How we drifted away from mother tongue?

In the beginning of every year, my love for my mother tongue goes a little overboard and I pledge to add more Malayalam books to my daily reading. This "love" usually settles to the normal level by the end of the first quarter of the year. Since we are almost at the end of this year, I am feeling a pang of guilt for not reading enough Malayalam books this year too. It got me wondering about the real reason to never achieve this personal goal.

Do I think that in a world of "keeping score" of our reading goals, reading a book in a lesser known language is not really worth it? Or is it just a matter of not finding the right books? Or have I completely lost in touch with the language that first helped me to fall in love with reading? These were the questions that first popped up in my mind.

I studied in a school where the medium of instruction was my mother tongue. So naturally I was comfortable reading Malayalam more than English. Until I moved to college, I have had access to plenty of Malayalam books. In college, this was not the case. Almost everyone read books in English. So I borrowed books and got introduced with all the popular fiction in English - J. K. Rowling, Chetan Bhagat, Dan Brown, Robin Cook, Paulo Coelho, Danielle Steel etc. In the following years, I slowly drifted away from Malayalam as I was fascinated by the incomparable vastness of English Literature. Availability of Malayalam books was a major factor in this.

Once I started earning, a major chunk of salary is always spent in books. By that time, English had my complete devotion. It helped me to connect with different cultures. An English translation of a book is easily available and highly marketed unlike the translations available in local languages.

In the past few years, whenever I picked up some Malayalam books, I ended up disappointment and sometimes I left books in half way. Last year, a dear friend helped me pick up some books and that kept the disappointment to a minimum. I was able to finish all the books he recommended except for one. That's still a high point compared to the previous years. So finding the right books that keep me interested is also one reason.

I have to admit that it is not easy getting into reading Malayalam with the same flow I used to have. It takes more effort as English has become the medium for professional and personal communication.

In my heart of hearts I know that all these are just excuses and I need to really put this as a priority. There are still people in my life who are avid readers of Malayalam literature and I only have to get some recommendation from them to achieve my annual goals. I hope I will do better in 2021.

I couldn’t help sharing this painful quote about losing the mother tongue

And worst, most painful of it all, no tongue. For isn’t it odd that the only language I have in which to speak of this crime is the language of the criminal who committed the crime? — A small Place, Jamaica Kincaid