Hemantha Kalam - 69 "Hyperpolyglot - Who, me?"

“Ami Hemonto, Keman Aachen?” (I am Hemantha, how are you?). Hearing me speak in Bangla, over phone, Sharma told me, “Hemantha babu, if people hear you speak Bangla like this, they will speak to you only in Bangla and with their rapidity, you may not be able to follow the language”.

This was just about a week after I joined my new company in Kolkata. The year was 1999. Keen in learning new languages, I was trying to pick up Bangla real fast and I did too. But in the past 20 years or so I had rarely occasions to hold a conversation in Bangla and hence have lost the language. But I am sure that a six month continuous interaction in a Bangla speaking environment and I can get back my language.

Recently, in one of the WhatsApp groups, where I am a member too, Meena remarked that I am the Shashi Tharoor, and Maya said I am the P. V. Narasimha Rao of the group. Though I felt high, surely, I cannot be compared to either of them. Mr. Shashi Tharoor’s language requires extraordinarily special efforts to understand and certainly, I can’t take extraordinary efforts to write like him. Excepting for the similarities in the surname and that both of us hailed from the erstwhile (united) Andhra Pradesh, the late Prime Minister is eons beyond me. He knew some 17 languages whereas I knew only 12 and lost three of them and now leaving that to just a mere nine languages, as below. No comparison at all.

It is understood that there are about 22 languages in India. So I can say, perhaps, that with some knowledge of  say seven Indian languages, I know about 31.8% of Indian languages (7/22) and then call myself at least a polyglot {A polyglot is a person who speaks more than two languages, but used often for four languages or more (3% of world population speak more than 4 languages - courtesy: ilanguages.org)}. But as per world standards I know only nine languages out of 6,500, meaning I know just 0.14% of the world’s languages.

However, there’s no need to lose my heart, I suppose, as now on a world scale I qualify to be called a hyperpolyglot {a hyperpolyglot is someone who speaks more languages than a polyglot, which is 5 – 6 languages, though this hasn't been formerly defined either! Basically, you ought to be able to speak a fair few languages with fluency to name yourself a polyglot – courtesy: bilingual.io}. Less than 1% of the world population can speak 5 languages fluently (courtesy: ilanguages.org).

Yet, I can’t really rest on my laurels (if they are that) as there is any number of hyperpolyglots who knew / know mind boggling number of languages.

Image courtesy: https://bilingua.io/the-rise-of-the-hyperpolyglot-when-what-and-how

While what I could so far achieve itself could probably be considered envious, I have to confess that a fairly good time has been wasted by me in going directionless in life and only from 1972 did I really start learning languages and, with much reluctance. Till then I knew only Telugu for all four functions, Tamil for speaking and understanding and English for only writing and understanding.

Sometime in April, 1972 after I finished my school leaving public examinations to be promoted (or failed) from my 11^th standard, my father asked me what I intended to do further and how I have planned to spend my summer holidays (as if I had a choice). Now that question was an unnecessary one as almost all the students and children in India, those days, were dependent on parents and they could never have their own dictum, whatsoever, and whosoever, only with rare exceptions. So the question was meaningless. I mumbled, “reading books and novels?”.

He said, “nothing doing” (this was his favourite refrain) and asked me to go to the neighbouring house of Mr. Srinivasa Rao, a teacher by profession in a nearby government school and learn Tamil from him in the morning. That same evening he asked me to go to the Dakshin Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha and book myself an admission to learn Hindi. These two, in addition to typewriting and short-hand classes every day early morning (this story was already written in my blog Hemantha Kalam 64 – “Click Right to Typewrite” https://hemantha-kalam.blogspot.com/2020/04/hemantha-kalam-64-click-right-to-type.html). I could learn to recognise and write the Tamil Alphabets in 24 hours but reading took its time. It still takes me a little more time to read Tamil, when compared to my Tamil brethren.

