If one wanted to speak bengali, they could easily admit themselves in bengali-medium schools. However, if you are in an English-medium school, you are not allowed to speak your mother tongue, no matter how good it is. Speaking Bengali and studying in an English-medium school couldn't be done simultaneously.
Bani sat on the first bench of her class and listened to the principal's daughter giving that lecture to her classmates. It was the daily dose of 'inspiration' that the teacher provided to the class to speak in English. However, Miss Moubani didn't realize how futile her lectures proved to be to the pupils of the school. Some respectfully digested the lectures and then vomited those out after a few minutes and the others didn't even try to understand whatever she was speaking. This was life, the life of the students of A.B.C.
The Bengali class was going on in full swing. Miss Adrija taught how one should be free from all clutches of the interpreting books and should interpret a poem on their own. Everyone listened very attentively, after all, that was what they wanted— to interpret everything in their own way and not to abide by the thousand undefined existing rules.
All of a sudden, everyone became as quiet as a vacuum. To answer Bani's question, Miss Moubani entered the class. "Good afternoon, everyone." She started with a broad smile on her face, "We will have an inspection in our school tomorrow. All please come in proper uniform. Girls, tie your hair properly and no nail polish. Boys, cut your hair properly, no grass growing in the middle of your head."
"Ma'am, are watches allowed" Mina said in bengali," and is it necessary to tie my short—"
"I don't understand Bengali." Miss Moubani cut off Mina in the middle of her question, "If you can speak in English, tell me your doubts and if you can't, shut your mouth. And tomorrow if you want to jabber in Bengali, please don't come to school."
"Sorry ma'am." Mina muttered worriedly.
"The inspector is not going to listen to your sorry!" Miss Moubani shouted loudly.
"I—I can speak English. I will speak in English, ma'am. Sorry." Mina apologized.
Bani was glaring at Miss Moubani.
"Nonsense" Miss Moubani said and walked towards the classroom door.
Enough is enough, Bani thought.
"Very true Ma'am" Bani said, trying her best to keep her voice calm, "It's really nonsensical how you really manage to talk to the staff in pure Bengali and then you don't understand bengali. How weird you see."
"What!" Miss Moubani quickly turned around and stared at Bani.
"Also," Bani continued, "don't you feel ashamed to say that you don't understand your mother tongue? Don't you feel ashamed to portray yourself as a liar? And above all, don't you see Miss Adrija? What does that mean? It's our Bengali class. You understand? Do you?"
Miss Moubani gazed at Bani with furrowed eyebrows. "I didn't expect this from you, Bani. Have you forgotten how to talk to your elders?"
Bani calmed herself. "Ma'am, I am extremely sorry for being rude and I am well aware of the fact that I am talking to an elder. But don't you think what you are doing is wrong?" Bani said calmly. Getting angry was not always the solution.
"Better think of your own fate now. I will think of myself afterwards." Miss Moubani snapped.
"You will suffer for teaching us how to lie." Miss Moubani didn't take that into account and flounced out of the class.
"You shouldn't have done that, Bani." Miss Adrija said worriedly, "This is not going to end well."
"We will see." Bani sat down and the other students too arranged themselves. The class continued.
The next three classes were perhaps the most silent classes that the ABC school had ever seen. Something was about to happen. Bani knew that way too well. She didn't care about whatever happened to her but she would teach Miss Moubani before that.
She was right. Something did happen. A student came inside and gave Bani a note. It read:
| Meet me in the tiffin break —MB |
"Thanks," Bani said to the girl who brought the note. The class again continued.
Tiffin. Bani slowly moved towards Miss Moubani's office. She was mindless about the result. Thinking of the result would be as futile as her lectures. But...her protest wasn't.
There was a small child in Miss Moubani's room talking to her, in bengali. "Ma'am, Rita disturbs me a lot, please do something Ma'am"
"I don't understand Bengali." Miss Moubani gave her signature dialogue as reply.
"Uh Ma'am, then do you know sign language?" She said in fascination in Bengali, "My mum doesn't understand English but she said that she talked with you. How did you understand her?"
"What?!"
"Yes..." The child said gravely, "You know what, I really need to learn sign language. Please teach me ma'am."
"I do understand Bengali!"
"But just now you said you didn't. Were you making fun?" The child continued.
"Leave my room! Now!" Miss Moubani shouted.
