Sunday 13 February 2011

Theodore Baskaran @ MCC: Excerpts from his lecture:

Dr.Theodore Baskaran delivered the first Michael Lockwood Lecture, hosted by the Dept of Philosophy, at Heber Hall Indoor theatre, on Friday, 11 February 2011. 

Excerpts from his lecture:

Dr.Theodore Baskaran, started his lecture with an interesting incident on Michael Lockwood’s excavation of  a new shrine next to the shore temple. Appreciating Lockwood’s involvement with/ and sensitivity to the language, especially his involvement with Sanskrit, Dr.Baskaran said that his talk was hence titled ‘Language and Ecology: A Fading Heritage’

Dr.Baskaran said that, his awareness of this aspect of language was strengthened when he was in Trivanmiyur. The Adyar estuary then, had thousands of migratory and resident birds, which were a real treat to the connoisseur. We used to watch them all, along with our children. But when they deepened the estuary, and started boating services for tourists, the estuary was completely destroyed. Before deepening, the sloping topography of the estuary proved an ideal habitat for the uncommon pheasant-tailed jacana, and a host of other migratory birds.  But, after deepening, the jacana population dwindled. In the end, it had achieved nothing more than destroying a bird habitat.

In all ancient civilizations, the names of birds and animals tell us something about their  characteristics. Foe eg: the fox was called ‘kuzhi nari’ in Tamil, because they live in such kuzhis or burrows. Similarly, the bat is called ‘ottuvaal’ in Tamil, because it roots itself to the banyan tree. Likewise, Neermelneruppu is the local name for water-lily, and, Vaadhamudakki is named such, because it controls arthritis. Same is the case with the maasakalathi, which gets its name because it always is found twined to the mango tree. Myth has it that, a creeper reaches its fulfillment, when it is united with a supporting tree. Also, it was customary for the poets to describe men as supporting trees and the women as the dependent creepers. Kalidasa compares the union of Sakunthalai with King Dushyanthan as the Union of a creeper (Sakunthalai) with the Mango tree (Dushyanthan) in his famous drama Saakunthalam
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The English gave names to local animals and birds, like Indian Robbin, crow pheasant, the solai mandir etc which were unrelated to their habitat, and hence did not serve its intended purpose. The reason was that, when the English men didn’t know the name for any species of fauna in India, they just translated it.

The Madras Museum has an old skeletal display of a dolphin in the mammal gallery, which translates the dolphin as oangil. Similarly, the king cobra is not raja naagam, (a trans. of the English), but karunaagam. The same is true for the word waterfalls – which is not neerveezhchi but aruvi.

In post-independent India, all discourses and debates that the ecological movement had, were obviously in English, and hence, ecological conservation was always thought to be the concern of the elite before the 1970s.

This is exactly why conservation has not become a people’s movement in India, since it has not been taken to the people in the language that they can understand or relate with. In this regard, Kerala has shown us the way forward by its handling of the Save Silent Valley project. After the announcement of a dam construction, India's fiercest environmental debate of the decade was set in motion. The debate was a great success, as the whole discourse was made in the local language – Malayalam, where even the ordinary farmer could feel that his life was related to the rain forests.

“Hence, as far as issues of climate change and sustainable development are concerned, language has to be empowered. Traditional nomenclature has to be redeemed”, he opined. He also laid stress on the importance of Green Literature and the understanding of local nomenclatures better.

Citing from old poems of Tamil which meticulously recorded nature – he quoted from Kurincipaatu, where a wandering minstrel lists the name of 99 types of flowers. In the third century AD, the poet, who resides in Madurai, sees two migratory birds (white storks) passing by – from the South to the North, and he sends a message through these storks to his wife in Kumbakonam. These poets, then, were known only by the names of their respective villages.

“O star, o star,
O red-legged star
Should you and your spouse turn northward
… and there seek out my wife…”

They are still called in Tamil as sengaal naaraai, meaning red-legged (a winter migrant).

Dr.Theodre Bhaskaran signed off in style, by making the observation that UNESCO has declared February 21 as International Mother Language Day, and pleaded for a just representation of one’s mother tongue in all discourses concerned with the ecological movements of today.

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