Languages
January 18, 2006
I have heard it said that you only need to know English to get by in India. That’s good because I don’t know Hindi. My parents hail from Kerala in South India and so growing up I was exposed to only English and Malayalam. Well, I am sort of able to read Hindi. I credit the one year I spent living in India when I was in seventh grade. I still remember that while my peers were reading advanced books in Hindi I was learning to recite and read the alphabet. “Ah, aah, eh, eeh…” I am sure that I was teased but in any case those memories have faded. Anyway, I digress.
I do agree that if you are a tourist in India you can most likely get by without any knowledge of Hindi. After all tourists tend to stay at higher end hotels and frequent upscale restaurants and shops, all of which cater to socioeconomic groups, who have most likely been educated in English-medium schools. Most natives of tourist destinations have been around foreigners enough to have picked up enough English to ply their crafts or wares to them. Several years back when we visited Agra in order to see the Taj Mahal I still vividly remember there were a few small children following behind us calling out in inquiring voices, “U.S.? U.K.?” These children would try to determine a tourist’s origin and once they had figured it out, had an uncanny ability to imitate either the American or English accent perfectly.
However, as an Indian American residing in Mumbai for one year, living in our own flat, I find it challenging to get by without knowing Hindi. I have no problems conversing with our landlady or shopping in the malls or speaking with people at my daughter’s school, but I feel completely inept at handling things right in the apartment. One of the big attractions for us in spending a year in India was to take advantage of the support system, which by and large is non-existent in the U.S. By support system I am talking about maids, drivers and other people to whom you offload much of the time-consuming chores of running a household. Well I suppose that this support system is available in the U.S. but only to the affluent as people who take on these tasks demand high enough salaries to keep them out of the reach of all but the socioeconomic elite. The less fortunate do it all themselves or avail of daycare, biweekly housecleaners etc. in lieu of a nanny or full-time maid.
It is evident that the conveniences of living in India are plenty if you are above a certain income level. We have a driver and a maid and this is certain not uncommon. A doodh walla (milk seller), press walla (does the ironing for pennies a garment), katchada lady (clears the trash) appear daily at our doorstep. Provisions (food essentials like milk, butter, bread) are just a phone call away. There are also fantastic entertainment options that include restaurants that deliver (even McDonald's) and video stores that drop off movies within an hour (even better than getting it in the mail like Netflix). The only problem is that most of these people that make life easier for others are not as readily accessible to me since I don’t speak Hindi. I even have a hard time communicating with the security guards downstairs or our driver but somehow we do manage with a mish-mosh of Hindi, English and universal gestures. My Hindi-speaking husband has to get involved in many of these daily activities and I can tell he is frustrated because he was hoping not to deal with any of this at least while we are in India (all of which he has to deal with in the U.S.).
Soon after moving into our flat we were already taking advantage of the press walla. We had been giving him my husband’s clothes since he needed them right away for work. The slight affable spectacled man is a frequent site in our neighborhood peddling about on his bicycle with a stack of clothes behind him. I remember the first weekday that I let him up when my husband was at work. I was a little nervous because he did not speak any English and this was the first person I had to deal with on my own since we moved in. Luckily we had moved in on a weekend and my husband had been there to initiate contact with most of the necessary people. I don’t know what I was so worried about. We managed to communicate through gestures and each of us figured out the meanings of words we did not know by taking into account the context. In one exchange he rambled on in a stream of Hindi. The only two words I could make out were ladies and kapada. I noticed that he was looking at my wrinkled top as he spoke so I quickly gathered that he was telling me that he ironed ladies’ clothes as well. I was suddenly conscious of my ruffled appearance, laughed and said “tomorrow.”
Although Hindi and English are both national languages in India I am still constantly struck by how many people speak English (and speak it extremely well). Our non-English speaking driver mentioned that he would try to learn some English from me. He told me that his 13 year old daughter goes to an English-medium school. I have always wanted to learn Hindi. Perhaps there is no better time. And what an incentive. If I really want to be able to fully avail of the support system, I had better learn some Hindi!
