Observing the ever-changing weather in Delhi suddenly brought to mind a strange thought. A thought that our children would learn about the seasons and times of the year in history books, (or websites) and not in biology. And that the reason for change in the seasons then, would depend on Account-closing times.
Brings to mind about a change in me own self. There was a time when I walked out of my Std X final exam with such glee thinking that I would never ever in my life need to have anything to do with Hindi again. Most of the torture and failure I endured through half of my school-years was due to that ------ language.
In Std V, I was forced to take Hindi over Tamil, (my own mothertongue) as a second language in school because if my dad got transferred to another state, I'd have to study a new language all over again. Besides, the level of Tamil was much higher than that of Hindi.
Interestingly, my father never got transferred till I finished Std X, after which I didn't need to study a second language.
I hated the language all those five years of school. The amount of mugging up I had done was something amazing, esp for a student who hatted mugging up. We never spoke a word of Hindi to eachother. Most (or rather, all) of it was just to rote-learn paragraphs upon paragraphs about poets, their poems, character sketches and grammar terms. I can bet that 70% of my classmates who did Hindi along with me cannot hold a sensible conversation for 10 seconds.
The boy who left the exam hall all those years ago has changed a lot. I right now live in Delhi, the land of the hindi-speakers, and can speak enough of the language to get myself around. Recently, I reached my first mile-stone in the language. I mediated a discussion-cum-training program for a batch of 15 hindi speakers (who don't know English at all) in HIV/AIDS for three whole hours. I still don't have any fascination for the language, but the hatred I had toward the language has gone, and I actually want to learn more because there are so many conversations I'd love to have with such interesting people around me.
If I knew at Std X, that I would one day work in Delhi among Hindi-speakers, I would have thought the worst of myself. But now, I'm quite happy where I am.
I'm still trying to get my mind around this change in me I once thought could never happen!
2 comments:
Aapki Hindi bahut achi hai! What are you talking about...?!! Remember that you were able to get all the jokes in the "staff room" that were in Hindi? The sign of understanding a language is when you can laugh at those thigh-slappers because you UNDERSTAND them...I was left in the dark with a silly smile pasted on my face so I didn't look like a complete dummy :-)
Anyway, I think you're going strong!
Hey moni! well, i was also pretending! just that i could carry it off better :P
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