My views

I was on leave yesterday. So I couldn't support or refute a few points said in past few days. Nice to see a lot of good points being brought up by everyone... To Valli, Good to hear that you had chosen Spanish, the second most spoken language in the mainland USA. Maybe we can have a conversation in Spanish sometime, Señora. My apologies, if my post had given an impression that NRIs are not contributing to the Indian society. As you have said, it is true that the salary is more on the other side of the fence. I wouldn't refute it. It is also true that the salaries here are not on par with the salaries there. People here too are earning that much, even freshers. But an important point that you might not have considered is the conversion rate for a US$ to INR. That is the only thing that generates the revenue. I think this topic of working in foreign lands or motherland looks good for a discussion. As for Tamil language, it is my mother tongue. I am proud of it. As for speaking in Tamil in public, I never have found it difficult. Yeah, there are times when I find it difficult to write in Tamil. It is mostly due to my wonderful handwriting (you people might know that). I cannot understand or recognize a single character of what I have written in Tamil, whereas somehow I can understand my handwriting in English very well. That's why I use English most often, not for me but for others to understand. Reg. Kavi's post, "They practice it here..that’s it." You are right in saying that everyone wants to go abroad and earn. So they are practicing it here. But there are some things and certain customs that you can never practice here in India. Rajesh had wanted everyone to talk in Tamil. But there are a few words in each language that has no equivalent in the other or a ambigious meaning. Words like Love has different connotations in English whereas Tamil has various words to express it. I don't think no one uses the word "Kanipori" whenever he wants to say 'Computer' or "Innya Thalam" for "Internet". So I don't think we need to follow Linguistic Tamil in our day to day life. It is just that we limit the words alien to Tamil to a minimum. In fact the one thing that irritates me while speaking to with a person is a person frequently shifting languages. They speak a few lines in English, suddenly they switch to Tamil. Then again they switch back to English. It really bugs me a lot, just as it did bug Sindhu. When they speak in English, you are forced to speak in English, when they change to Tamil, you are also forced to change to Tamil. I really cannot stand it at all As Ram had quipped, it is not the language that is important, but the development of the nation that is important. But we can teach our children, speak to our children in Tamil. And it is our duty. So all said, it's time for me to say Bye/Vaaren/Ciao/Adios/Auf Wiederhören/Khuda hafiz