ulta pulta
Tongue-tied
Jaspal Bhatti

Six persons sat in a dharna in front of the Assembly building in Bhubaneswar demanding that the state Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik must learn Oriya before the next session or face consequences.

"Are they some strict schoolteachers, "my daughter asked me. "No, the problem is that the Chief Minister cannot speak the language of the state. So they want him to learn it," I tried telling her.

My daughter persisted. "Papa, if they don’t have exams, why should they be forced to learn a subject."

I told her it wasn’t necessary that we learn only those things that are in the syllabus. "What if some people want to complain about the government inefficiency in Oriya? Will he understand?" I asked my daughter.

She replied cleverly, "Do you think he understands and takes action on all problems that are conveyed to him in English?"

Suddenly it struck me that I was arguing with my daughter for nothing. In a government department, it is not the language that matters.

It is through the sign language and the language of expressions that one can easily make out whether your work will be done or not and if it is to be done then at what price. Corruption knows no language.

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