“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.
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 11th 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 14th 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
