Hinglish accents

Ruchir Joshi on fake Yankee twangs, Indian Neutral accents and the politics of language:

"Can you really ask people struggling to learn English for their economic betterment, people who have no love a priori for the language, to not only appreciate say, irrelevancies such as Shakespeare or Yeats, but also to appreciate them in a prescribed elitist ‘Indian’ accent? Would you try to proscribe English, or a certain kind of English, even if the spread of its usage meant a massive uplift in millions of people’s living conditions? What is more important: rozi, roti, kapda, makaan and dignity, or some obsolete local language that can’t even keep up with the times?"

Damn. The Babu meant to send Joshi the Mallu rap thingumbob months ago, but he forgot.