By Madhu Kumari / New Delhi
The Bollywood actress Sridevi is no more but the character as Shashi in her movie English Vinglish is still alive and all around. In the film, the actress dons a spirit of a typical Indian lady who has a craze for English-speaking skills to meet the social status.
Come to British Lingua at Laxmi Nagar in Delhi where you will find amazingly a huge horde of housewives picking up English skills batch-wise throughout the day to keep pace with the times.
“If you visit a mall in Delhi and NCR and do not hold a conversation in English you’ll often get discomfited and embarrassed at the billing counter where even a sales guy prefers to interact with the customers in English”, says Geetanjali Sharma, who has recently joined a four-month customized crash course in the subject. “It is very painful and impractical to look up a dictionary all the time while watching Netflix shows, TV serials and English news. Hence, I took a resolution to do a course at Lingua Family which is helping me a lot,” added Mrs Sharma.
Bihar’s Puja, from a remote village, now well- settled in Delhi’s Laxmi Nagar has a yet another valid reason to pursue a course in Spoken English. “I want to be compatible with my husband working for a multi-national company and the English Language should not a barrier to the communications between both of us. My hubby has a preference for this language, maybe for a convincing reason. At times I go blank when I fail to catch on to what he says. Moreover, it becomes an embarrassing situation for both of us while attending a party and meeting his colleagues who unsurprisingly begin to talk in English there”, said newly wedded Puja singh.
“My son is in 6th Standard. He goes to an English medium School and he is quite good at speaking English which I was devoid of. It was upsetting for me to instantly switch over to Hindi at the school during the parent-teacher meeting. I joined Lingua classes to cope with varied the situations and discomforting moments” said beaming Geeta Sharma in her 30’s.
“Taking the advantage of English skills to the lowest strata of the Indian society has been by objective for which I have made my honest efforts for the last 26 years. During this long period I have been more than happy to witness housewives’ craze for English skills and their changing lifestyles for all positive reasons.”, said Dr Birbal Jha, Lingua Managing Director and noted author of ‘English for Social Justice in India’.
Interestingly, Bihar Mahadalit Girls idolizing Sridevi reached Cinema Halls in groups to watch English Vinglish at the relevant time and improve their social- setting and standing, taking