Po poi velaya paaru...

Silly Hindians, not knowing & not using are 2 different things. You don't know that many here know Hindi, you only know that we choose not to use Hindi, because it's our choice. Frankly it’s none of your business, what we wear or eat or speak.

There is a lot of Hindi everywhere in Tamilnadu and often many are forced to use Hindi to communicate to the staff. If you observe closely there are many non native workers in Tamilnadu in the service industry. While many other states may have a welcoming attitude to people from other states who take up local jobs Tamilnadu has always welcomed them. Chennai or Madras has always been vaazha vaikkum Chennai, meaning it gives room for people to earn their bread in their chosen field. We still have Chinese dentists (the last few sadly) who don’t speak Mandarin here but Tamil to their patients in their clinics near Flower bazaar, Chennai. The supervisors of many service industries from shops, security service to hotels give instructions in Hindi to save them learning hundred other languages (yes we do have so many languages in our country, not everyone speaks Hindi).

The infamous auto man speaks Hindi when he wants a ride, the flower seller speaks Hindi when she wants to make a sale. They may have learnt it from TV or conversations, some even go to Hindi Prachar Sabha for the famed classes but it is a matter of choice. You “educated” outsider have no business asking people to change their choices because you are linguistically challenged and restricted to one language. If you came here on tourism, follow the local language and culture, take Google translate, get an interpreter but stop your whining. If you are here on work, learn Tamil quickly and earn your bread. Remember you are en economic immigrant who has come to a land of plenty from a land of none, if your land was better than stay put there. We are happy without you.

What annoys us most is the ignorance you exhibit by doing silly things as calling an official language as a national language, walking out of a music show by a Tamilian composer because he played some Tamil songs. When we hear the Bollywood version of some of the special songs by the Mozart of Madras we have a knowing smile; because we know how much better they sound in the original where the words spoke to our hearts.

With the highest number of tourists in the country who come primarily to soak in the art, architecture, history and culture of our land we have something worth holding on to. We do not care for your silly ideas and idiotic justification which equates knowing a language to patriotism. Yes there is a big difference between patriotism and what you think is patriotism. We are Tamil and Indian. Yes we are a part of this nation and Tamils existed long before our nation too birth 70 years ago. We will forgive this lack of knowledge on your part too. Our simple advice to you is:

Po, poi velaya paaru.

(Look up Google translate, I am not interested in translating it for you)

Images courtesy: Tamil memes / Google Images