“Chheti kar, der ho rahi hain.”
“Jaldi karo, der ho jayegi.”
“Bega banni, bega.”
Some phrases and sentences that kickstarted my mornings as a 5 year old.
Coming from a culturally diverse background, growing up in a part of the country that has absolutely nothing to do with your roots inevitably makes you better at grasping languages. Although I understand nine Indian languages and one foreign, speak 5 languages; there have been innumerable attempts at making me speak Punjabi and Gujarati, all of them failed since I grew up in South India, listening to Kannada and Telugu which I sub-consciously picked up better than the above mentioned languages.
Language has always intrigued me, it adds to my curiosity to learn more and learn better. Every person I meet who comes from a new background and speaks a new language that I was not exposed to fascinates me. There have been uncountable conversations I have had with people I have met about languages and dialects that they speak in.
Reading Manto makes me want to learn Urdu so that I can read his original work. If it’s so intense and beautiful in English, imagine what impact would it have in it’s original language. There was a red book that my grandfather possessed, it was all the Urdu that one could learn and on some days I have this sudden urge to gobble every single word in it, I would have if I knew who has that book today, who was it passed on to? The most that I can manage is darkhaast, tashreef and masroof.
I sometimes wonder, what are languages without speakers? Ever since Dadi passed away, the Punjabi spoken in this household is next to non-existent. Paa speaks close to 12 languages and their different dialects, but only with people who live miles away and have the ability to reciprocate in the conversation. Nana ji knows how to speak in Bangla but has nobody to hold a conversation with because none of us speak that language.
Languages are just mere combinations of letters and words, it is the speakers and their interpretation that keeps it alive. In retrospect, it’s unnerving how you, reading this piece, will keep a particular language alive for as long as you live and try passing it on further. How my small brain will one day try and get better at those 9 languages I understand just for its true essence to stay alive.
Furthermore, there is always a particular dialect and a tone that rings a bell in your mind, warms your heart and makes you feel at home for a minute even in a strange city when you hear a language you have known for as long as you can remember.
As I type this my mum with her broken Telugu is trying to converse with our domestic help, and she with her broken Hindi is trying hard to make their conversation easier.
You see, how one of them is trying to speak better and the other is trying to interpret better?