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Rajasthan, defend yourself
Before your youth lose their identity entirely
*Trigger Warning* Rape culture, slavery, sexual slavery, genocide, colonial trauma, war, death, mass violence
I spoke to a young Rajasthani man yesterday. When I told him I was Gujarati (from the next state over) he told me that several people in his family spoke Gujarati because they’d had jobs in Gujarat.
“I grew up hearing family members speaking Gujarati but I was too lazy to practice it,” he said.
“Well, you have an advantage over me,” I told him. “I don’t have family members who speak any Rajasthani so I have no intimate knowledge of your language.”
He laughed. “The Rajasthani language doesn’t exist.”
“What?”
“Yeah, no one I know speaks Rajasthani.”
“But there are different types and dialects of Rajasthani, right, like Marwadi? No one speaks Marwadi anymore?”
He shook his head, still laughing. “No one of my generation speaks that. They all speak Hindi.”
I was stunned. “That’s so sad.”
He shrugged. “It’s ok.”
“Is it? I can’t believe that. Especially when modern Hindi is so awful. Traditional Hindi…
