Hindi-speaking people always drop the last "a" vowel from names of places, apparently. Photo: feimosi.github.io

Each time we talk about India, we refer to millions of people who coexist in this country, usually peacefully, despite drastic differences in culture, traditions and most importantly, languages.

Unlike many other countries, there is no one common language that all Indians know. Indians, often multi-linguistic for the same reason, are also quite emotional about their mother tongue. For instance, if the government decides to, rather hopes to, make Hindi the "national language" of the country, all of south India will resist for a simple reason - they don't know the language.

The Bharatiya Janata Party has been trying to impose Hindi on all Indians and are already facing repercussions, in the real world, and the virtual world. Like historian Ramchandra Guha puts it in his Hindustan Times column, the BJP is following its predecessor Jan Sangh's notion that a single language and a single religion will unite a nation, and trying to steer the nation towards "Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan", "a direct adaption of Jinnah's idea that only Urdu-speaking Muslims can be true Pakistanis."

A Kannadiga, Guru Prasad, made a Facebook post about one of his colleagues, a Hindi-speaking north Indian, who always pronounces Karnataka as Karnatak, and Kannada and Kannad. In the post, Prasad said that one day he decided to know why this colleague chooses to pronounce Karnataka and Kannada wrong, despite telling him the right pronunciation multiple times.

The colleague's argument was that he was born and brought up in a Hindi speaking region, and that it's a practice for him and others who speak Hindi to always drop the "a" vowel. He said that he will continue to pronounce Karnataka and Kannada wrong to "abide by" this convention.

Prasad decided to change this "convention" once and for all. A rapid fire session with the colleague would do the trick. Here are the questions Prasad asked.

"Which state has maximum number of DLF land?"

"Haryana", said the colleague.

"Which state is the city of Puri in?"

"Odisha", came the answer.

"Which town near Delhi has maximum number of shopping malls?"

"Noida", the colleague said.

"Which town has maximum number of coaching centres?"

"Kota", he said.

"Where is Taj Mahal situated?"

"Agra", the colleague answered.

"Which is the birthplace of Lord Krishna?"

"Mathura", he said.

It was Prasad's time to speak.

He asked his colleague, "If you can pronounce Haryana as Haryana and not Haryan, Odisha as Odisha and not Odish, Noida as Noida and not Noid, Kota as Kota and not Kot, Mathura as Mathura and not Mathur, how can you say that in your language convention, you don't use "a" as the last vowel and hence pronounce Karnataka as Karnatak and Kannada as Kannad?"

Here is the full Facebook post:

Photo courtesy: Facebookguruprasad.gp Photo courtesy: Facebookguruprasad.gp

While we understand the convention of dropping the last vowel is a result of transliteration, it doesn't take much to pronounce south Indian pronouns the way it should be.