MY ENGLISH (A self-exploration - sharing with all humility)

From Sampath’s Desk:

 

LOOKING BACK DOWN THE MEMORY LANE OF MY ENGLISH LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT EFFORTS, EXPERIMENTS, AND EXPERIENCES

 

(A self-exploration - sharing with all humility)

 

The origin of my curiosity and fascination for English language could be traced to my boyhood. Besides what I was learning at school, I had the opportunity to assist my father - mostly at night times - in his ‘proofreading’ of many English books then under print on different subjects by different eminent authors, which he was doing as a part-time job. For he would be engaged full-day-time as one of the managers of the huge Higginbotham’s book-stall at Madras Central Railway Station. As a rule, we would sit underneath a bright street light on the ‘Thinnai’ (a frontal porch/raised floor) of our house in Chepauk, Chennai, near the present Walajah Road side of M.A. Chidambaram Cricket Stadium and behind the erstwhile ‘Paragon Theatre’ in the 1960-70s, as the breeze blew across from the nearby Marina beach gently caressing and fondling to keep us less weary and drudgery in our work. At first, I felt uneasy having to do the work even beyond midnight many a time but slowly adapted myself to it. I used to call out the text and my father would correct it wherever necessary. In the initial stages, I could not properly pronounce certain words and understand their meaning including the semantic nuances and subtleties thereof, as books on diverse fields were written in grand style by renowned, giant, and genius authors. My father used to correct me wherever I mispronounced. He would also tell me the meaning of words that were new to me if I asked, or else I would refer to the dictionary for both correct pronunciation and meaning. As a schoolboy, those words were utterly new to me, and getting to know them was a pleasant and treasured opportunity (albeit being a tough job then) proving to be a ‘blessing in disguise’ in due course. Over the years, I piled up with me a collection of dictionaries - English-Tamil-Hindi - for reference with a view to improving my language fluency.  

 

There would be at least three rounds of proof-reading of the same text (draft, we call it now - but in press parlance, it was a ‘galley’ consisting of 16 pages running continuously, say like a ‘FAX roll’) before ‘strike’ order would be given by my father. After every proofreading, the print typeset worker would manually make corrections by removing the incorrect metal letters and inserting the right ones apart from making space adjustments as suggested or as might be necessary, and return the galleys for second proofreading - so on and so forth. These continuous proofreading exercises started kindling my passion and quest for the English language.

 

After every galley correction,  I slowly and steadily not only enriched skills of pronunciation, grammar, sentence structuring, purport, and nuances of many a jargon, use of idioms, etc. but also gained general knowledge and current affairs through those English books of many hues. That was how I started developing skills in writing English pieces on my own, small or big. That subsequently became my ardent passion and norm, thanks to GOD'S GRACE. 

 

My English knowledge was also well enhanced by the Shorthand (Higher Grade) that I completed. I always felt that English Higher Shorthand is almost equivalent to a degree in English language. In B.Com course, I had the Mercantile Law, Income Tax Act (Law), Audit Law, and other Laws and Acts to study - interesting subjects for me then as language-rich sources. Generally, in law books, you get excellently-worded texts. Example: Fundamental Rules and Supplementary Rules (FR & SR) books of the Central Government. I was always fond of reading them for their content value and richness of language. Reading Law Books, All India Law Journals, judgments by eminent and illustrious judges, etc. that contained a treasure-trove of creamy language enhanced and enriched my language. Late Shri VR Krishna Iyer was my favourite Supreme Court judge whose judgments would be couched in appealing and fascinating language. In fact, his flow of English language had flummoxed and flabbergasted even the native English speaking people, especially lawyers and judges. I was fond of reading his jargon-packed judgments. It was also instrumental in encouraging and propelling me into writing with a difference, and in shaping and moulding me into what I am today.

 

I was an avid and ardent reader of books and newspapers at the local District Library in Big Street, Triplicane, Chennai, a place I often visited for newspaper/book reading. At weekends, I visited the famous 1890-established Connemara Library, one of the oldest in India, situated in the Museum Compound, Pantheon Road, Egmore, Chennai providing people with perennial sources of knowledge products, information searches, and language-related books, almost on all subjects under the sky, all under one roof. My local library was a quiet, well-stocked retreat. It was one place where I could be myself because the books wouldn’t care if I was comfortable or a little bit weird or otherwise. They wanted to be read, and I was there to do that.

