Tryst with Hindi
Let me first make a painful confession that I can't speak hindi and my knowledge is limited to a point where I cannot comprehend it. I do not want to blame it on my hindi teacher like I always do, because its never too late and I can learn the language if I want to.
By the way I admire the language and those who handle it with ease ( which include Malayali shop keepers, the bus conductor and the eight year old boys in the neighbourhood ). After spending two solid years in the land of the Nawabs, I was destined to ask these brilliant kids to teach me some Hindi. I even tried the method that these boys followed and watched many episodes of Doraemon.
Hah...I don't know if that helped, but now I can understand the language better. Still that hasn't prevented me from hiding my embarrassment when I encounter the neighbourhood kids who seem to be saying "deeti, kya tum budhu hai? tumhe sharam nahi aati?" Well, having acknowledged my present relationship with Hindi thus, let me rewind a little and go back to my Marian school days.
That was a time when I couldn't care less about it, simply because it did not make any sense to me or any of my friends for that matter. It was a paper that fetched you marks according to your ability to memorise. Yes, we literally learnt it by rote. It was my third language ( popularly known as T.L) which we had to learn for some four or five years.
The teacher who taught us( she still teaches there) can never be forgotten. Silk saree-clad, ornament decked and flower adorned, she would walk in like a kathak dancer and start speaking in an English that only she could speak and understand. Her approach to the classroom was announced by her glass bangles, trinkets and anklets, and ofcourse the perfume! Years later, she is a strong memory and I used to wonder why she never spoke the language she was supposed to teach. I no more wonder, because it is more or less clear that she doesn't know the language, at least as much as these Doraemon disciples!
We used to have recitation sessions, dictation and of course the questionings that required much brain wracking. I remember writing out Aam =mango and reciting " utto balakhoom hua savera, chidiyoom mein tak diya savera", and thinking about the Pandit (or was it someone else?) who got inspired by the impressions left by a pot on the stone surface of a well. It was often when my mother narrated the story that I understood what I was blindly jotting down on my hindi textbook with my nataraj pencil. I don't know whom to blame,but one thing I know for sure is the fact
that the relationship that I had with the language was a collective one. All Marians experienced it in some way or the other.
Joseph, who is presently a student of the same teacher, shares the same plight along with his peers, so does his elder sister. The tryst therefore never ends. Last time when I met them, I told them " You better see Doraemon, or you will be doomed!"
Let me first make a painful confession that I can't speak hindi and my knowledge is limited to a point where I cannot comprehend it. I do not want to blame it on my hindi teacher like I always do, because its never too late and I can learn the language if I want to.
By the way I admire the language and those who handle it with ease ( which include Malayali shop keepers, the bus conductor and the eight year old boys in the neighbourhood ). After spending two solid years in the land of the Nawabs, I was destined to ask these brilliant kids to teach me some Hindi. I even tried the method that these boys followed and watched many episodes of Doraemon.
Hah...I don't know if that helped, but now I can understand the language better. Still that hasn't prevented me from hiding my embarrassment when I encounter the neighbourhood kids who seem to be saying "deeti, kya tum budhu hai? tumhe sharam nahi aati?" Well, having acknowledged my present relationship with Hindi thus, let me rewind a little and go back to my Marian school days.
That was a time when I couldn't care less about it, simply because it did not make any sense to me or any of my friends for that matter. It was a paper that fetched you marks according to your ability to memorise. Yes, we literally learnt it by rote. It was my third language ( popularly known as T.L) which we had to learn for some four or five years.
The teacher who taught us( she still teaches there) can never be forgotten. Silk saree-clad, ornament decked and flower adorned, she would walk in like a kathak dancer and start speaking in an English that only she could speak and understand. Her approach to the classroom was announced by her glass bangles, trinkets and anklets, and ofcourse the perfume! Years later, she is a strong memory and I used to wonder why she never spoke the language she was supposed to teach. I no more wonder, because it is more or less clear that she doesn't know the language, at least as much as these Doraemon disciples!
We used to have recitation sessions, dictation and of course the questionings that required much brain wracking. I remember writing out Aam =mango and reciting " utto balakhoom hua savera, chidiyoom mein tak diya savera", and thinking about the Pandit (or was it someone else?) who got inspired by the impressions left by a pot on the stone surface of a well. It was often when my mother narrated the story that I understood what I was blindly jotting down on my hindi textbook with my nataraj pencil. I don't know whom to blame,but one thing I know for sure is the fact
that the relationship that I had with the language was a collective one. All Marians experienced it in some way or the other.
Joseph, who is presently a student of the same teacher, shares the same plight along with his peers, so does his elder sister. The tryst therefore never ends. Last time when I met them, I told them " You better see Doraemon, or you will be doomed!"
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