Blog 310: Angrezi !

Yay! I'm finally back to blogging :D
Was going through this blog and a host of memories came flooding in. Well i confess...i love English. The language that is. I've been born and bred on English you may say! My mom wanted me to be very fluent in it and so she used to talk to me in both Hindi and English right from the beginning...so much so that i was touted 'angrez ki aulad' by everyone!! I guess my name didnt help either!

Infact, around the time i was 3 yrs old or sumthing, mom had to get her appendix operated upon and i had to live with my naniji. Wise old savant that i was, i used to go around with my slate and chalk and teach all the auntyjis and nanijis in the neighbourhood all the english words that i knew!! Thats not the end of it...when naniji used to feed me khichdi, i'd teach her by sketching the words in the khichdi with a spoon!!

School was cool in this regard. Rule number 77 of the school prospectus declared in unequivocal terms that we were to always communicate in school in English only. How the hell do i remember this article number?? You'll find out...!!

Yours truly was a diehard conformist to rules back in school. I'd never ever talk during class, never between classes, never in the assembly line, almost never forget homework or books and...u guessed it...never ever ever speak in any language other than dear old Angrezi!
Alas, my princi never realised what a goodie goodie boy i was. That grand old man was forever of the opinion that i talked in vernacular!! He'd once caught me when i was doing an imitation of Amitabh Bachchan's 'main aur meri tanhayi' and i escaped on the pretext of preparing for an upcoming hindi test. Ever since then, wherever he used to see me, he'd frown and suspiciously regard me as if trying to goad me into confessing my supposed crime!!
There's even more double whammy coming up. This is around class 8-9: my friends in school used to think that even at home i'd talk in nothing but english. My mom had a slightly different opinion...she felt i knew zilch in English!! Reason: well...i just cant utter english at home. Simply doesnt come out of the mouth. My masi would come visit us sometimes and even if she'd say something to me in english, i'd always reply in hindi. And then my parents sometimes used to tell me to talk to my sis in english to make her fluent, but i'd simply not be able to!!
To me it just seems sooo weird talking to relatives in english. Its like bringing a formality into the relationship or something.

Anyways...
OP was what finally brought me back to conversing in Hindi. Its not like i didnt talk in hindi before that...but u know...i'd switch to english as soon as i got stuck for a word somewhere. Glad that i rediscovered hindi...it so much more intimate than english. Even the expletives in hindi seem so much more from-the-heart than their english counterparts :D:D!! I mean...call someone a dog or pig and he wont even blink an eye but say the same thing in hindi with a touch of emotion (!!) and u'll see!!!!

Had picked up Wuthering Heights a few days ago and had to close it within 2 minutes. Why? Well the first page contained this: "...he soliloquised in an undertone of peevish displeasure...looking meanwhile in my face so sourly that i charitably conjectured that he must have need of divine aid to digest his dinner, and his pious ejaculation had no reference to my unexpected advent." Ah! This is the kind of book i love to sit back in bed and read and all the while try to wipe the smile off my face wondering why the author felt himself constitutionally obliged to express a dozen ideas in each and every one of his convoluted and prolix sentences.:D
Remember Big B in Namak Halal and that whole Vijay Merchant told Vijay Hazare scene...i totally agree with him...english is, indeed, a very phunny language!!