English was there around in India much before I was born. I was exposed to it around the same time I started learning Malayalam.

I use English to communicate with my countrymen. I can relate with my people because I understand what’s going inside their heads.

Without English, I would have to get a crystal ball of clairvoyance to do what I am doing right now.

When I travel, I don’t feel like a piranha in sahara desert. I could ask for help in a language that everyone (or at least most of them) understands.

I express my ideas in this language, and it reaches the masses because we happen to share a common tongue.

The so called ‘national language’ of ours could never help me do the same. **

Incidentally, English happens to be spoken in 99 countries with 335 million people being able to understand it. It takes me one step closer to becoming a world citizen.

It brought us together, and will keep us together. It is the only language that could carry a pan-Indian nationalistic schema in case a narrow minded fundamentalist regime takes over New Delhi.

I am not saying it will happen, but in case it happens, sharing a common tongue will definitely help us.

I hate exaggeration, but can’t resist it here. Partly because I am exposed to thousands of tweets per day asking muslims to leave India and throw out German to make way for Sanskrit.

Also, thousands believe that ancient Indians had access to flight technology and genetic engineering.

Such beliefs would have broken the hearts of men like Aryabhatta and Bhaskaracharya who went out to solve world’s problems when people around them were content with metaphysics and mysticism.

We have already done a lot of damage to the great Indian attitude towards learning and have made a mess out of our education system.

We can’t unlearn the acquired stupidity of five hundread years in one gesture, but we could try to remove it by taking one step at a time.

Let’s stop being cynical jerks and promote the language. Something that will benefit the generations to come.

** This was written when I couldn’t understand Hindi properly. Hindi indeed helped me in my travels after learning it. But I stand by my point that there is no point in treating it as a national language and languages like English as foreign.