ચકી ચકી પાણી પી. બે પૈસા નો બરફ લે!

I will consider those of u lucky to whom this bears some semblance of meaning, at least those of you who are Gujarati.

To me, it drags me back to early 1990s when i was just a little child being prepared to start schooling. I had this small slate on which i used to write using chalk stick. I would write the gujarati alphabet and numerals and wipe it off with a wet cloth and it'd be as good as new to be used again. It was while waiting for the moments while the slate dried that we used to chant the title of this post. Many used to do that in those days but it seems to have gone out of the window now. Too cheap in the eyes of the parents perhaps.

And it has become unfashionable for a child to be studying in gujarati medium as well. It is astounding that with the loss of such small things as "slate-pen" so much would be lost and yet no one seems to be concerned. The love for the western languages and western culture is killing our own culture. Who will explain to these wretches that,
"બ્રેડ-બટર નો બ્રેકફાસ્ટ હોય અને છાશ-રોટલા નું શિરામણ હોય."

So a child who has grown up eating BigMac and French fries can never appreciate nor understand what "લાડુનું જમણ અને કાશીનું મરણ" means.

The parents feel proud of showing off their children singing "Mary had a little lamb" without them or the kid having the slightest of idea what it means while nobody cares to teach them
"એકડો સાવ સળેકડો, બગડો ડિલે તગડો
એવી બથ્થંબથ્થી કરતાં થઇ ગયો મોટો ઝગડો"

And honestly speaking i find it astonishing that the patents who themselves havent studied beyond 10th or 12th standard enroll their ward in english medium where the child masters neither english nor gujarati and ends up speaking some language that seems like an illegitimate offspring of them both. I wonder what their children will speak!

It saddens me to think what we have done to our mother tongue."પાચ કરોડ સંતાન હોવા છતાં માતા પાંગળી બની ગયી છે".

Remember,when a culture suffers a loss,so does the language and vice versa. And it seems that we are adamant on bringing about the doom of both of them.