the world is a strange theatre

What do you think of an Indian living in Bombay for five years and still can not speak or understand Marathi and only half understand Hindi? Yes, Ma'm ? A half-arsed idiot? Uh uh! Who is it, you ask? Oh! But that would be me, Ma'm. That half whatever idiot. Where do I come from? Well, thats difficult to answer, too! Born, and only born, in Kerala and brought up in Andhra Pradesh. So I know Tamil, you say? But you are mistaken Ma'm, the language is Malayalam in Kerala. And the Malayalis would laugh at me if I spoke in Malayalam. I sent my grandma in Kerala some money today through money order and I could not write any message for her.

'But since you were schooled in Andhra Pradesh, surely you should know Teilgu?'

I should? Yes, Ma'm. I do. I know Telugu. I can speak, understand, read and write perfectly in Telugu. But that is no comfort to me. I no longer live in that forsaken desert. Forsaken by me, that is.

"Pagaar"
"uh?"
"PagAAR"
"Hindi mein boliye"
"Kya?"
"Ek minute"
I realised, shamefully, that she was indeed speaking in Hindi and that I did not know what she was talking about. There is nothing I can do now to save my face, for the shame has already flushed my face red. So I called my colleague to sort the matter out. And from their conversation I heard one distinct statement: "Woh Hindi nahi jaantha hain?". My colleague tried to be nice, "Woh sirf paggar nahi jaantha hain". I added one more word to the list of words I did not know.

As I mentioned briefly earlier, I had been to the post office today to send out a money order. I had to buy the money order form.
"Money order...?" Why do my statements always trail away in uncertainty when it comes to speaking to others in local languages?
"Form chahiye?"
"Haan! haan!" I said happily. I know the Hindi word for Yes perfectly well. But deep down I knew, I was only trying to hide the fact that I did not know a form had to be filled in. That was the first time I was sending a M.O
"Chaara..", the lady at the counter said
I gave her a ten rupee note.
"Change nahi hain?"
"Nahi", I was sorry. I looked into my purse. I only had a rupee coin.
She gave me the form and lots of coins! What the hell! Did she give the six rupees in fifty paises? I counted nine rupees and seventy five paise and realised it was only "Chaarana" and not "chaar" !
After sending the money order, I went back and confessed that I did not understand her properly and that I now have change worth a ten rupee note. She smiled. But I am sure she laughed within.

I stepped out into the gloomy day with its irritating drizzle. Am I growing old so soon? Are my cells dying so fast? Not being able to learn new languages and not being able to hear properly, surely these are signs of getting old. And I lost a word game yesterday. And did not do quite well in another.

I came back to my office and sat to think. Instead of thinking of ways of learning the language, I quickly came to a decision. 'May be I should play deaf and dumb'.

"Pagaar"
"mm?" Showing a question mark with my hand
"PagAAR"
"mm?" Showing the question and frowning with my eye brows furrowed.
"SUNAI nahi detha KYA?", pointing to her ears
Calmly, I show my ears and mouth and cross my hands. Then I show her my palm asking her to wait. My colleague takes over. And then probably I would have heard, "Bechara! Usko zara sorry boldijiye. Patha nahi tha"

Its not just the language. The world is a strange theatre to me and every scene, I am forced to think I should have played deaf and dumb. I graduated from a Tech School from Physics Department. It is probably because of the Physics department that I failed to learn Hindi. After all the reasoning that is being fed into me, how do you expect me to decide that objects like sun, book, flower, hair, water, paper, phone, police, bag, food, time, hotel,... every damn thing on earth is either male or female! But its not just Hindi...

"Which department?"
"Physics"
"What is an exciton?"
"WHAT?"
"Abe! quantum mechanics padtha nahi hain kya?"
"WHAT?"
"Abe! Hindi nahi aathi hain kya?"

They expect me to know Quantum Mechanics and Cosmology because I graduated from Physics Department. While my interest and much of my courses were related to light and optics. So do I know Optics very well? Not the least of it. Optics is a very vast subject. After spending two "FULL" years in optics, I learnt that what I know is just 1E-39 of the whole. That would roughly be the fraction of 1cm to the size of the universe today... I mean these days.

And then, I sketch as a hobby.
"You can sketch?"
"NO"

I write as a hobby
"You are a writer!"
"Now, WHO told you that?"

I watch a lot of Japanese animes (animated series) and can speak some pleasantries in Japanese. But I do not know Japanese. I have mixed what I know of Telugu and Malayalam and was able to survive in Tamil Nadu (Telugu and Malayalam are supposedly local dialects of the original Tamizh). But I do not know Tamil.

Now, when I am in high spirits, I just look at things the other way around. I do not know Tamil, but I could survive in Tamil Nadu. I do not know Visual Basic, but I am coding in Visual Basic. I did not know HTML, but I wrote my resume in HTML. I could do couple of other things. Little tricks to keep living!

But I am not alone in this. There is another guy from Andhra Pradesh where I live and he was talking to a tall guy from Nagpur. I was lying on my bed reading, as usual. They were talking about seasons, flowers, bees and fruits.
"Kya season main aatha hyin", said the Telugu guy, with his heavy telgish accent.
"Summer", said the tall guy coolly
"Mangoes ka season main?"
"After mangoes"
"Kya variety miltha hain?"
"variety?"
"haan.. mathlab.. santra ya orange?"

....silence....
I could no longer hold my laughter. I turned to look at the tall guy. He sat shocked, with his mouth open. And then I let out a laugh. It lasted five long minutes and my insides were aching from all the twitching and rolling. The Telugu guy probably meant to ask whether it was sweet lime or orange.

Look it this way or that, alone or not, I do not know what role I play. What purpose. What divine reason. The important questions that have plagued the philosophers and the common men alike, in good times and bad ones, alike. There was a time, when these questions drove me crazy. The obsession to find the answers ended in a rather unexpected way. It might be hilarious to some one stranger like you. But it came to me like a much awaited rain washing away the filth. I now don't mind playing the fool nor the deaf and dumb. I don't mind playing anything or nothing, as long as I have books with stories. The fact that I myself am playing a role on a stage became less daunting and intimidating, when I began to set stages and see the puppets unravel the story. I left those important questions unanswered. I remember. I remember well. I remember how it felt to get drenched in the rain, smelling the wet earth and dropping the questions to be washed away by the flood. I was reading "To Kill A Mockingbird" then. In Chennai. During my internship in IMSc. The summer I met a girl with big black eyes who was very good at Math. I remember the feeling. I knew I was stepping down the props of humanity, to become just a doll.. a puppet... to not be amused, but to amuse.

Reason, you ask, Ma'm?
Haha... One day might come, Ma'm, when you will see this mighty stage. It is so unreasonable, there is no place for reason. Desire and Will. They are the only things keeping it ticking. My desire for stories. And Her willingness to narrate.

Did you say you want to try, Ma'm?
Come. Step up. Choose your mask. Pick your colours. Oh those ribbons would suit you so good. Yes, yes! They are all yours. You can put on any frock you desire. Do not be reasonable. Now then, are you ready? Know that the crowd might scare you. You can shiver and tremble. You can stammer. Thats alright. Just remember, don't be amused. You are here to amuse.

End of article!
:P
I don't know what happened and how it turned out to be like this. This looks like a dream. A dream churning reality with imagination. I think I need some caffeine.

Jade.