The Spectrum of Languages

I have always been baffled by the unique melange of languages and dialects that India is home to.

Seated in the departure lobby of the Kempegowda International Airport outside Bengaluru, I was skimming through a magazine, not really reading anything in particular. My mind was actually lost, thinking about how my new college would be. All I knew was that it was somewhere in an unknown land, very far from Bengaluru...

Soon, a woman with long, thick, plaited hair and dressed in a yellow cotton sari came and sat next to me. I looked at her and smiled. She smiled back and asked me a question. The language was unrecognisable and I had that blank look on my face as I couldn’t understand a word of what she had said. (I could make out the words ‘Kolkata’ and ‘flight’ in a while.) I looked right, then left and then looked at her again. It was pretty weird. I had absolutely no acquaintance with that language. I just nodded my head. And thus began my encounter with yet another language, Bengali this time!

During the two hours and 25 minutes-long flight, all I could hear (or rather concentrate on) was the same unfamiliar language. Initially, Bengali seemed like a foreign language, but I eventually realised it was a bit similar to Hindi. By the time I arrived in Kolkata, the strangeness of the language had started fading.

Reaching the college (which was a tough task in itself), I headed towards where everybody seemed to be going. On reaching the building where the registration of new students was taking place, I heard two security guards speaking in the same, now-familiar language. I was startled, yet again. This time not because of the unfamiliarity with the language, but because of the high speed at which words were being uttered. They asked me something, and this time the cluelessness in my expression was so clear that they could easily comprehend that I had no idea of what they had asked.

I simply went in and stood in the queue for the registration process. Surprisingly, the first language that I could hear was Marathi. Somebody was speaking on the phone, “Ho…mi itha pochle... ho, ho…mi khalle”. There was a bit of nostalgia given my past connection with that language. I completed an important phase of my schooling from Pune. In Pune, every day we met an old man, who we called Rokhade Maama. He was nearly 80 years old, and extremely sociable and zestful. His attitude towards life was awe-inspiring. He had a larger-than-life spirit. He often would ask me, “Aapan marathi seekhlath?”(Did you learn Marathi). And I invariably shook my head, to say no! (By the time we left Pune I could fairly understand Marathi).

In the queue, I then heard somebody standing in front of me speaking in Kannada over the phone, “Neevu yenu maduthidheera?” Hearing this I unknowingly chuckled, as it reminded me of Savitri, in Bengaluru.

As far as my experience in Bengaluru was concerned, it was incredible. My mother tongue is Hindi. We had shifted to Bangalore when my father had joined an institution there. Our society had people from different places. One of the most vivid memories that I have of Bangalore is of our ‘endeavour’ to communicate with Savitri, our helper... A very nice, generous woman who knew no language but Kannada! On the first day our driver, Ramesh, introduced her to my mom.

Well, I must say, Ramesh is an ideal Indian (in terms of language), who knows fairly well at least three different languages. I guess he knows at least five languages, which are Kannada, Hindi, English, Tamil, Telugu.

It was when my mom and I started talking to Savitri that we realised she couldn’t understand a word of what we were saying! Neither Hindi nor English. She said, “Hindi gotthilla am’ma…”, and something else in Kannada. We did not know Kannada. So we couldn’t understand a word of what she had said either. There was mutual silence, a moment of quietude and then a burst of laughter.

Well, then what… My mom used the sign language to talk to her. And then she started following things a bit. It was then I realised that indeed actions speak louder than words.

Over time Savitri did start picking up Hindi, and so did we start picking up Kannada. Frankly, all I could learn in Kannada was, “Kannada gotthilla” (I don’t know Kannada). This is probably the one line that every non-Kannada speaking person who goes to Bengaluru learns first!

“Room nombor B-203”, said a woman on the desk, looking blankly inscrutable, after my registration was complete. I went with the suitcase to the hostel. The bustle of students in the hostel corridor made the place sound quite lively and cheerful. An amalgam of languages and dialects that could be heard all around, brought a smile to my face.

I entered the room that was allotted to me. There was nobody there. The room had pale yellow walls and three black-coloured metal cots. The atmosphere was sombre. I kept my suitcase on one of the cots and sat down. I could hear a faint, sweet laughter that grew louder. Two girls, who it turned out were my new roommates, stood in front of the door, both speaking to each other in a language that I had heard before! “Ithu njangalde puthiya muri aano?” It was Malayalam. Well, I had lived in Kerala for six years, when my father was posted there, before we shifted to Pune. Hearing their conversation, I reminisced about my school days in Kerala, about how hard my friends had tried to teach me Malayalam (they weren’t quite successful though). I looked at my new roommates and smiled. They smiled back, looking quite cheerful.

Now it is almost two years since I joined this college, which is on the outskirts of Kolkata. I haven’t managed to learn Bengali; maybe I never tried to. But I am undoubtedly fascinated by the sweetness of this language. 

There are many languages I've been hearing people speak, but each time I hear a new language, initially my mind boggles in the futile effort to penetrate the abstruse complexity of the language. 

Living in different parts of the country has given me an insight into how different cultures have blended beautifully with one another. Another advantage is that I can more or less understand a number of Indian languages, though I haven’t really tried to speak any of those, fearing I might mess up the intricate pronunciation.

Also, all of us in our family love excursions. So we’ve literally witnessed the rich spectrum of languages all across. What I could fathom is that each language is beautiful, not only because it represents an amazing multicultural society but also because it is free from any kind of artificiality. 