That afternoon, a little late, as expected of me, I went to the Dakshin Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha and was loitering on the campus without having a clue as to whom I should approach to ask for an admission, when a handsome middle aged man asked me with a military voice as to what I was seeking. I said “admission”. He asked me to meet him by 5.00 pm in the nearby Besant Montessori School in Daniel Street, T. Nagar, Chennai (I think residential apartments replaced that school now).

I was there at that school a little before 5.00 pm for fear of getting rejected for the admission (the fear was more from my father) if I were late. The handsome man was there sweeping the classroom and keeping his books and pieces of chalk neat and ready on the table. I met him and he showed me a wooden plank on the floor behind a desk and asked me to sit there. Slowly more students came in and he started the lessons in Hindi. By the time he began the class there were easily about 30 students in the class. Yes, he was the teacher who was conducting classes separately with some support / subsidy from the Dakshin Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha, perhaps. 

At the end of the class session, he signalled to me to stay back and told me that the monthly fee would be Rs.1.00 (Yes, rupee one only – in 2012 when I was taking lessons in Laotian it cost US $ 10 per hour) and the cost of the text books would be about Rs.8.00 I gave him Rs.10 and during the next class session, which was on the day after, he promptly gave a me a new set of books, a receipt for the books and the balance Rs.1.00 back to me.

It is a sin that I forgot his name and could not remember however many times I scanned my brain. Apparently he was from Kerala and his diction had that Malayali nasal twang, but he was quite an efficient teacher. What started like this with the first examination ‘Prathamik’, continued to ‘Rashtra Bhasha’ via ‘Madhyama’. By the time I had to sit for the next exam ‘Pravesika’ I got admitted to a ‘Ladies only’ institute by special arrangement (because it was at a walking distance from my home) but flunked the exam as there was confusion at the exam centre in instruction giving and I missed writing a paper, even while being there at the centre. And there ended my quest for learning Hindi.

Recently, when I was in Jaipur, unfortunately for me, I bumped into a guy who did his masters in Hindi and who observed, listening to my Hindi, that Hindi could not have been my first language, or second language or even the third language. His insinuation was that that bad my Hindi was. It was a business meet and I had to swallow my temper and kept nodding, all the time smiling. The problem is I still could not master the genders properly. But I have a friend in Uttarakhand, who, apparently has a ‘large heart’ and keeps telling me I speak ‘Shudh Hindi” (I know Mrs. R.S. is all smiles now, if not in guffaws. She is one critic of my Hindi, I say. My own children are quite sceptical about my Hindi and even my English prowess).

Meantime, a good friend of mine also wanted to learn Hindi and I got him admitted to the same institute, with special recommendation. Instead of learning Hindi, which he desperately needed for his business, he made it his business to marry the Hindi teacher herself, after falling in love with her. Till date his Hindi vocabulary doesn’t go beyond ‘Acchaa’, ‘Bas’ and ‘Nahin’. And I dared not to go anywhere nearer to that ‘Ladies Only’ institute thereafter.

After joining Godrej, I started learning German language just for the heck of it. My entire life has been rudder and directionless. I have been floating in time aimless and now I find it is not a bad virtue after all. I had an adventurous life and fantastic experiences in life which, probably, may not be happening for a person with a well defined course of life.

My office used to close by 5.30 pm and my German classes used to start from 6.00 pm and so it was comfy. The place was less than 3 miles from my office. So my Grundstufe Eins and Grundstufe Zwei was fun and a foundation was laid out well.

But things changed when I got into Mittelstufe Eins where two important changes happened. Because, a trade union was started in the office our office time was changed upto to 6.00 pm in the evening by elongating the lunch time by an additional 30 minutes and the teacher for Mittelstufe was a prick, sorry to say!

There were five traffic lights between my office and Max Mueller Bhavan in Express Estates and despite riding fast on my scooter, I still needed about 10 minutes to ride, five minutes to park my scooter, scoop my things and run across the staircase into my class room. It used to take a minimum 15 minutes and I was inevitably delayed by 15 minutes for every class and both of us used to have a sorry, shrug and a counter shrug sessions before I plonked myself into a nearest seat.

