This a piece I wrote a long time ago and I think it never got published anywhere (not as far as I can remember) so here it is:
Learn English! Learn Spanish! Learn French!
Brightly colored billboards dot highways, city streets, town alleys all over the world. They promise you a job, a better life, the entire world in an unreasonable span of time. Their lurid colors and bold fonts mask the dismalness of your life and firmly position language as your exit path to the promised land. Language, not for love, not for life, but to escape.
I’ve always loved languages, because they allow me to lament. To lament the loss that was given to me in my childhood and has carried me all the way to my adulthood. This is the companion of a lifetime, more constant than any loves and hatreds. At this point in my life I have lost an entire country and several cities and the counting hasn’t stopped. Of course, I must not be unfair. If I look at the scorecard, there are countless additions as well. Researchers claim that women have a richer vocabulary than men; feel free to blame my voraciousness on that. All I ask is that you allow me to put you in the category of people who need gender binaries to navigate the world. A stereotype for a stereotype is only fair.
Language unites, proclaim newspapers and magazines, quietly reminding the five people in the world living under a rock how much language (usually code for English in mainstream media) matters. It always makes me stop in my tracks. I was raised in a country which has no national language. In fact language (along with politics, religion, caste, class and gender) divides us. If you don’t speak Kannada in Bengaluru, auto drivers will cheat you with righteousness. If you go to school in Maharashtra, you must learn Marathi to prove your allegiance. Any time the question of a national language comes up, we are up in arms. We have learned that this fight is the only way to defend ourselves from the government, a heartless bureaucracy that will sell us all to fulfill their endless greed. The debate rages on, a fire that kindles and rekindles.
Language is currency, it is an entry ticket, it is an icebreaker and much more. My first language is Hindi but until I left my home country I did not realize how deep the connection went. It wasn’t just the blaring of cheesy radio songs, the morning conversations my mother has with the maid, the pleasant yet roughly-timbred words I use when bargaining with an autoricksaw-driver without a meter. I did not have any words for the absence of language when I moved because in my mind, it was not a loss. But the floodgates opened when a Pakistani friend and I discovered our common language: I won’t pretend I used language to talk about poetry or art (think of Rumi or Ghalib and you know that language can dazzle); in fact I lamented. I truly lamented everything and everyone I had left behind. Only fools like me can leave and imagine that their entire lives will be packed in two suitcases. This distance I’ve kept over the years, it isn’t the armor I thought it was. I arrived, alone and ready to fight. The joke was on me, all my battles were to be within. I’m told there is more courage and vitality in love and vulnerability but it is hard, almost impossible. Like I humorlessly joked to a friend, if you can’t be too happy then you can’t be too sad. Note: this is patently untrue. Even if you have shown joy the door, sadness is far, far more malleable. It will find its way through the cracks in your life and there are many. The move to a new city. The end of school. An ugly workplace. A long, harsh winter. A failure, imagined or real. A friend leaving. A relationship coming to its end.
If language is currency, then mine is often a slightly stained, folded and battered note. For everyone is always asking me about mine. Your English is so good, your English is almost like an American, and endless versions of this statement have followed me during my two years in school in the country. People are surprised and suspicious. I always have to prove my skills. Where did you go to school? When did you start learning English? What language does your family speak at home? Compliments complement surprise at my brown skin and accent (look, I even enjoy the occasional homonym-based alliteration). It has been endless, this foreignness.
Learn English! Learn Spanish! Learn French!
Brightly colored billboards dot highways, city streets, town alleys all over the world. They promise you a job, a better life, the entire world in an unreasonable span of time. Their lurid colors and bold fonts mask the dismalness of your life and firmly position language as your exit path to the promised land. Language, not for love, not for life, but to escape.
I’ve always loved languages, because they allow me to lament. To lament the loss that was given to me in my childhood and has carried me all the way to my adulthood. This is the companion of a lifetime, more constant than any loves and hatreds. At this point in my life I have lost an entire country and several cities and the counting hasn’t stopped. Of course, I must not be unfair. If I look at the scorecard, there are countless additions as well. Researchers claim that women have a richer vocabulary than men; feel free to blame my voraciousness on that. All I ask is that you allow me to put you in the category of people who need gender binaries to navigate the world. A stereotype for a stereotype is only fair.
Language unites, proclaim newspapers and magazines, quietly reminding the five people in the world living under a rock how much language (usually code for English in mainstream media) matters. It always makes me stop in my tracks. I was raised in a country which has no national language. In fact language (along with politics, religion, caste, class and gender) divides us. If you don’t speak Kannada in Bengaluru, auto drivers will cheat you with righteousness. If you go to school in Maharashtra, you must learn Marathi to prove your allegiance. Any time the question of a national language comes up, we are up in arms. We have learned that this fight is the only way to defend ourselves from the government, a heartless bureaucracy that will sell us all to fulfill their endless greed. The debate rages on, a fire that kindles and rekindles.
Language is currency, it is an entry ticket, it is an icebreaker and much more. My first language is Hindi but until I left my home country I did not realize how deep the connection went. It wasn’t just the blaring of cheesy radio songs, the morning conversations my mother has with the maid, the pleasant yet roughly-timbred words I use when bargaining with an autoricksaw-driver without a meter. I did not have any words for the absence of language when I moved because in my mind, it was not a loss. But the floodgates opened when a Pakistani friend and I discovered our common language: I won’t pretend I used language to talk about poetry or art (think of Rumi or Ghalib and you know that language can dazzle); in fact I lamented. I truly lamented everything and everyone I had left behind. Only fools like me can leave and imagine that their entire lives will be packed in two suitcases. This distance I’ve kept over the years, it isn’t the armor I thought it was. I arrived, alone and ready to fight. The joke was on me, all my battles were to be within. I’m told there is more courage and vitality in love and vulnerability but it is hard, almost impossible. Like I humorlessly joked to a friend, if you can’t be too happy then you can’t be too sad. Note: this is patently untrue. Even if you have shown joy the door, sadness is far, far more malleable. It will find its way through the cracks in your life and there are many. The move to a new city. The end of school. An ugly workplace. A long, harsh winter. A failure, imagined or real. A friend leaving. A relationship coming to its end.
If language is currency, then mine is often a slightly stained, folded and battered note. For everyone is always asking me about mine. Your English is so good, your English is almost like an American, and endless versions of this statement have followed me during my two years in school in the country. People are surprised and suspicious. I always have to prove my skills. Where did you go to school? When did you start learning English? What language does your family speak at home? Compliments complement surprise at my brown skin and accent (look, I even enjoy the occasional homonym-based alliteration). It has been endless, this foreignness.
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