Greatest story of our generation

CONTRAST...

                                       

Sitting in her opulent air conditioned car, Isha chortled as she watched her favourite comedy show on her iPad. She then glanced at the exorbitant diamond ring that her husband had gifted her the previous day, she smiled. After a while she kept the tab aside, instructed her chauffeur to put on the FM and adjust the AC, as it was getting too cold inside. She was on her way back to her palatial apartment, after having spent two long hours in a posh, overpriced salon, in the heart of the city. She held a hand mirror and looked at the reflection of her fair face and was caught up in self-admiration. Barely did she realize that it was money that gave her beauty and with it, false pride.

As the car drew up at the signal, a fairly young, gaunt woman knocked the glass of the window, trying to sell a few long pens. Her face was blacked by the soot and smoke around, her uncombed hair dropping down to her face. She had draped a grubby, frayed saree.  Rani, was her name. Tied to her with a seemingly old cloth, was a child, hardly a few months old. Rani was bent, burdened…

Initially Isha paid no heed, until again this woman knocked the window and began pleading her, in a vernacular language, to buy at least one of those weird looking, long pens. On Rani’s right was another child of hers, in tattered clothes, cadaverous and undernourished.  He played with one of those pens, trying to draw something on his muddy hand. He had a winsome smile on his sooty face. Rani admonished him and snatched the long pen from his tiny hands. The poor boy began to snivel, looking sad and stunned.

Isha, drew down her window, looked at the small boy and for a moment, sympathized with their predicament. She asked Rani to give her two pens. Rani’s face lit up and she immediately handed over two of those long pens to Isha. She asked Rani how much did it cost. Rani said it was twelve rupees. Giving her ten Isha said, “That should be enough!”.  Rani became disillusioned, and begged Isha for two more rupees. Her request was simply spurned by Isha. Isha, casually replied that she had no change and that ten was more than enough for those tawdry pens.

The traffic light turned green and the driver swiftly drove away the car, with other cars. Over the glass windows of gliding cars, could be seen the reflection of Rani’s disconsolate, dusty face, lost in cogitation.

It was not just Rani, but many men and women, who all day long hovered around the traffic signal, in a desperate effort to sell toys, umbrellas and sundries. All of them were slum dwellers. Behind the selling of such products, was a syndicate. People like Rani, had to report every evening to a head, who collected all the money from them, giving them a very meagre share.

Isha, on her way home instructed the driver to stop at the High Street Phoenix Mall, a five minute drive from the preceding signal, as she ‘felt’ like shopping.

Rani, waited for the red signal and as soon as the automobiles halted, she rushed towards them, for selling her pens. She went from one car to another, yearning for somebody to buy her pens. A very few people did buy a few pens, because of its fancy design but most people in their cars were glued to their smartphones and did not even take the trouble of looking out of their windows. Rani was exasperated by the evening. She felt extremely hungry. Downcast, she left with the day’s earnings to their local head, who collected the money, giving her just modicum of the money, merely fourteen rupees. Rani’s husband was missing from the past one week. Nobody knew where he went.

Isha, after three hours of shopping and spending a hefty twenty thousand, had a sense of gratification. Her driver drove her, to her prodigious house. Taking the lift to the fourth floor, she walked in high heels towards the aesthetically designed door of her house. As she rang the doorbell, one of her five servants opened the door for her. Another servant offered her a glass of water. The house looked picture-perfect. She sat on her comfy couch. On one side of the designer walls was a colossal painting worth five lakh rupees that she had bought the previous week from an art exhibition. The interior designing of her house was done by renowned architects from London. Isha’s husband had just left, a few hours ago for a business meeting in New York. Both her children were in a high class boarding school, in Shimla.

Rani, with fourteen rupees in hand, went with her children to a small shop. She could buy only a small packet of milk powder and two slices of bread. The milk powder costed her ten and each slice of bread, two rupees. Now, that was the value of the two rupees, Isha had refused to pay!  Not having had anything since morning, both her children were screeching. Rani’s old slippers broke midway and she headed barefoot towards her home, located in the most impoverished area of the city- the slums. The overcrowded housing conditions were sordid. It was getting colder. Rani’s home was made of a few bamboo sticks, bricks and tarpaulin. As she entered, there was darkness all around. Darkness was usual now…

Isha’s servants served her an appetizing Italian dinner, as per her orders. She then had a delectable dessert. Her servants completed all the work and left.

Rani mixed the milk powder with a bit of water and fed her young one. She then gave the two slices of bread to her elder son, who was still sobbing due to hunger. He had the two slices hastily, leaving nothing for Rani to have. Rani just gulped in a tumbler of water. On the floor laid an old bedsheet, without a mattress. She sung a lullaby for her children and patted them. They soon fell asleep. She covered them with old jute sacks to protect them from cold. Tears rolled down her dispirited face. Her life had become a dessert…

As Isha lay on her soft and warm bed, she reminisced about the day’s happenings. She felt a sense of pity over the predicament of people like Rani. After a while, she fell asleep…

As Rani lay on the hard, cold ground, she too reminisced about the day’s happenings and her missing husband. She closed her eyes. She just hoped that the next day’s sunrise would bring with it, that light which would annihilate all the darkness in her life…  
                                                                        
                                                                         - Pranjal