The world today follows one common concept for measuring the lives of people that is the measurement of economy. The popularity and growth of this concept has changed the surface of the world drastically. This concept has seen a lot of development in connectivity, infrastructure, health care, culture and education.
South Asian countries had developed vastly after the industrial revolution. Our culture and environment has always faced its competition from the globally westernizing world, as it gained popularity amongst SAARC. In one hand we are developing in the other hand our cultures are disappearing because of our changing lifestyles. The industrial revolution has also created large indifferences amongst people. Some became very wealthy and some went down to poverty, they are oppressed and their voices are fading.
The philosophy of economic theory based development has caused a lot of indifference amongst people and is not noble, because of ones robbing the other’s food, shelter and quality of life. It also took time and freedom away from the people which had led to social disorganization. Members of SAARC has its differences but with time have realized that building differences and boundaries is not good for the people of SAARC. Our culture and morale values which all encourages act of nobleness, selflessness, kindness and generosity are fading not because people are changing but because people are occupied, and distracted with the games of economic theory.
SAARC members should make resolution to preserve and promote ones culture through a channel were creative people can come together on a common platform, to discuss the strategies of promoting and evolving our culture in language and literature’s authenticity to broaden the minds of the member nations as the fastest way to strengthen a union is through exchanging cultural values.
Keeping the above aspects in mind Foundation of SAARC writers and literature has launched a SAARC festival of literature March 25, 26, 27, of 2011. Many renowned writers, poet, philosophers attended the festival along with young writers to give a platform to share their work and experiences which inspired each other to forget our differences and to look at our similarities. I had been the one lucky among the ones to be a part of the festival.
Writers from Bhutan student Association Delhi was also invited to participate in this fest. Sixteen young writers from BSA Delhi had attended the fest and are impressed and inspired by a lot of noble words and touching stories. The festival emphasized on the importance of promoting our culture specifically in the field of language and literature because those were the core of any culture in the world. It discussed about the problems faced during translation when a writer write their imagination influenced by a western culture. Taking account of our idea of romance is more or less influenced by a western culture of a man kneeling down and proposing a woman. The scene could well suit anywhere in western culture, but the same scene would end up being so out of context if in our literature, a Bhutanese man kneels down and says “Nga dha chikhar nyen chab na?”. In fact, a better scene would be a man sneaking inside the bed of a woman through the window during the night and decide to not to wake up till next morning, thus making a straight forward statement to the folks around that they are serious about their relationship. And the next thing that follows is a serious talk among the parents of the two with few ounces of local arra. In some places, the couples are married even without a legal marriage certificate, but the culture now has given its way to new lifestyles where a western influenced fashion has so much made their places in the lives of our people. So next time, when a man kneels down and proposes a girl with a rose in a hand, it’s not so surprising to see around. But deep within, we don’t realize how our culture has given its authenticity towards a borrowed culture. And the only thing that someone like you and me, who is interested in writing, can only add to the initiation of conserving and immortalizing such cultures in words and pages.
Our purity and pristine intactness language is also going to fade eventually if Buddhist scholars fail to rethink and make it user friendly and efficient because the attitude of the people are changing towards the easy spoken and easy conversed mixed languages. This may lead to a political stress if the government stands adamant about strictly following our traditional style. The scholars need to research and study carefully how to adjust and moderate the traditional text and with respect to the present life formed. Making the necessary changes in the text so that at least the philosophy and ideology of Buddhism in our nation is preserved in a much easier language to speak as well as to understand and to write in our traditional scripts.
Our scripts and texts imbed souls of our cultures, and culture tie ups the soul of the country. And in the country we dwell ironically hanging our tongues with the borrowed or altered languages. However, problem here is not with the people, it’s rather with the difficulty in comprehending the complex grammars and structure comprising our language. Is there any solution whereby we arrive at the end where our language is easy to speak and write? Should we rethink the faces of our texts contextual to the place and the time? Would it then guarantee the uniqueness of our language, if it does, is there any chance we would end up encouraging our folks to do better in our own language? It’s a next thing to think of and to write.
