two different things, independent of each other.

Speaking of the incident at school that day, I know we were at fault, but calling us losers was at no point relevant.
What matters most is how you treat others. Respect has no language. Neither does Politeness.
How wise or Intelligent , or should I say, Successful’ a person is, should not be judged by what language he speaks or how many languages he understands.
Just because we don’t speak in English all the time doesn’t mean we are losers or failures.
Or just because I post in so called ‘hi-fi’ doesn’t mean I’m nerd enough.

Language is not a criteria for Success or Intelligence. Politeness, Respectfulness, and Truthfulness are.