One evening, I had quite a tough day in the office and dragged myself to the class, as always, late. That day our man had conducted a surprise test I wasn’t prepared for. So I said I can be considered absent for the class and the test. But the great teacher blocked the entrance and said I can’t leave the class without taking the test. The class had students of heterogeneous gender and aged students and little kids were smirking at my discomfort. I was in my late twenties by that time.

As usual I dropped into a seat and took a good look at the question paper. Instead of Deutsche, it was Greek and Latin for me, on the question paper. So I took an English novel which I carried with me (even now I always carry books with me; only now in the Kindle form though) and started reading it nonchalantly. Now the teacher became livid. He said we can’t read anything except Deutsche in his class. I said that I am willing to leave the class. He didn’t agree.

Slowly all students submitted their answer papers and moved out of the class. I stretched my legs and waited. Not a word was written on my paper, yet. He came to me and asked me why I am doing this. I said I was not prepared for the exam and he was not prepared to either listen to me or understand. So it is a matter of not being prepared on both sides. I swore to him that from that day, till he continues to take my classes, I am not attending German classes and walked out.

After that I think I didn’t step into those premises again till I have been taken to a Mall that was constructed in the estate and a car park was laid out where our institute in a lovely colonial building used to be. After seeing that ‘debauchery’ I don’t step into the Mall either now.

Sometime soon after, I enrolled for my Management Course with University of Madras in the evening course and got busy in that and later in life itself that I could never again pursue serious study of the Deutsche language (but some time in 2011, when I was passing through Frankfurt and my journey back to India from Brazil, I pleasantly discovered that I could hold basic conversation in German though I stopped learning the language some 30 years before. Not bad at all).

Slowly I discovered that I have a penchant for learning languages and kept on learning whatever languages I could, without any aim or purpose.

But the person who made me do it was a visionary. He must have very clearly seen the futility of his first son and thought of empowering his tongue at least. And I use my tongue in any which way in my professional life. Many a time it is advantageous and sometimes it is disadvantageous too, especially when you are becoming privy to personal and especially dirty matters. It becomes very difficult to sit tight and pretend to be deaf or naïve.

Whatever I am today is because of these languages and because of my dear father. I used to grumble about my father ruining my summer holidays in pursuing languages. But today, everyday, I thank him for his vision and direction.

It is 14^th July today and three years since my beloved father left us all, on this day, leaving us with only his memories. As always I keep wondering where he could be now and hope that he is keeping himself occupied with whatever work he has, wherever he is, keeping that lovely smile on.

I am a contented man and am grateful to him for whatever has happened to me, so far. The only purpose before me now is to meet him, again, whenever it is going to be!   

Krutagjnatalu (Telugu), Nanri (Tamil), Dhanyavaadagalu (Kannada), Nanni (Malayalam), Dhanyavaad (Hindi), Dhanyosmi (Sanskrit), Thanks (English), Dhonyavaad (Bangla), Dhanyabad (Oriya), Gracias (Spanish), Grazie (Italian), Danke Schon (Deutsche), Merci (French), Obrigado (Portuguese), Shukraan (Arabic), Shukriya (Urdu), Bohoma Sthuthiyi (Sinhalese) Aw-koon (Khmer), Kawp Jai Lhai Lhai (Laotian), Kob Kun Krab (Thai), Dankie (Afrikaans), Asante (Kiswahili), Maraming Salamat sa Lahat (Pinoy-Tagalog-Filipino), Tack (Swedish), Fa'afetai (Samoan), Terima Kasih (Bahasa Indonesian & Malay), Tenkyu (Tok Pisin of Papua New Guinea), Malo (Tonga) and Vinaka (Fiji).

Hemantha Kumar Pamarthy

Chennai, India