I have heard it said that you only need to know English to get by in India. That’s good because I don’t know Hindi. My parents hail from Kerala in South India and so growing up I was exposed to only English and Malayalam. Well, I am sort of able to read Hindi. I credit the one year I spent living in India when I was in seventh grade. I still remember that while my peers were reading advanced books in Hindi I was learning to recite and read the alphabet. “Ah, aah, eh, eeh…” I am sure that I was teased but in any case those memories have faded. Anyway, I digress.
I do agree that if you are a tourist in India you can most likely get by without any knowledge of Hindi. After all tourists tend to stay at higher end hotels and frequent upscale restaurants and shops, all of which cater to socioeconomic groups, who have most likely been educated in English-medium schools. Most natives of tourist destinations have been around foreigners enough to have picked up enough English to ply their crafts or wares to them. Several years back when we visited Agra in order to see the Taj Mahal I still vividly remember there were a few small children following behind us calling out in inquiring voices, “U.S.? U.K.?” These children would try to determine a tourist’s origin and once they had figured it out, had an uncanny ability to imitate either the American or English accent perfectly.
However, as an Indian American residing in Mumbai for one year, living in our own flat, I find it challenging to get by without knowing Hindi. I have no problems conversing with our landlady or shopping in the malls or speaking with people at my daughter’s school, but I feel completely inept at handling things right in the apartment. One of the big attractions for us in spending a year in India was to take advantage of the support system, which by and large is non-existent in the U.S. By support system I am talking about maids, drivers and other people to whom you offload much of the time-consuming chores of running a household. Well I suppose that this support system is available in the U.S. but only to the affluent as people who take on these tasks demand high enough salaries to keep them out of the reach of all but the socioeconomic elite. The less fortunate do it all themselves or avail of daycare, biweekly housecleaners etc. in lieu of a nanny or full-time maid.
It is evident that the conveniences of living in India are plenty if you are above a certain income level. We have a driver and a maid and this is certain not uncommon. A doodh walla (milk seller), press walla (does the ironing for pennies a garment), katchada lady (clears the trash) appear daily at our doorstep. Provisions (food essentials like milk, butter, bread) are just a phone call away. There are also fantastic entertainment options that include restaurants that deliver (even McDonald's) and video stores that drop off movies within an hour (even better than getting it in the mail like Netflix). The only problem is that most of these people that make life easier for others are not as readily accessible to me since I don’t speak Hindi. I even have a hard time communicating with the security guards downstairs or our driver but somehow we do manage with a mish-mosh of Hindi, English and universal gestures. My Hindi-speaking husband has to get involved in many of these daily activities and I can tell he is frustrated because he was hoping not to deal with any of this at least while we are in India (all of which he has to deal with in the U.S.).
Soon after moving into our flat we were already taking advantage of the press walla. We had been giving him my husband’s clothes since he needed them right away for work. The slight affable spectacled man is a frequent site in our neighborhood peddling about on his bicycle with a stack of clothes behind him. I remember the first weekday that I let him up when my husband was at work. I was a little nervous because he did not speak any English and this was the first person I had to deal with on my own since we moved in. Luckily we had moved in on a weekend and my husband had been there to initiate contact with most of the necessary people. I don’t know what I was so worried about. We managed to communicate through gestures and each of us figured out the meanings of words we did not know by taking into account the context. In one exchange he rambled on in a stream of Hindi. The only two words I could make out were ladies and kapada. I noticed that he was looking at my wrinkled top as he spoke so I quickly gathered that he was telling me that he ironed ladies’ clothes as well. I was suddenly conscious of my ruffled appearance, laughed and said “tomorrow.”
Although Hindi and English are both national languages in India I am still constantly struck by how many people speak English (and speak it extremely well). Our non-English speaking driver mentioned that he would try to learn some English from me. He told me that his 13 year old daughter goes to an English-medium school. I have always wanted to learn Hindi. Perhaps there is no better time. And what an incentive. If I really want to be able to fully avail of the support system, I had better learn some Hindi!
posted by Danakka @ 9:14 AM
1 Comments:
At 12:26 AM,
Danakka said…
Good point but tell karaokechweetie that McDonald's delivers here...why I think I'll phone for a QP with cheese and a small coke right now...well actually it probably wouldn't be a QP but you get the drift!
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