Jono-Gono-Mono and Palanisamy

Poor Narayana Murthy! He got in to a big trouble by saying that "Infosys Administration didn't play a lingual version of the Indian national anthem, because it may embarrass the foreign nationals at the infosys' Mysore campus", " the foreign nationals should not be made to sing the Indian anthem" etc. There are different versions of Narayana Murthy's statement that are hovering in the Internet. I don't know the exact statement made by him. In fact, I cannot imagine that the above statements were made by such a great thinker who has conquered great heights in the world IT industry.

Assuming that the above italicised statements are true, here are some counter arguments.
- An Indian will not be embarrassed when he is in Germany and hears the "Das Lied der Deutschen" at an all hands meeting at the headquarters of Siemens corporation!
- An Indian will not be expected to sing the German Anthem in the above scenario.
The supposed statement of Mr. Murthy looks so irrational, that I cannot believe that it was the foreign nationals that was his main concern, when he ordered the lingual version of the Indian Anthem to be not sung during the visit of President Kalam to the Mysore campus of Infosys.

Mr. Murthy is known for his high levels of Professionalism and Ethics. You can imagine him to be a very professional individual who likes to make the people around him very comfortable in his presence, speaking in a language that is commonly understood by everyone in the group, explaining the background of the discussion to a listener who just joined his discussion in a party etc etc. (I know that I am speaking for Narayana Murthy. I have never met him personally. But I had the pleasure of watching his interviews/talks on television and other ceremonies. The "highly ethical professional" is the image that comes to my mind immediately, when I think about Narayana Murthy). I wish that such an individual may have got some other (subconscious) reason for not playing the lingual version of the Anthem and the reason that he gave to the media was just an impulsive mistake made by him.

"Jono-Gono-Mono" is the Indian national anthem. It is written in Bengali, which is not the national language of India. My Bengali friend at BITS, Pilani, once asked me to sing the national anthem for him. I started singing "jana gana mana"... boy! he started laughing in an insulting way! That was very embarrassing. He then sang the anthem in the proper Bengali way which was very different from what is taught in the schools all over India (other than Bengal)! I was feeling very bad that I wasn't even able to sing the National Anthem properly. Whenever, I hear the anthem I get pumped up. I even tried to understand the words of the anthem (I don't remember the meaning now!).

Now, Imagine Thiru. Palanisamy, a common Tamilian who is working as an accountant in Madurai Municipal Corporation office, singing/hearing the national Anthem. He has no idea about "Obhisheks and Bijoylokshmis" of the Bengal, neither does he know anything about the nuances of Bengali language. To be honest, the Bengali words (except for proper nouns like Punjab/Sindh/Gujarat/Dravida etc) doesn't make any sense to him. And this is how he will sing the National Anthem.

chana kana mana athi nayaka cheya kay....
     paratha pakkavai thatha
pansa pasinthu kusarathu maratha.....
     thiravida utukala panga

(Yes! Thiru. Palanisamy will murder (and is murdering) our beloved National Anthem. The main reason is because there are no "Ja", "ga", "ha", "bha", "Dha" consonants in Tamil language. Though these consonants are required for the proper pronunciation of popular language like English, an average literate tamilian falters when it comes to the usage of these consonants when speaking Hindi)

Instead of letting the National Anthem (in Bengali) be murdered in the mouths of palanisamies, it is better to play a musical rendition of the National Anthem. Music transcends the language. The musical "Jono Gono Mono" will instill the same spirit of nationalism and will prevent the murder of the Bongali language.

I sincerely hope that Mr. Murthy had a reason that is similar to the one discussed above, but just blurted out the wrong words before the stupid media.