English is a beautiful and versatile language, a great language to express your abstract thoughts very clearly and lucidly. English is the bridge to the future, to all advancement, improvement, progress and betterment. The latest scientific achievements and technological advancements are brought to your doorstep, of course no prizes for guessing - only in English. You cannot speak for a few minutes without using a single English word (excluding aachi thamizh pechu). As Rajaji said English is the gift of goddess Saraswathi and one of the very few good things our colonial masters have left behind us. It really is a wonderful experience to hear a stirring and eloquent speech in English or read an article written in the most grandiloquent or magniloquent style. It isn’t that easy to be pompous or bombastic or ostentatious in your writings, though without a shadow of doubt, it you will invite attacks and criticisms all around for that.
Millions, at least in our country, surreptitiously harbor pangs of desire to speak English fluently if not flamboyantly. This desire burns brightly or dully, but burns nevertheless. They would find it difficult to admit, except to a close few, that mastery of this beautiful language has eluded them somehow despite their best efforts. They literally pine to misery and wish that somehow they gain mastery of this exotic language. Of course without the requisite effort or by a miracle - a la makakavi Kalidass.
But how does one gain mastery in English? Or for that matter how does one gain mastery in anything? Most self-development books delve deep and come up with the usual plethora of adjectives – dream, determination, devotion, dedication, sheer will power, burning desire, perseverance, passion, love, lust, interest, never say die and so on. The key is to have unending passion and an unquenchable thirst and a childlike curosity. The only catch in that is, nobody can teach you how to be passionate, how to be madly in love or how to acquire the burning desire. So all start with a bang, with great josh and even a bit of sporadic ferocity and but eventually fizzle out in a whimper. Sustaining the velocity and intensity is the problem. Very few get into the groove! Did not Calvin Coolidge succinctly put it ‘Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent’?
Casting aside all those issues, let me venture to suggest a few practical things.
Bacon said, ‘Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man and writing an exact man’. So read, read and read. Start with newspapers, magazines and then slowly move on to light novels. Anything serious like management, philosophy in the beginning will make one more interested in the subject and lose focus on the enchanting and everlasting beauty of English.
For heaven's sake stop using SMS language, which will destroy the thought process for sure! Start writing a few letters to newspapers about anything. With Internet at your disposal, this should not be a tall order at all. Increase the frequency and keep churning out letters.
Write generous comments (no need to be parsimonious) on the blogs you read and probably the best place to start is with this blog. So go ahead and comment on this blog, right Now!
You can graduate slowly to writing articles on topics you love and like
Finally you can start your own blog at some point of time.
Then there is always poetry (if you can come this far, kudos to you) the refugee of all dreamers. Plato said that poetry is twice removed from truth, though I may not agree with this. I would go with Aristotle who gave a spirited reply to Plato - of course by writing a great treatise called poetics. And of course I also indulged in poetry.. Hmm looks like eons ago!!
