From this turn, walk by some lazy paths and a few fast paced ones

When we were kids, my sister listened to Hindi film songs.  Ameen Sayani's "Binaca Geetmala" was a favorite of hers.  She faithfully tuned in and counted down to the number one song.

That is how I got hooked on to the old Hindi songs.  

I then kept going further back in time, and ancient enough to talk about Shamshad Begum's songs with my father!

With barely a couple of Hindi words in my vocabulary, I love those songs for the melodies, and for whatever meaning they give me.  If only I could understand the poetry in some of those lyrics, like how the Tamil ones appealed to me!

Back to my sister.

Once, during her high school years, my sister and her friend, "M," decided to practice singing together a Hindi movie song.  Just for the fun of it.  

She first recorded the song from the radio broadcast in the Telefunken (I think that was the brand name) cassette tape recorder that we had.  The two friends then practiced singing that song, with my brother's help.  

What was his contribution?  My brother had his fingers on the tape recorder--to stop, or rewind, or fast forward the tape on command, so that the two girls could practice.

A few years ago, I asked my brother about the song.  He immediately hummed a tune, which, according to him, was the one that we were all tortured with.  Old as I am, I have promptly forgotten which song it was.

So, why the title of this post?

I borrowed that from an old Hindi song.  It is a statement on life--it is full of twists and turns, with slow walks and desperate runs.  

It turns out that having been a middle child was not a bad deal after all.  I wouldn't have these stories without a sibling ahead of me and another always in a rush to catch up with me.  I owe them thanks for having enriched my life.

Here's one of my favorites from those Binaca Geetmala years.

The great danger in our age is nationalism

One of my early memories of Hindi, from my early years deep in peninsular India, was from when mother asked the gurkha why he was coming by way early in the night to check on the property, when he should be coming much later.

As a kid, I was shocked.  Mother knew Hindi?  And, like most kids, I was impressed.  Mothers do know everything!

I never bothered to learn the language, other than during the mandatory couple of years of Hindi language in school.  The older I grew, the more I hated the very thought of learning Hindi--because, by then I had learnt a little bit about the long and rich history of Tamil, and about the politics of imposing Hindi upon us non-Hindi people.

So much was the anti-Hindi sentiment inside me that even in graduate school, if a couple of Indian students spoke in Hindi when I was also with them, I would remind them that I didn't know Hindi.  The assumption that anybody from India knows Hindi--and should know the language--has always pissed me off to no end.

Decades have gone by since those years in Neyveli.  And I have become more fanatical about this issue.  Because, understanding the world a lot more has also made me realize that forcing a new language upon people is one of the oldest successful strategies that bastards have always employed.  The stories echo all over the world--from the native peoples in the Americas who were systematically forced to learn alien European languages and, in the process, render dead their own languages, to the Russification in the old Soviet bloc, to the Uighurs, to ...

Six years ago, almost to the very date, I quoted this:

A single generation of English education suffices to break the threads of tradition and to create a nondescript and superficial being deprived of all roots

Forcing a language upon people is one of the easiest ways to erase history and tradition.

I have ranted about this issue for a long time.  Perhaps all the easier for me, not because I have been an American for a long time, but because I have always believed that "Indian" is an artificial construct.  I even go to other blogs and write about this!

Thus, I am not surprised at the intense opposition that continues to grow against the Hindu Raj's Home Minister and his push for Hindi.

Speaking at a public meeting organised by ally MDMK on the 111th birth anniversary of former Chief Minister C.N. Annadurai in Chennai, Mr Stalin said, “If we close our eyes for a second, they will impose Hindi and completely discard Tamil. We have been protesting against this since 1938. We protested in 1949, 1950, 1953, 1963 and 1965. We have once again arrived at a stage where we have to protest.”

Nationalism is a danger, especially when coming from the likes of politicians "ruling"* governing India now.  I will quote, again, Mario Vargas Llosa:

I believe that the great danger in our age is nationalism, it’s no longer fascism, nor communism. These ideologies have become completely outdated. But in contrast, nationalism is a defect that is always there under the surface and above all, at moments of crisis, can be very easily exploited by demagogues and power-hungry leaders. Nationalism is the great tradition of humankind; unfortunately it’s always present in history.
And so, I believe that it’s the great enemy of democracy. It’s the great enemy of freedom and a terrible source of racism. If one believes that being born into or forming part of a particular community is a privilege, then that is racism. I believe that one must fight nationalism energetically if one believes in democracy, in freedom, especially in this age of mixing and the building of great blocks.

If only the ill-informed and malicious Hindians will spend a few hours reading about Tamil, for instance.  If only they even half-understood that "to know Tamil" can also mean "to be a civilized human being."

* A few years ago, Vijay Nambisan wrote about how Indians continue to think of parties in power as "rulers" when they are merely elected to govern.  It is more than mere semantics.  I am not able to track down his commentary.

Click here for the backstory about this

PS: I love you!

I like to think that the reason for the adoption of English as a dominant global language lies not in its adaptability or the geographic reach of the British Empire, but in a phenomenally easy one: the utterly uncomplicated, and simple-syllable, way of saying "I love you."

