|
||
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
|
|
Astrology
Chat
Cityscape
Classifieds
Entertainment
Health
Matrimonial |
|
  |
Everyone of those who had never heard the Tamil language in their lives were able to vibe with the sentiments expressed in the speech for Jeevanraj's words held the magic of sound and was music to the ears of all who listened. Here was the sheer sheen of the 'kanchipuram pattu sari' proving its supremacy over the everyday cotton wear. By Dr.JKS Published on 16th May 2002 Previous Articles
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
Copyright
2008, Chennai Interactive
Business Services (P) Ltd. |
|
Jeevanraj was born the son of a cobbler. Jeevanraj's father, Isaikimuthu Vellaiyan, had a small shop financed by a Nationalised Bank, under one of its schemes for the uplift of the deprived classes in India. His shop was at the corner of the road right next to the compound wall of a house where an Englishman lived with his family. Jeevanraj studied, first in the corporation school - The Anna School and by a quirk of fate in the most
prestigious public school in the country. How he came to study in the Dane Public School would be a significant story by itself. There was an oratorical contest in English, when he was in the fifth standard. The Chairman of the Hindustan Bank, who believed in innovative enterprises had come to judge the contest.
Young Jeevanraj spoke of his vision of India. His thoughts gripped the seat of reason of his listeners and his seasoned vocabulary, for his age, held the audience in thrall. From the age of three, Jeevanraj had been exposed to English. His father's shop abutted the compound wall of an Englishman's house. Young Jeevanraj used to climb the low wall and his feet dangling on the inside, he used to listen to English conversation for hours on end. Standing first in this competition, Jeevanraj was called upon to receive the prize - a first class return ticket to England with one week's stay with the sponsors there.
Jeevanraj went up boldly to the Chairman, thanked him and asked whether it was possible to convert the prize into cash so that he could use it for his further studies. Impressed by his enthusiasm, the Chairman arranged for his education in the Dane Public School, and also gave him his prize of a trip to England. That week in England further made Jeevanraj strongly conclude that a knowledge of English was a sure, perhaps, the only passport to upliftment for the depressed downtrodden children like himself. Passing through his teens and hard work Jeevanraj joined the National Academy of Science and after his Ph.D programme, was absorbed into the telecommunications department and was given the status of secretary to government. Accolades came pouring in, not just for his versatility in the field of electronics, but also for his succinct expression of thought and scientific facts, especially expounded in English.
Jeevanraj firmly believed that there should be one language - a universal language as a unifying force of the country and he strongly advocated English as that language. Jeevanraj's own children went to English medium schools.
In fact, the only condition he laid down, when a bride was being selected for him, was that she should be fluent in English and should have read all the English classics. So very insistent was Jeevanraj on English and English learning that he was called the Black Englishman by his close friends and associates. Jeevanraj could read, speak and write Tamil, his mother's tongue very well indeed. He had a flawless pronunciation and could differentiate between the various sounds in Tamil correctly. Jeevanraj held that Tamil was like the traditional 'pattu sari' (silk saree), to be treasured and preserved and used on festive occasions, whereas English was like the ordinary cotton saree for everyday use, to be washed and pressed and worn for all purposes. 
Then
came the day when this illustrious son of India, the son of a cobbler, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, for his advanced inventions in communication techniques. The world was ready to applaud Jeevanraj when he gave his acceptance speech. He had prepared it well, of course, in English and copies had been distributed to the dignitaries who had assembled at the presentation venue. The electronic media with the technological
advances were well prepared and ready to telecast the Nobel Award ceremony, live to the entire world. Jeevanraj's beautifully prepared
English speech was sure to be the envy of even the best exponents of the English language.
There were facilities for simultaneous translations at the venue of the Nobel Prize presentation, for the convenience of the various peoples of the world, to listen to the important speeches in the language of their choice. For India there were
facilities to hear the speech in Hindi or English. The cameras were ready, the microphones adjusted - then came the familiar voice - but then, there was a slight difference - it was as mellifluous, as meticulous, as full of meaning as always and yet now there was an added magic. It took the world a few seconds to realise that Jeevanraj was rendering his prepared and circulated English speech in Tamil - that
language which he had heard in his mother's womb, that language which his new born ear drums had first responded to, that language which had been dormant in him all these years and which now like the 'kurinji' flower was blossoming in profusion, its gentle but heady perfume wafting through the minds of his listeners and making them experience an inexplicable
thrill of exhilaration.
