For Chennai-based Archita Raghu, who was born and brought up in Bengaluru, learning to read and write Tamil always seemed elusive growing up. It is because her family never went beyond speaking the language, along with English and a bit of Kannada. While she can converse to some extent in Tamil, she was never able to achieve the level of fluency she hoped for. “It never seemed necessary to learn just one language properly as I would move through friends' houses where Kannada, Urdu or Telugu was spoken. While I picked up a few words of all these languages, I had never completely learned my mother tongue.”  

The fact that she studied at a Protestant school did not help at all, she says, because they were encouraged to only speak English. “I remember at some point, we were even fined for speaking regional languages at school,” says the 23-year-old media professional. 

Raghu isn’t alone in her quest to learn her mother tongue, as there are many others who are looking to reconnect with their roots by learning their mother language, or simply put, the language they have grown up with. Earlier this week, the world celebrated International Mother Language Day like it has done on February 21 every year since 2000. The event was designated a year after India’s neighbour Bangladesh pushed for it at the UNESCO General Conference in 1999.