Nursing Malayalam is not verboten

So, Circular No. 1315 was deemed chavaru less than 24 hours since it popped up. What was this nefarious order issued on Saturday by the nursing superintendent of GB Pant Hospital in Delhi that the medical superintendent of the hospital scampered on Sunday to annul? That nurses should not speak in Malayalam as ‘maximum patient (sic) and colleagues do not know this language and feel helpless causing a lot of inconvenience’. Instead, they were to stick to Hindi and English. Non-Malayalam-speaking polyglots like Rahul Gandhi and excellent English-equipped Malayalis like Shashi Tharoor were understandably outraged — as their outrage in English was easily understood.

Nurses in hospitals whispering in Malayalam can be deemed highly suspicious by those prone to suspecting highly. But co-workers communicating in their comfort language is not quite at par with ‘mistaking’ a Sikh to be a Taliban in America? True, the media, once awash with Malayalis and Bengalis, had many speaking in Malayalam and Bengali in the presence of their non-Malayalam-, non-Bengali-comprehending colleagues to the latter’s rising irritation. But proscription was never sought, malfeasance never suspected. And, just in case you hear the word being muttered near you, ‘chavaru’ means rubbish in Malayalam. Don’t panikkar.