Happy World Book Day!

Happy World Book Day!

To be precise, it’s called World Book and Copyright Day and is celebrated on 23rd April which is supposed to be b’day and death anniversary of William Shakespeare.

In 2023, World Book and Copyright Day will link the power of literature and storytelling with the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022-32) with the theme: Indigenous Languages.

The International Decade of Indigenous Languages was launched in 2022 with the goal of promoting and protecting Indigenous languages and improving the lives of their users.

When I was pursuing MBA, we were required to sign daily attendance sheet, by writing name on a sheet of paper which would get circulated in the class. It was such a boring activity!

To make this mundane task interesting I thought of an idea. I got my name written in various different scripts (languages) such as Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malyalee, Punjabi, Gujarati etc. I took help from all those classmates to do it. After that I started writing my name in attendance sheet in those various languages. Slowly people started noticing as the sheet moved from from desk to other and then it became a fun activity where everybody would eagerly wait to see in which language I would write my name! I had done something similar during my studies in the UK, with international languages!

The reason I remember this was the Indigenous Language initiative which I mentioned above.

I am always fascinated by different languages/scripts. Isn’t it amazing to see that two people read particular strokes on paper, interpret in the same way and respond in exactly the same way (say laughter, sad feeling etc), whereas a third person who doesn’t know what those strokes on paper are is totally clueless about the meaning of it.

I wish I could learn another language apart from the three which I know relatively better. I still have that wish…one day!