Everything started off when a classmate of mine, living in Bangalore one fine day was ruing the fact that his seven year old daughter was struggling to keep up pace with the online Hindi lessons in her school. Let us take a step back and analyse the situation. My friend, a Malayali based out of Karnataka is being taught the national language by a teacher from Bihar. This is exactly what the founding fathers of our country had in mind about national integration.
This also initiated a train of thought in my mind. It took me back to the time from my childhood when I landed up in the middle of my second grade in Trivandrum,Kerala. I had been living in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh during the early part of my childhood because my father was serving as an Indian Police Service(I.P.S) Officer in the state. At that point of time I hardly knew any malayalam but was very fluent in English and also Hindi to a certain extent. My fluency in English could be attributed to the fact that my father always insisted upon me speaking the queen’s language with him. Whenever, we used to visit our native place for summer vacations I was rather amused when I heard my father switch to Malayalam effortlessly.
Gwalior
Ending up in Kerala learning a new language was a constant struggle for the 7 year old me because I was thrown out of my comfort zone. To my misfortune everyone in school spoke only Malayalam. Moreover, I was expected to appear for exams in my mother tongue since it was mandatory from grade 1. I still remember vividly that during my second grade I was asked to study the first grade Malayalam book and also appear for exams covering the first grade textbook. During the summer holidays I was put under a home tutor to study the second standard malayalam and also get a good grip of the third standard portion so that I could fit in. When I look back now with great pride I can say that I did a fantastic job because by the end of the 4th standard I had sort of mastered the new language. I had by then even started reading “Malayala Manorma” one of the most popular vernacular newspapers in Kerala.
In my fifth grade I got the shock of my life when Hindi lessons were started in school. The elementary Hindi being taught for beginners was of great comical relief to me. The native Hindi speaker in me cringed when I observed the way grammar was being taught in Kerala. I tried to filter out all the Hindi grammar rules that were being taught in school and tried to kept it simple. I just followed the spoken Hindi language that I had learned as a kid and used to write for my exams with that in mind. For instance I never could get the difference between हैं(pronounced as haim) and है(pronounced as hain),for me the only latter existed.Needles to say many a times it was a walk in the park for me when it comes to preparing for hindi exams.
During my grade 10 our class teacher, one of the most inspirational figures* in my life once shared with me her desire that I should make her proud by scoring 100% in Hindi.Such a feat I believe would have been a huge achievement for Loyola, one of the leading English Medium schools in the city. I was game for it. The kind of influence she had on me was such that I would even walk through a brick wall for her. I decided to burn some extra midnight oil to do it for her. Either ways I was firing on all cylinders that academic year**, it was just 1 more item to the bucket list.I gave it my all but in the end missed the magical mark by a whisker. A solitary mark prevented me from achieving the milestone.
*subject of another post An Inspiring Teacher
** subject of another post which gives a sneak peek into my grade 10 Memories #11
I was equally good at Malayalam, a language that I had picked up a little later in life during that academic year as well. A testimony on how good I was in my mother tongue was an incident that happened quit recently . During a zoom call with my erstwhile classmates I left everyone speechless when I narrated a few lines of a Malayalam poem that I studied in school. I would also attribute this to my Malayalam Teacher during my high school the effervescent Mr Anil Kumar who is still continuing his vocation in the very same school. In school quite often I feel that the language teachers are not given their due because we are always stuck in the colloquial mindset with the needless obsession with Science and Maths. The other day I had successfully set up the online classroom for my niece who was starting her grade 1. It was a deja vu moment for me when her first lesson was in Malayalam.
Till date, I still don't get it as to how the most popular anthem used to cheer our school basketball team was in hindi. It has to be noted that in Kerala, the usage of hindi as a medium of communication is close to nil. A fact which I hated the most at that point of time when I had just arrived from the northern part of the country.
The Anthem went like this
Sabse aage ladke kaun
Veer bahadur ladke kaun
Aage dekho
Peeche dekho
Jahan bhi dekho
Every line is repeated with the chorus “Loyola Loyola”
Picture Courtesy :Arun John
Even today after close to 2 decades I can still feel goosebumps when I reminisce these words. Back in those days the annual basketball tournaments were treated in a way akin to a carnival in our school. Even though,only 5 players represented the school in the game the extra player was the crowd which made the experience very special. The fiercely fought basketball finals has left an indelible in the minds of every student who has witnessed the spectacle in my alma mater. What was more the basketball players were treated like rockstars. I was fortunate enough to share a classroom with few of the stalwarts of the game in our school at that point of time. For me the electric atmosphere that I experienced during these basketball matches is only second to the chorus of “Sachin Sachin” reverberating inside the iconic Wankhede stadium in Mumbai.
My classmates in the School BB team: Jian (standing 3rd from left ),
Arun John (standing 2nd from right)
A couple of years after my graduation,nothing had prepared me for what happened when I landed up in Delhi. To my shock I realised that I had totally lost touch with Hindi. There was a time in my life when I used to speak chaste Hindi which was one of the first languages that I had learnt as a kid.The fact of the matter is that I hardly used Hindi during my time in Kerala where I had spent a lion's share of my lfe. One of the amusing incidents that comes to my mind was when my hindi speaking skills came in handy during my college trip to Hyderabad. I had bargained hard with a shoe seller to get a good deal for my crush thereby scoring some valuable brownie points in the process.
Delhi
To my horror I realised that just like a muscle in your body if you don’t use your language skills for some time you tend to lose it completely. I had to start from scratch and slowly build my repertoire in the language which I had mastered quite early in life. At times I pitied myself when I used to struggle a lot while conversing with my friends. Thankfully, I had regained some touch in Hindi once I came to Mumbai. But I was nowhere close to when I was a kid and it pained me as well. I still recollect the episode while visited Gurgaon for a business visit. A friend of mine from our college days in Kerala was speaking impeccable hindi compared to me. He pulled my leg many a times watching me struggling with the language . The fact was that I had been living in Mumbai for a few years now but the irony was that my hindi still had a very strong malayali accent.In my defense the bloke had a North Indian girlfriend which had helped him a lot. In office at times my boss would ask me stuff in Hindi, I always made it a point to reply back in English because I always felt that I could articulate well in the queen’s language. Thankfully,my current boss doesn’t speak Malayalam so I am good.
Mumbai
My classmates in the School BB team: Jian (1st from left ),Arun John (3rd from left ),yours truly (in the middle)
After spending more than a decade outside my home state of Kerala I ended up in Cochin yet again. I don't want history to repeat itself again .A few of my colleagues here speak very good Hindi.So now, I have always made it a point to talk to these colleagues in Hindi whenever possible. This way I don't end up losing touch with Hindi again such an eventuality would take me back to square one.
Cochin
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