In Queenspeak surely

English must be pushed at all cost, but we wonder about how it is done in many places.

In god we trust. Besides being the official motto of the United States of America, it is also the unofficial motto of a large number of Indians dependent on their sarkar. But in Uttar Pradesh's Lakhimpur Kheri, the dictum has been stretched to its maximum. Thanks to the fact that State-sponsored education in not exactly of the top order, especially when it comes to foreign language training, a private institute has literally handed the responsibility to a new Goddess of Learning, not Saraswati, but English Devi!

HT Image

According to the couple behind this spectacular brainwave, the idea of building a temple came to them not in the form of a dream but from difficulties faced in real life in real India and a personal setback. It so happened that an angrez visited the district recently and the husband, a post-graduate diploma holder, could not 'respond effectively' to the guest. Then they looked at the larger picture vis-a-vis the Dalit community in the state and realised only god could bring light (spoken English) into the zone of illiteracy. So while others would think of only opening a 'Spoken English' institute and minting money, the couple went a step ahead and invented a new deity.

Of course, we do not sniff at a neat business plan tucked away somewhere in the initiative, but then religion is big business everywhere, from the Vatican to Tirupati via Mecca. Truly, teaching English has now become a Brown Man's burden.