Go multilingual!

"Bhagwaanji! Pleasee aj ka din, ekdam mast, jhakkaas, aur khushiyon se bhara din ho. Mai jo bhi wish mangoon aj, puri kar dena aap!" Oh Yes! These are the exact highly intellectual and to-the-point words I use while praying early in the morning as soon as I wake up... I mean come on! I can't go all “Oh dear lord Ganesha! Bless me with trinkets of wisdom, give me the strength to defy all hindrances and let everything be very auspicious as I embark upon this wonderful day!" In the morning, when my brain's not working, I tend to frame my thoughts using the most colloquial words. They just pop outta nowhere. It is said that most of the people think in their mother tongue or the language which they are more familiar with. But in my case, I am not really sure which language that is.

Being born in Tamil (pronounced as Tamizh) Nadu, and brought up in Maharashtra, I was exposed to two contrasting cultures constantly. Additionally, I live in a society that exhibits a blend of all the states of India. People of all languages exist here. Everyone play dandiya during Navratri and merrily attend Thalapoli and bhajanais during ayyappa pujai. So, having at least two friends of each language of India, gave me a crazy yet not-so-crazy fantasy to become a multilinguist. As a kid, the first language I learnt was Marathi, followed by Hindi and Tamil (pronounced as Tamizh). And, very surprisingly I pulled off all the three beautifully. None of the accents seemed to cut in through each other. I was not a “Mereko indiii thoda thoda aati" kind of South Indian. Nor was I an "onnuda perundaaa" kinda Maharashtrian. I freak out on listening to such accents.

There are many people around me who share the same shoe as me, being South Indians, growing up in what is considered as North there. Some are too much inclined towards the culture they are exposed to everyday, stumbling upon Tamil words, complaining constantly about having to eat idli and sambar every week, sulking every time when a Tamil programme is being watched at home or lying to their friends "I don't understand a word of Tamil, you know! I wonder how they even manage to speak it! So complicated". These set of people; teens especially, try very hard to mix in with what's around them and deliberately choose to turn a blind eye towards their ethnic roots.

There exist another set of people who are quite the opposite. Such south Indian girls are easily spotted in school as they are the only ones with the long, finely oiled braids, sporting a bindi and a broad line of chandanam on their forehead, wearing gold earrings and maybe a nose pin too. They have a slight Tamil accent in HIndi and enjoy watching Tamil soaps with their grandparents. They ignore the tag "aunty" given to them at school and march off feeling that "Lajja aur sharam aurat ke sabse keemti gehne hote hai”... OK perhaps the same dialogue in Tamil!

But I do not belong to either category of people. I love Ilaya Thalapathi Vijay as much as I love Shahrukh Khan. People find me whistling equally hard at both Hindi and Tamil movies. I feast upon dosa and chapatti with equal greed. I am proud of being a Tamilian. I neither flaunt nor look down upon my culture. I generally speak a mix of Hindi, Tamil and Marathi at home, conventionally phrasing a sentence as “Amma, enaku ekdam laukar laukar khana tha" . (Mum, bring me food very fast) . Yeah, this is a very frequently used statement at home. So,I think the beauty of a language lies in its accent and the beauty of adapting a culture lies in the flexibility with which you do it.

And wait, I am not boasting about trying to become multilingual by just being able to speak three languages. I am trying hard to improve at Telugu and Malayalam. After I am done dealing with them,maybe I'll turn over to Gujarati and Punjabi. Seems like a very long way to go but you know, I've already started whistling for Mahesh babu, Nagarjuna, Naga - chaitanya and all...