Bani saw the child coming out of the door and surprisingly, was followed by Miss Moubani. At Bani's sight, Miss Moubani stood still. It was just as she had said it would be. She succeeded at portraying herself as a liar.
Author's note: I would very much like to know your own opinions on the topic concerned regardless of the story.
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125,007 Literary Works • 672,815 Reviews
Hey Forever!
RandomTalks here with a short review!
Personal opinion:
I really appreciate you bringing up this topic. I think it is very prevalent in the culture we practice and to be honest, it is a little saddening the way we repress one language in order to spread the familiarity and popularity of another one. Our schools, for example, are always teaching us to speak in English and write in English, and I personally believe that is a good lesson to teach as long as you are not undermining another subject in the process. This was especially the practice in our childhood, when we were still young and impressionable kids. One of my tuitions actually used to punish us by making us buy chocolates for an entire batch of thirty students if you spoke more than one sentence in English. I think it is great that our schools and tuitions have always been rather strict in their encouragement of making us learn English, but I think the story you have portrayed here took it a little too far. And with that, I will move into the main review!
Characters:
I loved the way you started the story. You eased us into the plot without springing the topic on us at once. The first part can almost be seen as an introduction to this topic you have tried to address, and I liked the fact that there was no point in the story where you deviated from what you were trying to present. Your intention was clear in your narration, and we always drove straight to the point. Even the characters seemed very clear in their stance and I liked the overall power and determination that text exuded.
I like how you have portrayed Miss Adrija as a complete antagonist to Miss Moubani. Miss Adrija is kind and gentle and most important of all, she teaches her students to stray from the path of convention and make their own minds up above the world. She does not believe in textbook studying and I can imagine that her classes are more interactive where students can actually share their own interpretations and help each other in the process of education. It is evident that the students admire her and enjoy her classes where they can be free and learn in the way that is actually very productive as well.
On the other hand, we have Ms. Moubani who is more strict and by-the-rules. However, even strict teachers can be respected. But a teacher who does not respect a student can never expect to enjoy their respect as well. It is not a one-way street. We can clearly see that she does not share a very good rapport with the students as they immediately fall silent the moment she enters the class. She curbs the questions of a student who just wants to know the details of the inspection that is going to happen. She is rigid in her ways and is not very open to hearing what the other person has to say. We can see it in the way she does not exactly reply to Bani's accusations, but simply gets mad at her for speaking back to an elder. It shows that she is not ready to move her ground and is not willing to respect another's opinion as well.
Bani is a rather straightforward child who is not afraid to speak up against something she deems as wrong. We can sense the subtle annoyance in her from the very first moment in the story, we can see that she is tired of the same dialogue that the school is trying to instill in them - speak in English. However, she is a disciplined student as well and she does not say anything.
I liked the way she stood up in Miss. Adrija's class though. She was strong and clear in her stance and even though she was angry, I liked the calm determination with which she addressed her teacher. I do think that she stepped out of the line a bit and should have been more respectful when talking with a teacher, but I liked the fact that she backpedaled for a while and apologized for her rude behavior. She is respectful of her teachers, but it is very evident that she has had enough. Personally, I think she is a very admirable student and I very much liked her as the main protagonist in this story.
Plot:
I think I cleared this already in my personal views at the top, but I think Ms. Adrija was creating a problem where it was not really necessary. I understand that schools have their own principles, and they have to follow them. But it was not really necessary to scold the child for making an enquiry in Bengali. When class is going on, I can understand the strict use of English - after all, it is what you are supposed to be teaching. However, this was the Bengali class, and Ms. Moubani had simply popped in to make an announcement. There was no need for the formality of using English to ask a casual question. If she had only advised the student to use English next time, it would have been understandable. But she practically scolded the girl, rather harshly.
In the end, I enjoyed the irony of the scene. I think she had more reason to feel embarrassed in that moment than she did back in the classroom when Bani had spoken up against her in front of all the students. I think I would have loved to see what would happen next and how she would confront her student after the hypocrisy she had just shown.
Other minor details:
This sentence sounded a little awkward to me. Maybe replace the 'all' with 'everybody'. It sounds better to me this way: " Everybody please come in proper uniform."
Again, 'at Bani's sight' sounds a little odd to me. I would write it as : "Seeing Bani, Ms. Moubani stood still." (wow, I just realized how similar those two names are once I placed them so close to another)
This expression is so typical of our teachers, that it genuinely made me laugh out loud!
