Your an Indian and you don't know Hindi???!!!!

Hi

I was in New York a month ago. I reached the city in the evening. My friend was staying in Flushing. I reached Flushing at around 10 in the night. I had my friend's address but I was lost. I could not find the street where his house was. To make matters worse, the streets were deserted and ominous. I fractically tried to call my friend from the Public telephone booth. But I couldn't get through. I didn't know whether some extra digits had to be added to the number but I just couldn't get through. And I was running out of precious change which I needed in order to use the Public phone. In short, I was helpless and was pretty sure that I was going to be mugged. That was when I saw an Indian shop in the distance, opposite to an Indian temple. I went to the shopkeeper (a Punjabi who had settled down in New York for more than 30 yrs) and asked in English whether I could use his phone. He replied in Hindi and I didn't understand a word. So, I repeated the question in English. It pissed him off...

"You youngsters, have no respect for your national language," he said.

I explained to him that I didn't know Hindi. That pissed him off even more...

"Your an Indian and you don't know Hindi. Shame on you," he said. I frowned but he did let me use his phone and helped me get in touch with my friend. So, god bless him for that.

The reason I qoute this story is that it is linked to my past and forms the theme of this post. During my initial days at NUS, this was a recurring theme. My batch was skewed with North Indians. And everytime I was introduced to one of them, they would start a tirade in Hindi. I would explain that I didn't know Hindi and almost always the immediate response was "Your an Indian and you don't know Hindi. Shame on you." I had prior experience of this when I was in Wipro in Bangalore. So, initially I shrugged off these reactions. But after a while it became irritating. It got so irritating that there were moments when I wanted to say, "Shut the fuck up and mind your own business" but I did not do it. I was just getting to know folks and I didn't want this statement to destroy our relationship.

I believe that the problem was that they were looking at things as a snapshot rather than as a spectrum. Let me explain. When I see a beggar on the road, my immediate reaction is one of disgust.

"Why is he wasting his life begging when he can go out and find a job." My disgust is because I look at things as a snapshot of that moment.

It could be true that the beggar had tried for a job. Maybe for years he tried and had given up. He had resorted to begging as a last resort. In this case, I am looking at his life as a spectrum of past events. When I look at things as a spectrum, my disgust becomes unjustified.

Similar is my story. When you look at things as a snapshot, being an Indian and not knowing your national language is shameful. But when you look at things as a spectrum, you will understand that I am from Tamil Nadu, a state where Hindi is not spoken. You will recognize that my schooling was from Ooty wherein I didn't have access to Hindi movies. My college was in Coimbatore where I did not have exposure to Hindi. The irony is that I wrote my Prathmik and Madhyama Hindi exams when I was in 8th standard. But from then till I finished my engineering, a gap of 8 years, I had no exposure to Hindi. I totally forgot the language. It was only when I started working in Wipro that I had limited exposure to our 'National Language'. When all these factors are considered, I don't think its shameful that I don't know Hindi. Thus I rest my case.

Anywayz, that leads me to my most irritating experiences. After a month or so, most people knew that I didn't know Hindi. But still they continued to converse in Hindi when I was present with them. Though I never said anything (mostly because I wanted to learn Hindi), I was cut out from the conversation. It was most irritating and I have only seen this only with us, Indians. The Chinese always converse in English when a third person is present even though they are uncomfortable with the language. The latinos never converse in Spanish in the midst of a third person even though they love their language. At the risk of generalization, I say that it is we Indians who resort to Hindi as a form of pseudo-nationalism in the presence of others who don't know the language.

Having said all this, some of these guyz have become my best friends (though they still converse in Hindi!!!) and are truly great people. And this experience, at some level, has made me a more tolerant person.

Cheers,
Suraj