National Unity Day and The Chennai Airport

It was great to be greeted by a Sardar Vallabhai Patel picture at the Chennai Airport last week. With the assistance of my wife it was easy to translate ‘Rashtriya Ekta Diwas’ – National Unity Day. The strength of our wonderful country is evident by its different languages & cultures. If the intent was to popularize Sardar, his contribution to India and unite the nation, the message did not reach the intended audience in the State.

International Travelers will have no clue and I would think a majority of the workers , drivers, transporters at the Airport did not get the message as well.  The ads across Tamil Nadu should have been in Tamil & English (Airport being no exception). In addition to this, 9 on 10 times of landing in Chennai Airport, we are greeted in Hindi and English.  When I land in Germany, they welcome in German, United Arab Emirates, greeted in Arabic and in Colombo, we are also greeted in Tamil.  Needless to say, this will create more employment opportunities for the local people.

I am positive that the intentions of promoting the great Sardar Vallabhai Patel was good!  However, let us promote our leaders and the nation in the local languages, local culture and explain the Unity in Diversity of India.  This will serve the purpose and popularize the government of the day among the masses. One of the key reasons to our success as a nation is our familiarity with English.  Each visitor will also be keen to learn and boast a few words in a new language and it will also promote tourism. Let us preserve our culture and language. Good Luck with the Ad Campaign next time.