Personally, I am glad my school, despite being English medium, isn't all that strict about it. In fact, even our English teachers teach in Bengali half the time!
(Lastly, I apologize for any typos in the review. It is literally too late and I should have gone to bed hours ago.)
Keep writing and have a great day!
Looking forward to reading some work of yours again!
Thank you for the review!!
I completely forgot to replyI too realized that after reading your review!!
XD, same here!
Again thank you for the review!!
I don’t know if these are good genres for the story,but I would say that this could be non-fiction and action because this could actually happen and there is action in the story.It’s not the stereotypical blowing up stuff action,but you get the point.Now,my opinions! As someone who lives in America,I can confirm that we Americans think we’re better than everyone else and want people to do things our way,even spreading ideas to change a language.It’s sad,really.I think this story is about the toxic teachings America spread throughout the world.I hope you have a lovely and amazing day and night.
I like this
Thank you! Glad that you liked it
Heya!! Rida here with a review!!
and our teachers are very, very cranky).
First off, I want to thank you for addressing this issue. I do think that one’s mother-tongue is a part of who they are, regardless of if they choose to speak it or not. Growing up in a house speaking one language and then speaking another in school; almost like languages are some turn on/off button, it’s really strange, isn’t it? English is a beautiful, wonderful and amazing language, and I know you know that already since you choose to express yourself through poetry and stories in English. As English is growing all around the world, and each student of every school is being asked to speak fluently in this language, somewhere- I think- some teachers, in this case, Miss Moubani, are going about very wrongly in teaching it. You can’t really force a language on someone and expect them to love it. You have to give them time to embrace it, understand it and familiarise themselves with it. For example, I’ve fallen in love with English not because it’s been taught in school, but because it’s growing on me, and I feel drawn towards its history, it’s grammar and the way I can fluently express myself in it. My mother-tongue is Hindi, and though I can never imagine myself without it, and I feel it’s a part of who I am, I can say that I’d still love English more. I love my mother-tongue, and I embrace it, but I just can’t connect with it the way I can with English. (Plus, I’m very bad at it
Miss Adrija over here is shown kind, and loving, and I can see she loves Bengali very much. That’s why her students know the language better!
One’s mother-tongue is their heritage, and as we develop into the modern world we start losing our culture, preferring things we see on tv. I think a lot of schools are acting on it, (almost all of them teach the regional language to their students), and they allow students to speak in their mother-tongue during those classes, but we can’t ignore the fact that English is very important too. It’s a world-wide language, and knowing it can be helpful when travelling to other countries.
So a balance between knowing your mother-tongue and popular languages is essential. While teachers should support us embracing our mother-tongues, they should also help create a balance and understanding among their students of the importance of both these languages.
Whew that was a very long rambling,
Anyway,
Keep writing!!
I really enjoyed this story and look forward to more!
-@rida
Thank you for your review!
Hello Forever Young
I hope this review reaches you well! Before I get into the review I will just forewarn you that I am not from your culture and country so I may be confused or have a lot of questions.
The story content wise is very nice. I think the message you are trying to convey is very clear and easy to understand. However since I don’t go to a school like yours I don’t understand the length of the issue. But going just off the story, I think the point you're getting at is that you should be able to speak your own language whenever you want, in school or out of it. Though I do understand why some teachers may not like this, because they might not understand what their students are saying. It could also be frustrating for the students when they are forced to speak a certain language, especially when they aren’t fluid in that certain language. Thoughts are just my thoughts though.
So first off I found that your grammar and wording was a bit awkward.
I found that you used quite a few awkward words that didn’t fit very well into the sentences. Like here for example.
This simile doesn’t really work, vacuums are pretty loud. I would use a different word like “mice” or something.
Also wording as shown below doesn’t always work very well.
Try using more fluid words that aren’t as long.
There were more examples of the issues noted above, but I won’t bore you with them. Just watch out for wording that doesn’t match up with what you mean. However I do understand that English isn’t your first language, so it’s probably harder to see when wording is awkward and such.
Also it’s hard to know when someone is speaking in Bengali or in English. Since the story is in English, I suggest putting the translated Bengali in italics so that it’s easier to know when someone is speaking in Bengali or not.
Overall I think you have a very good story. It has a good message and storyline to it. Anyways I hope this review was helpful, if you have any questions feel free to ask. Keep on writing and have a great rest of your day!
- Stellarjay <3
Thank you for your review!