 

One of the most magical places on the Earth for me then was the library. Nowhere else I felt so safe and homey than being there. I nostalgically recall here the scent of new books and the dust smell of dog-eared/fold-edged old books with pages torn here and there including scratched and worn out leather bindings/beadings transporting me into a magical and marvelous language wonderland! That library provided me with happy sojourns of study-savvy solitude with a pin-drop serenity prevailing. Today, of course, we have user-created content all around us, from blogs and photo streams to wiki books and video clips, and whatnot, enabling one to become a mix of a reader, writer, and researcher. I thus consolidated my language skills to become what I am today! 

 

To begin with, I always ensured that I wrote without any grammar mistakes. From a humble beginning of writing simple grammatically perfect sentences and small texts, emboldened as I was due to the self-confidence in handling the language that I mustered over the years, I embarked on doing big and embellished pieces as well. The trend continues.

 

As my penchant would have it, I couldn’t resist using jargon. By referring to dictionaries I learned how to pronounce them along with stock-taking of their meaning. I was watchful of how these words were used by writers - with what purpose,  purport, and punch. It is the decades-long enthusiastic perseverance and consolidation that helped me strike a purple patch and surge ahead.

 

To recall my distant past, normally, once I came across a new word I would ensure it getting and remaining etched in my memory along with its pronunciation and meaning. Before the advent of modern devices like electronic typewriters with memory fields and later the mind-blowing yet user-friendly computers, I was scripting everything in old diaries and notebooks. Those manuscript collections are still available with me as part of my 'language learning process and pursuit' archives. Thereafter, my modus operandi was whenever some idea(s) struck me, I would reduce them into attractive phrases, sentences, and small pieces of my own, and immediately and immaculately register them in a digital diary that I always carried along with me. Then I would transfer it to my computer, the one in the office and another at home. I had this decades-long collection containing my ideas, sentence constructions, references, etc. in my computer running to thousands of pages divided into several volumes. I had been doing this exercise for more than four decades now so that I need not necessarily scratch my brain every time and can readily use the input(s) either from my brain memory straightaway (which would be more often the case than not) or rarely from the text bank I had built up over decades. I always updated and upgraded my own text bank (including trimming and fine-tuning them whenever and wherever needed) with new inputs in tune with the trends, making it ready for use in appropriate contexts and as the occasions demanded. If and when I open my memory lane, words usually come jumping in a jiffy, or, sometimes, may require stretching of my brain. I have conserved ‘my musings’ in different volumes. Whether you call it a ‘banked treasure’ or ‘treasured bank’, I have them with me even today. Of course, one needs to take care of the contextual, sequential, and chronological order of any write-up with his/her own ingenuity.

 

I had already written more than 500 articles on different subjects under the sky. While in service, my fellow employee Ms. Lakshmi assisted me in typing them. I have in all six old diaries/bound notebooks wherein I have pasted my letters and other pieces published by newspapers.

 

Clothed with the acquired self-confidence required, I was emboldened to be a writer, as has been my wont throughout, as my proofreading days and subsequent ‘enhance language skills’ exercises and efforts as narrated above, came in handy on their own to accomplish the task. Yes, they had sufficiently equipped me to become a writer. I still keep reading newspapers, magazines, and journals. I have always strongly believed that sharing one’s knowledge is like sharing his/her assets however without losing even a bit of it, true to the saying ‘Teaching is learning twice’.

 

Once my office colleague Lakshmi asked me, “Ji, you are writing so well. But I don’t see you reading any books at all nowadays.” I would tell her, “Yes, I was once a fervid reader of books on all subjects from my boyhood days .... no further! I now want to be a writer (if not a prolific one which I would increasingly like to be) - a fort and forte I always wanted to hold.”

 

Lakshmi would never make whisper or demur if I asked for another draft; she would rather say “That’s good”. If I asked ‘Why’, she would readily and curiously reply “The draft will return further trimmed and prettified with some more apt and decorative value additions.” She was of the opinion that the interpolations, restructured sentence formations, and/or modifications - the use of adjectives and adverbs, in particular - made by me in every draft further enriched and embellished the write-up, both content-wise and language-wise. I didn’t just do the work but celebrated doing every bit of it! Yes, I continue to celebrate my work!

Last, but not least, I believe whatever I have learned is only the tip of the iceberg! And, there is always scope for improvement. Yes, I strongly believe that life is a continuous process of learning - womb to tomb. 

 

 

R.SAMPATH

3/10/2020