English saves us18

Five or six years ago I was in a restaurant in Paris. I was talking to them in English. Because I am an Indian, they also were talking to me in English. Everything was in English. But when an Englishman came in after me, although he was asking questions in English, he was getting the answers in French from them. So you see, they didn’t like speaking English. The same thing sometimes happens in England. When a Frenchman comes and asks them questions, they pretend they don’t know French even if they know it.

In India, Hindi is the official language, but even now many people do not know Hindi. In so many places they can’t speak Hindi, but they do speak English. So English saves us.


LS 18. 31 December 1981