For all those out there who feel they are drowning in a sea of brown ink, a word of caution. Watch out, there is more from where that came. The astonishing felicity with which Indians, both resident and non-resident, are putting pen to paper has already shocked the world. In the 1970s, the early swallow of a Salman Rushdie gave evidence of the fecund summer that was to follow. And it was not just Arundhati Roy who discovered the God of Big Books, that sometimes brought fat cheques in their wake. And while the world slowly got acquainted with this ever-unspooling literary talent from the subcontinent, it still doesn't have a clue about where it was all coming from. It still hadn't quite realised the import of that amazing pan-Indian institution known as the English-medium nursery school. Suffice it to say, that these are the hatcheries of talent, where future winners of the Booker and the Pulitzer are presently taking shape. At this very moment thousands of toddlers, barely out of their mother's laps, arelisping nursery rhymes.But times are a-changing in these humble abodes of learning. Old familiar nursery rhymes,``Ba, ba, black sheep.'' and ``Lucy Locket lost her pocket'', are now in danger of being replaced by homegrown versions. In the process, Mary and her little lamb are being summarily banished. This, at least, is the case in some 60,000 schools in Maharashtra. Instead of Mary and her little lamb, it is Meera and her little white cat now doing the old routine of going to school and provoking the children there to ``laugh and play''. As for that old favourite, ``Rain, rain, go away, come again another day'', some swadeshi meteorologist, masquerading as educationist, evidently argued that this would amount to insulting the weather gods and decreed that the doggerel should now read: ``Rain, rain, do not fail/paper boats we will sail''.Linguists may frown at this wham-bam approach to a language. After all, every tongue has its own genius and numerous literary associations may lie in the seemingly childish prattle of nursery rhymes. They may well point out that if it is the Indian ethos that is needed to be gained, it would be far more sensible to seek it in an Indian language. But who cares about such niceties, really? Surely, a country of one billion has the right to put its imprint on English, even if it means stomping all over it?It was Bertrand Russell who had once observed so perceptively that change and progress are not necessarily synonymous. Certainly, unthinking and haphazard change is the enemy of progress. There is a frightful rush to chop and change curricula and rewrite textbooks. Some of this activity is valid, indeed necessary, to keep up with the spirit of the times. In a discussion document circulated by the National Council of Educational Research and Training, there is a whole sub-section devoted to `Strengthening National Identity and Preserving Cultural Heritage'. The school curriculum, the document observes, ``must inculcate and maintain a sense of pride in being an Indian''. But surely such an objective can be gained without the mutilation of a language, albeit a colonial one!
