Career Counseling at Chatia College

Through this column I would like to relate a jingoistic attitude of some ABSU leaders. Once I went to attend a meeting of ABSU. Some boys gave me curt comments for not being able to speak the Bodo language. Being brought up in a cosmopolitan set up in Guwahati I am not very comfortable in Bodo language. But this does not mean that I am not a Bodo. Since I can speak, read and write Assamese, one of the native languages of North East India, I am a person from this region which I am proud of. I am citing the example of US president Barack Obama though he is a world figure. Barack Obama belongs to the Luo tribe of Kenya. The language of this tribe is called Dholuo. But Obama cannot speak Dholuo anymore. He uses English as his first language or language of communication today. Yet he carries the Luo blood in him and all Luos are proud of his achievements. So also, hundreds and thousands of Brahmins donnot know the Sanskrit language, yet they are Brahmins in terms of their lineage. I request the All Bodo Students Union to be more flexible to fit into the modern times. Today Bodo youths are working in all districts of Assam, other neighbouring NE states, metroes of India and several cities all around the world. Alongwith the people who use Bodo as their first language, other Bodo people who use Bodo as their second or third language should be allowed to attend their meetings. Even those who donot know the language of their tribe but are of Bodo lineage should be allowed to attend ABSU meetings and hold important positions in the organisations. Otherwise we will be in a well which will take us to a think hundreds of years behind time.