In Hind I sight....

Okay back from a very heavy and substantial lunch involving some very tasty papad, and coconut chutney.

Heard some great news. Sumit a mama. Can't believe it.

Anyway he won't be too happy to know that in Tamil mama, has some strange connotations albeit, a pimp, or a highly immoral person like..., say a policeman or a father-in-law. Yes! I know. Democracy does this to you. Very different from the Hindi mama.

But all the topics of babies, and languages have made me particularly nostalgic and made me think about my own childhood.

90% of which was spent trying to avoid learning Hindi. And the remaining 10% was spent learning it. I considered this a healthy balance ( Yes! I know. Democracy does this to you). But not my parents.

So there I was as a kid running around hectically avoiding learning Hindi. I hasten to act that this was not because I was a closet Dravidian, but because I was a closet cricket fanatic, and anytime not spent bowling fast ones at a bulying elder brother, I considered wasted. So of course, school was a huge waste of my time, so was politics (Yes! I know. Democracy does that to you) and even more wasteful was Hindi class, where I had to learn the gender of quite a few inanimate things, among which is classified valli, a girl from my school. Valli has now outgrown her braces, ponytails, and is now modelling for some hugely pompous brand of errr... clothes, but I remember being fascinated at the time with the question of whether valli was strilling, pulling, napumsakaling, or generally wodden. Napumsakaling was a favourite complex word for me. I remember asking an elder cousin to stop bugging me or face the angst of being called napumsakaling. We also used to shout na-pum-saka-ling on the basketball field. Not that it achieved anything. But fond memories nonetheless.

I am not a major language person. In fact Tamil is not supposed to be different from Hindi, but the nuances of it have completely escaped me, and even today popular entertainment in my homstead is to make me speak classical Tamil. Another entertaining thing. Getting me to speak Hindi.

But then where conventional education failed, the arts won(yes I know. Democracy does that to you). And in order to appreciate the arts more, I decided to learn Hindi. Primarily because I considered Hindi movies works of art, and there was nothing more entertaining than them. All over India. In fact, there was no other entertainment. On wednesdays there was Chitrahaar, and as my naani (note the appropriate Hindi word here) thrust pieces of what we South Indians fondly believed to be roti into my mouth, I would watch mouth agape as sigh! Parveen Bobby, Rekha or even Dimple shook a leg, all in tights and towering hairdos on the screen. And wonder what language they were speaking. Then there was Nukkad which I always pronounced nookath, and Hum Log, which in my childish fashion I used to pronounce as Hum vog. Yeah! I couldn't pronounce the lah. Yeah! reevvy funny.

And then there was news, which I never did understand, but always found pretty interesting as my uncle would jump about and swear quite volubly. It really looked like he had a personal interest in that thing (yes I know! Democracy does that to you), but I did get terribly confused with "Namaskaar. Aaj blah mukhya samachar". As a kid I never knew if it was ka/ki/ke. So I experimented at Will (who was my sikh neighbour), till Will decided that he better teach me certain facts in life. He failed. Miserably. To this day I have no clue if it's ka ki or ke.In fact, as a kid I took great pleasure in saying ka/ke/ki at random behind every word, and then laughing quite mischievously, at the confusion I thought I was putting people in. In all innocence I thought that if I pronounced it wrong, they would get confused about it, never struck me that they would think I was confused. But I did have a great smile! :-)

Saturday afternoons there was this movie, in which Prem Chopra would mandatorily attempt to molest some girl. Higly educational, and cultured and tasteful (yes I know! Democracy does that to you). Soon enough the line 'bach ke kahan jayegi rani' and 'kameene chod de mujhe' were imprinted in my memory. The last sentence got pretty confusing. I remember when we were playing lock and key, shouting 'kameene chod de mujhe' at Will, when I wanted to be given a key (complicated game lock and key huh!), and Will was so mightily confused, he sat down and started laughing. Not very popular. They all shouted at Will. And me. And 'kameene chod de mujhe' became the taunt of our gully.

Sunday mornings were Ramayana or Mahabaratha. As a little kid I watched the Ramayana and cried. Yeah! Pretty soft hearted. And also slept off when during an important battle scene I simply slept of due to boredom, watching all the arrows flying towards each other but never actually meeting. I was watching it leaning on nani one minute, and peacefully asleep the next minute. They woke me up for lunch. Mahabaratha I really waited for Draupadi's big scene. I wasn't the only one. Everyone in the family was waiting for that episode, and I felt that Lord Krishna was really a cad. I mean Prem Chopra wouldn't have done that. (distasteful! yes I know! Democracy does that to you). By this time I could make out most of the words. I emphasise the 'make out'. Mostly it was guess work. So I had quite a different Mahabarata running around in my head. If my nani hadn't checked up....I also got to sing 'ath shri mahabaratha katha' and say 'mein kaal hoon'. good entertainment was getting me to say it. I used to say with a twinkle in my eye 'mein kaala hoon'. this struck us as as being hugely funny, because each episode started with the dark screen, a spinning wheel, and this statement. Tautology was entertaining then.

Another big entertainer was Aaj Parliament Mein. Forget the news, which itself was quite entertaining involving members of parliament tonking each other and speaking in different languages. Later on I came to realize that the different languages were only different dialects of Hindi. Boy! Was it entertaining. 'Adyaksha mohaday' became quite a watchword, until I used it to greet a teacher at school one day. Caused quite some merriment. Ended up dispirited and disgusted with education in general and schooling in specific(yes I know! Democracy does that to you).

Remember other times, like when Mom was teaching me Hindi, and asked me to explain the sentence 'Indira Gandhi Nehru ki santaan te.' Absolutely no clue. Some rather quick thinking later came up with Nehru had a little son called Santanam who expired when he was an infant. This touched a soft spot in Mom, but after a momentary shock, she asked me to repeat it again, and then chased me around the house for an hour, threatening me that if I didn't study and continued to lie like this, I would be fit only for goat herding. Not that I would object, if it only meant no Hindi. Thank God for nani ( the person, not the word). It all ended with six quick ones on my hind, and an eternal nasty feeling in my mouth whenever somebody mentions the Gandhi family ( yes I know! Democracy can do that to you).

And then the crowning glory of Hindi culture stoneboy, jantarmantar, indra danush and of course the wonderful cartoon message 'ek ek saare anek'. Took to singing it. Modified it a little 'ek ek saale anek'. This struck a group of us ten year olds, as being so suficiently rebellious that we converted it into a secret war cry. Till we were crying out to each other, and an auntie from Delhi, heard it and complained to our parents that we were saying gandi words. Boy! did we cry that day. After that I felt supressed, hunted, and quite indignant at the kind of power wielded by Delhi, in fact I lusted for it. (yes I know! Democracy does that to you).

How can I forget the other masterpiece of Hindi culture. National unity songs. A welter of colour, different people singing. Mile sur mera tumhara, maata tumjha bhur ka tara, madhurtaraja baras ke tara, komar shu more shu, shrishti koi, hoi gatu, chaalu chapanu. A welter of colour, slick photography and children and producers confident in the belief that national unity was not so far away that they couldn't achieve it by running in together and shouting 'mile sur mera tumhara'. Ah! Idealism. (yes I know! Democracy does that to you). That and my mom's voice asking me to close my mouth and chew breakfast are all that I remember of the spirit of Indian Nationalism.

But things have changed. Grown to man's estate. Friends from Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Bengal, Orrisa, Madhya Pradesh. And a length of a country away, A home. Peace. A desire. A dream. All come true. Yes I know! Democracy does that to you.