Arun Kamble

Which Language should I Speak?

Chewing totters in the badlands

My grandpa,
The permanent resident of my body,
The household of tradition heaped on his back,
Hollers at me,
‘you whore-son, talk like we do. Talk, I tell you!’

picking through the Vedas

his top-knot well-oiled with ghee,
my Brahmin teacher tells me,
‘you idiot, use the language correctly!’
now I ask you, which language should I speak?

Which Language should I Speak?

This poem helps the poet confront a seminal concern for Dalits in the Indian society.
He talks about the identity crisis that has been carved out of a legacy of cultural
ambivalence. He is told by his grandfather, "you whore-son, talk like we do. Talk, I tell
you!". It is clear from his grandfather's words that there are certain social
expectations from the speaker that precede even his existence.

There are certain preconceived ideas of what is "authentic" when it comes to their
language, and this leads to a confusion in the mind of the child, who is told
something completely else by his Brahmin teacher later on. He is held in the middle
of a conflict between his Dalit grandfather, who wants him to essentially speak like
him, and his Brahmin teacher, who is busy with the Vedas.

Language
In the poem entitled "Which Language Should I Speak?’’ the narrator talks about the
problems he had with the language he used and how he was criticized both by his teachers
and by his family for the way in which he used to talk. In this context, the language is used
here as a symbol for one’s identity and connection to his community.
Slurs
In the poem entitled "Which Language Should I Speak?’’ one of the common motifs is the
idea that the main character is insulted both by the members of his family and by people
outside of his family. His grandfather for example calls him "whore-son’’ while his teacher
calls him an "idiot."
Symbol for tradition
Also in the poem "Which Language Should I Speak?’’ the narrator’s grandfather is used here
as a symbol. The narrator notes how the grandfather was the one on whose shoulders the
"household of tradition’’ could be found. This implies that the grandfather is used here as a
symbol for the part of society that still believed in maintaining the old traditions

On the surface, the poem reads like a fight between a Dalit "dialect' and brahmin 'language'. But
as we go deper there is a definite hint of the struggle around what constitutes a literary language
for Dalits. By choosing to express themselves in their everyday language, Dalit writers are
seeking to incorporate Dalit vocabularies into Indian literary discourse...Dalit writers use Dalit
language in their creative writing to resist the imposition of an official language and to also assert
the legitimacy of their own vocabularies. Thus, language becomes an instanceof Dalit assertion.