I am writing this post not for preaching or for giving advice on self-improvement. The fact that ,I always want to keep my self engaged in some thing which can help me thrive constantly and be compatible to the world ,these thoughts come to my mind very often. Perhaps I want to be better off than an average.
When I first came to the U.S .the first thing, which struck me was my accent which very different form the people out here and more or less it still is. The language you learn in your childhood is very hard ingrained in our brains. It is difficult to get rid of the thick accent unless you are putting conscious effort in changing it. I have been trying so many things. Learning to pronounce word, which I already learnt long time back when I was in India, now I am trying to learn each word in American way. I know it sounds arrogant and look down upon my own country and culture. However, I would rather not embarrass myself, then changing few things in me to fit in where I am.
Public speaking has always been my greatest fear. So to overcome that I joined a Toastmaster’s club. I went there through an Indian friend, and was very surprised to see that most of the members were Indian. In the beginning, I was glad to see so many Indians at the same place. Perhaps my homesickness kicked in and got a soothing effect on my soul looking at them. I continued to be the member of that club for 8 months. Learnt a lot there, as how to project myself, how to open up in front of bunch of people ,thinking and speaking at the spur of the moment ,every thing was great and I saw tremendous improvement inside myself. Now I do not feel very hesitant, speaking in front of people. After a while, I started feeling very comfortable there. Then I realized that I am still lacking something, which is to work on my accent. In this Indian Toastmaster’s club all the members being Indians, I never got a chance to notice the flaws I have in pronouncing certain words. I kept doing the same way as in India. I was not happy with my progress realizing the fact that I am lacking behind on some thing.
Later I decided to join a club where most of the members are American. I searched on the Internet and luckily found a club just the stone’s throw distance from my house. I was elated on my research and immediately talked to the president of that club asking if I can join the club. He readily agreed and now I have been a member in that club for 5 months. I have continued my membership in Indian club too. I believe that this club was the one, which helped me out to get out of my shell and gave me courage to join this new club. I cannot be thankful enough to our Indian club for this.
While I was leafing through all the facts and thoughts about Toastmaster's club, it came to my mind that we as a human being always strive for some thing better. After 8 months, I started to think that I have reached perfection. I can speak in front of public now, I could see the signs of improvement in myself and I thought ,this is it. I do not need any thing more. I will just continue what I am doing. Nevertheless, somewhere my brain was busy engaged in thinking about other flaws I have which need improvement too, which provoked me to join this American club. Now I think where the boundary line is? where can I determine, this is it ?No more.Where I can think I have reached perfection and I do not need any more improvement. What is the definition of perfection? Is it different for different people or I am just being paranoid?
No one can reach a perfection, all we can do is go near to that episilon distance of perfection. Since you were in indian and are in american club i think you can feel the difference in approaches and the ability to get into the environment. Learning is never ending but there comes a stages where you can say i have learnt enough to strive.. 'enough' is relative.. people who dont have confidence enough is never enough while who have confidence enough is good enough.. so where do you belong?:
ReplyDeletei go to school here and when i see people old enough to be my father attend school with me, i feel great. learning is a never ending process that gives u so much pleasure no matter u perfect it or not. I strongly ridicule the age limits on studies in some disciplines in India.wat do u think?
ReplyDeletehmm.. its great that you aspire to keep improving and also therez nothing wrong in making changes to yourself to fit the place that you r in, but then is it really a problem that you speak like an Indian? i dont think it bothers me a damn bit that i speak like an indian and the europeans dont feel out of place to speak in their own lil accents to americans and the americans themselves are able to understand(okay, i am generalizing quite a bit here) the difference in accents. and the part where you u say that your pronunciation of words is "flawed".. if we r to be politically right, american way of pronouncing half the words is wrong. if u r to say that its w.r.t. american english, then wats wrong in having an indian english version of our own... in another 3 years (2010) we are expected to replace america as the country having the world's highest english speaking population... if we r to adopt american standards to judge our english, then we would be "flawed".... bottomline.. the purpose of language is complete as long as the meaning is conveyed effectively and accurately... thats my honest opinion.. but yes.. i too was taken aback by the language barrier wen i first came to US.. too bad that i didnt introspect much about it as u have!!!
ReplyDeleteHey nice thought...But one thing is for sure that perfection can never be achieved.bcoz once you think im perfect you stop learning and you stop learning you stop living...
ReplyDeleteso keep learning, and keep moving..
Take care...
and all the best for your journey...
Your posts are always inspiring. And yeah, accent is contentious topic back in India. The truth is that accent is nothing but correct pronounciation. Someone in India long time ago would have started pronouncing wrong and we all inherited it.
ReplyDeleteWe should have schools in India which give classes in such like Received Pronounciation(RP)
I always liked your this little details where you kept doing something or other. Not many of us have the will power to join some club and continue with it.
Good Luck !
Instead of perfection, I wud say flow of language. An american accent is accepte donly in NA, but when you travel Europe they only mock at us when we follow it. Just the way Americans mocked our home language.
ReplyDeleteLanguage is basically how we pronounce it and speak simple and not the slang ones.
IMO the defintion of perfection is this:
ReplyDeleteBeing you doing what u can to the best of ur ability. Nothing more, nothing less.
Keshi.
hey h r u doin? long time no post
ReplyDeletethe day you will think you have got no more areas to improve upon you are gone..... so you in better situation ;)
ReplyDeleteFinished you tag pretty late thou'.
ReplyDeleteHello, where are you ?
ReplyDelete