A Language, Everybody's

First language, second language, third language. English medium, Hindi medium, Tamil medium. Mother tongue, too. What is this whole deal about languages all about? Right from school and at home, there has been a constant demand to learn and preserve "our" language. Which one, I am still to figure out. I studied English, Tamil, Hindi and Sanskrit at school. Malayalam for a very very brief period, which completely equals my knowledge of that language. I have relatives in Karnataka and Maharashtra which has helped me pick dollops of Kannada and Marathi words. Since Andhra was just a political boundary away from home, easily one's environment had Telugu speaking people too. Invariably, from the Tamil parodies too, I did pick a few Telugu words. What more, you ask? I will tell you.

Fortunately or unfortunately I could never pick up Hindi in the two years I studied it at school. My college days in Delhi were my Hindi classes. Again, fortunately or unfortunately, I had friends from Bihar and Bengal to Punjab and Rajasthan. In the end my Hindi too became a kichdi of distinct Devanagri-derived languages. A tinge of Bhojpuri, a liberal dose of Lucknawi, a garnish of Punjabi and viola! As a friend of mine remarked, "bhasha ka balatkar ho gaya."

In India this is nothing new. We are a country defined on the lines of language and nothing else! Of course, now newer and more complex political reasons call for separation of states, that's a whole different deal. It literally speaks volumes, that boundaries began where a language ended. It was a matter of connecting with the others by a common tongue, to make the people of a land one's own.

So with a mash of many languages, predominantly only English, Tamil and Hindi (the rest I realise do good only for my self-esteem!) I came bag and baggage to Haryana. First thing the Director at SCRIA warned me was that I would find the people and their language rough. I could definitely adjust, I then thought. A couple of months down that day, every tenth word in my spoken language is Haryanvi. It was a necessary and desperate move to communicate with the people. Nothing like a common language to be the ice-breaker, I realised.

And then, this happens. I was attending a Gram Sabha, where 40 men and only 2 women had turned up. This from a voting population of 1800 odd. Post the Sabha, I was generally talking and interacting with the members stating the necessity to encourage the participation of other villagers, especially women. As it always happened, after my speaking to them, they bombarded me with a barrage of questions. Marital status. Check. Family members and annual income. Check. How come I know their language? Check. The crowd soon dispersed. One old man stayed back. He sat next to me for a minute and just smiled. I asked him if he wanted to know anything about the Gram Sabha or Panchayat. He carefully ventured, "unn paeru enne?" What is your name. I was pleasantly taken aback.

Like a mad monkey I just kept staring back at him, beaming wide, forgetting the courtesy of answering his question! "Yashaswini", I replied after a full minute. Then he went on to say how he was in the Army, had friends from South India and had himself stayed in Tiruchirapalli for 2 years in his youth. Closing his eyes momentarily to recover from his memory, he counted "onnu, rendu, moonu.." as he slowly showed them with his fingers, accompanied by a toothless, proud grin. He escorted me back to the bus-stop, shouting to just anybody on the way, "yeh hamari bhasha bolti hai", "yeh hamari ladki hai", "hum sab ek bolte hain"!!

Former Subedar Jagdish Singh had made my day. At times in the past I have struggled to explain to the villagers here, where Chennai is. Using Tirupatti Balaji, dosas or Sridevi as references, I usually manage. To hear Tamil this far away, I simply did not see that coming. I can see this reciprocated in the villagers when they hear me throw in few desi words in my language. The support staff at SCRIA dropped their formal demeanour the day I asked them to speak with me in only Haryanvi. Now they treat me like family. One of their own.

These instances reminded me of times in Delhi when I would just stop to listen to random people conversing in Tamil in the Metro, even missing my stop. There was even that once when I followed a Tamil family discretely through the stalls of the International Book Fair, so that I could hear more of the familiar words. One another villager here told me that Tamil sounded to him like few stones rolling in an otherwise empty tin can. I laughed it away. I myself had thought that the locals were always fighting and ready to throw a punch. Such was the language, rude and rough. Now, I do know that the tone is just the same whether they are affectionate or aggressive. So too each one his or her prejudice.

In all these moments- the several "Hindi-is-the-best" sermons I have heard, Jagdish Singh counting to three, the support staff giggling at my comic attempts to speak Haryanvi- I see only one thing. A need to bond with the rest through the spoken word. This is the language that is everybody's. A language that makes a mother understand the baby's gibberish. A language that we reciprocate in a foreigner's  namaste. Communication is for transaction of information. Language is only a vessel for the emotion. We all have the same emotions. Everybody has a language.