That phrase explains it all.

Many of the Tamil and the Hindi movies that I watched when growing up in India, if they were not stories that were strictly rural in their settings, had "I love you" sometimes even more than once in the dialog.  After all, most movies dealt the affairs of the heart and they ran for nearly three hours.

My guess is that thanks to the movies, even quite a few among the population who didn't know how to read and write were familiar with "I love you" as an expression and its meaning.

If one of the characters had to say "I love you" in Tamil, for instance, it is way more than three syllables.  நான் உன்னை காதலிக்கிறேன் (Naan unnai kaadhalikkiren)

Way easier to say "I love you" instead and seal the deal by running around the trees!

Or, consider in Hindi (I hope I am correct here with my rudimentary knowledge that is nearly 30 years old): मैं तुमसे प्यार करता हूँ (Main tumse pyar karta hun)  Isn't the English version way easier for the mouth?

I like to also think that the words and sounds needed to express that feeling is why those were also not said much when I was a kid.  To this day, I have never heard my parents tell each other "I love you."  Of course, it is the cultural aspect here--where such expressions were not a part of the everyday existence.  I wonder if India has changed, and whether my generation, or their kids, freely say "I love you."

Back in my life in California, once we had invited over for dinner an older couple, who had immigrated from South Korea.  It was hilarious when during the conversation the wife remarked that her husband doesn't say "I love you" to her.

She then looked at him and practically dared him.  He didn't bite though!  My guess is that it is way more syllables in Korean than it is in English :)

He had a wonderful sense of humor, too and maybe that was his key to success at home and at his business. Without a pause, he replied in his Korean accent, "but, what has love got to do with marriage?"

We all laughed.  Unlike "I love you" laughter is easy and the same in any language.

The Hindi kolaveri continues on in Tamil Nadu. No "veri" for Tamil, however.

Way, way, back when I was a kid, I thought it was exciting to hear all about how Hindi was being imposed on Dravidians and the Tamil Nadu politicians all worked up against it.  The natural inclination to join the fight against anything imposed started, as far as I can recall, from this absurd promotion of Hindi as the national language. 

As a teenager, when I was associated with a political movement about which I am not at all proud of--perhaps the worst sin I have ever committed--I asked the leader why he was often talking to us in Hindi.  He replied that English is an European language, which did not belong to this land.  I told him that Hindi did not belong in Tamil Nadu.  He did not like it.  In any case, soon I was off that political movement as well.

A lot has changed over the decades.  But, after all the travels within this country, it does seem like there is very little Hindi usage in Tamil Nadu even now.  It is not that there is a whole lot of love and affection for the Tamil language; after all, as my experiences with the Mozhi t-shirt showed, while there is a great deal of rhetoric about love for Tamizh, in reality, however, kids and teenagers in Chennai seem to converse more often in English than Tamizh, while adults don't seem to worry about the language all that much.

Walking around in the busy shopping streets of T-Nagar, very, very rarely do I hear any Hindi.  A lot of English and Tamizh, and a good smattering of Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam--all South Indian languages.

Hindi being rare a sound is such a contrast to my experiences in the places I traveled.  Even in the busy Connaught Place in New Delhi, even youngsters were mostly talking in Hindi--though they often did say "hi" to each other.  It was quite common an experience for me when I attempted to chat with auto and taxi drivers to find out that they knew even less English compared to taxi drivers in Ecuador!

At the IIT campus in Delhi, when I asked the taxi driver to stop at a roundabout so that I could ask a gentleman who was formally attired about the directions to my friend's office, I was quite shocked that he first replied in Hindi.  When I asked him again, he decided to address the taxi driver instead--in Hindi.  Yep, that was the case even at a campus of a leading university.  Now, of course, one swallow doesn't make a summer.  But, hey, I can't discount this experience either.

In train compartments and at airports, when in Tamil Nadu, children seem to be excited to talk to their parents in English.  But, in the other places north of the state, kids and parents conversed mostly either in the local language or in Hindi.

I do not assume that there is a conscious effort to keep Hindi away from Tamil Nadu.  It is not anything like the 1960s and 1970s when there were systematic efforts to drive Hindi out because of a real worry that it was being imposed.  Personally, the kid and the teenager in me who actively sympathized with the anti-Hindi emotions continues to be happy that Hindi has not become the lingua franca.  And, the fact that the younger population gravitate towards English is also an asset when it comes to the global economic marketplace. 

But, ... if only the youngsters were equally passionate about Tamizh! 

While I may have lost the fluency I once had in the language--the fluency and interest that drove me to read a whole lot of Tamizh literature even though I did not formally study the language in school after the primary years--there is, I suppose, always an emotional attachment to the language that we first learnt.  But, more than mere emotions, I am afraid that by not having a passion for Tamizh, the youngsters deprive themselves of a phenomenal opportunity to gain a little bit of understanding of the oldest living language with a rich literature past and with a very, very long history. 

