mother tongue and war

  Mother tongue and Medium of instruction  Mother tongue is not just the tongue of the mother, that is the language spoken by a mother. I used to have some confusion while filling this column in my school records. As my father used to have transfers every year in his job, I used to be shifted to different schools every year! And there was a column to fill in for the school TC (transfer certificate) asking for my mother tongue.  it was not simple for me to just fill Tamil as my mother tongue though we lived in Tamilnadu state because my parents were originally from Kerala state and their 'mother tongue was Malayalam. so, I remember writing 'Malayalam' in some forms and 'Tamil' in some others. the confusion remained all through my school and college days and whenever the question was asked again. At some point, someone told me that the mother tongue is the language usually spoken by the child's mother at the time of birth. If I applied that yardstick, I am right i...