Namaskara Bangalore!

My writer's block is certainly not due to lack of thoughts, rather the opposite. Many questions and doubts about the settling in process have been answered. Finding good help, summer classes, grocery stores, local snack shops etc are all done. And in a much shorter timeframe than I imagined. Mainly because there are no language issues this time around. Most people speak a fair bit of English and an even fairer bit of Tamil. Although I'm a proud owner of this, I do feel that I'm not going to need it much.

Maybe Namaskara will suffice...

You can call me xxxx

When help around the house changes, the way I'm addressed also changes. Amma, madam, akka, mam. And now...UNDI! Pronounced exactly how its spelt! I have heard it used many a time before but just not at me. Undi is sort of like giving respect while addressing the person except that all it does is crack me up! Here's an example, one a true incident and the other, just silliness.

Babu nidram poyinda? (Has the baby slept?)
Ownu undi. (Yes, undi!)

Babu undies ekadaa? (Where are the baby's undies?)
Undies aa undi? (Baby's undies, undi?)

Just typing that up made me smile :).

Languageu lessonsu

I've learnt a fair amount of Telugu in the last three years, no credit to the book that I bought soon after I moved to Hyderabad in 2006. Not only was the vocabulary useless (the first word in the list was 'causeless') but also the presentation was just terrible. Anyway, it turned out that the better source for Telugu lessons were my house help teaching me more slang and dialects that would turn out to be more useful on a day-to-day basis.


But my 'unending quest' to continue to learn made me go back to the vocab page in this book. Among the many other useless words written up, I came across two that made me 'rofl'. The words for telephone and principal. In TelugU and just like the title of this post!

Any guesses?

Lost in translation

Language is funny. It's words, gestures, just raised or arched eyebrows (especially with kids around) sometimes. Every language has its own quirks. People say that the Italians speak with their hands and Indians just by nodding their heads. Whatever it is, learning a new language is quite an exciting and interesting experience. Having learnt a little bit of French and Italian in the past, I've since believed that I have a knack for picking up languages.

India has 28 official languages (I think) and a zillion dialects. The national language is supposedly Hindi but in the south, especially Madras, (Tamil Nadu) where I'm from, one hardly has any exposure to it unless they've been bitten by the Bollywood bug. Never having been a movie buff, I would say that my Hindi has always been worse than 'passable'. Anyhow, it was with apprehension that I came to Hyderabad where the local language is Telugu but most people speak Hindi as well (thanks to the Nizam culture and influence). The going was very tough in the beginning. Most of my daily communication with the household help (maids, chauffeur) was through actions. It was like my day was spent just playing charades. The worst part was that I would lose the game all the time as they had no idea what I was saying and vice versa. Over the months though, I've improved a great deal, not by reading any books, but just by talking a lot to my maids. Today I was very thrilled because my oldest (and most honest) friend, whose mother tongue is Telugu, complimented me on my grasp of the language. "Impressive", she said! How exciting! I'm sure she turned a deaf ear to the grammatical errors and focused on the vocabulary. Whatever it is, a compliment is a compliment!

The only emotion that I still have a great deal of difficulty expressing is anger. There are many instances where I see so many inefficiencies and I just want to rant and rave. Those times, I wish I were back in Madras, speaking good old Tamil (especially cheri Tamil) so I can give someone a piece of my mind without having to think so much! It's so difficult to translate angry thoughts and say them in the local language. I'm sure they would sound just purely stupid. My other worry is that they may sound harsher than I intend them to. End result is that I don't say anything out loud but just curse within.

Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe there is a reason why everything can't be translated.