A few weeks ago, dad gave me an article to read in which the author lamented about having watched a television show in which they went around asking people who Bharathidasan was.  The author seemed to be livid with the the ignorance on display, and I agreed with his feelings.  One, he wrote there, even replied that Bharathidasan was a former governor of the state!  That is a reflection of how much there is scant interest in Tamizh.   

I hope the tide will change. Soon.

Am a foreigner in a familarly strange land

How much a stranger am I in India?

Here is an example: In Delhi, I stepped out one morning with the intention of hiring an autorickshaw in order to get to a place that was not an easy walk.  A cab driver approached me.  I got into my defensive mode, as usual.

"You want a taxi, sir?"

"No, thanks" I said, because I was not in the mood to spend that much more for a taxi compared to what it might cost me for an auto.

But, he persisted.  The way he spoke and behaved, I was convinced he can be trusted.

I hired him.

As we started driving, he introduced himself as Tasleem, and gave me his business card.  "You can also email me, sir, if you want to go anywhere" he added.  Imagine that; email has become so mundane!  How awesome!

Throughout the drive, I didn't breathe a word about coming from America.  Yet, of course, he knew.  We talked about America later on.  As we neared the destination, Tasleem said with all earnestness, "from here, when you hire an auto, sir, walk a little bit away and then hire.  Right here at this tourist place, there are cheats."  And a little bit more such advice.

I appreciated his helpfulness.  It was also yet another pointer on how much people easily figure out that I am a foreigner.

Especially in places like Delhi, where I was so bloody clueless with my very little Hindi.  I had vastly underestimated the pervasiveness of Hindi in Delhi.

I had an easier time in Quito than in Delhi; the irony is that compared to the few words of Spanish I know, it is almost as if I am expert in Hindi.  Yet, being a tourist was way easier in Quito.  Go figure!

My friend, "S," seemed to be worried sick about me loitering the streets of Delhi.  She called everyday to make sure I was ok, and had suggestions for me.  Similarly, when I didn't call my parents one evening, the following morning dad called and asked "why didn't you call last evening?  I was a little worried."

Perhaps they knew all too well that I will be a fumbling foreigner who would be severely handicapped by the lack of Hindi.

The heights of the lack of Hindi was when I wanted to get an autorickshaw to go to the Red Fort.  I walked up to a driver and said "Red Fort."

He looked at me with a quizzical expression, and asked me "लाल something?"  I recognized only लाल (meaning red) in what he said.  I nodded my head and we proceeded.  I still cannot understand why a touristy Red Fort is not as familiar in its English name as लाल क़िला is.   

That auto driver made it crystal clear that I am a foreigner in a land that is familiar and yet very, very, unfamiliar to me.

I never would have imagined that I will be so much implementing Freeman Dyson's advice to be a stranger during a sabbatical from work :)

Looking back, I can all the more appreciate "S" and "U" telling me, in separate instances, to simply keep my mouth shut and let them do the talking for me too.  Now, that is friendship when they know exactly how to deal with idiots like me.  Thank you, "S" and "U" ...

Elvis and Indians. No, not what you think!

The creative abilities of people, eh :)

First, Elvis and his jailhouse gang singing and dancing to Mohammed Rafi


The one who put this together notes:

In India, Shammi Kapoor, introduced the rock culture as a youth icon and in one of his films - 'China Town' a 1962 Hindi film and had mesmerising songs from the Great music composer Ravi and WONDERFULLY sung by Indian Jewel Legendary classic Mohd Rafi.

One such song of shammi is picturized with Jailhouse rock and another elvis video to stretch to the full Hindi songs. Also due to attempt to stretch to full song, repeated clippages may appear.

And here is Kishore Kumar with his 'playback' for Elvis



Well, why leave it here? Here is yet another "Indian" channeling Elvis' Jail House Rock

Remembrance of things past: Caravan

As a kid, I loved listening to Hindi film songs even though I had no clue about the lyrics thanks to knowing only a few words in that language.  That fascination hasn't exited my system one bit.  Here is a video from a movie that came out forty years ago, and I bet I knew this song only because of my sister, five years older than me--I wonder if she knew what they were singing about :)



Thanks to this fantastic site for the lead into the collection here.

Ban "W" in India?

In case you thought this is about the "W" as in President Bush, well, far, far from it!

If any reader finds this of interest, and has explanations to offer: the Sanskrit language and its offsprings, and the Dravidian languages too, do not have a "w" sound. Thus, many Indians tend to pronounce, say, "went" as if it were "vent."  That is understandable.  But, what I don't get it is this: when writing a town name, for instance, in English, a "w" gets introduced.

Ok, let me give an example for this puzzle that has bugged me for a long time.

The board in the photo on the left is the sign at a railway station.
Notice the "w" in the name? 
But, then if you look at the name written in Hindi, it is a "v" sound; the Hindi letter corresponding to the "V" in Vijayawada.

 I would think that this then ought to be "Vijayavada," which is how it is referred to in Hindi and Tamil and Telugu ....

Unless it is a word imported from a foreign language, there is no place for "w" in India?

BTW, if you thought I butcher up the English pronunciations now, you ought to be happy you did not meet me when I was fresh off the boat decades ago :)