Retort

I’d been interacting with this person (had to no other way) for last three months who provoked my anguish about those people judging others for no apparent reason(s). During our first meeting she casually mentioned about Mexicans coming to this country and not learning English. I was so uncomfortable interacting with her after that .I welcome people taking time to learn a new language. It’s much easier said than done for majority of immigrants working 2  to 3 jobs while maintaining a family life.

 After our first meeting, I knew where she is coming from. She doesn’t know or speak any other language than English (that too Amrikan English). When she does, I am sure she would see people differently. She is one of those people who haven’t travelled much or had opportunities interacting with people from different race/culture/country. Such people live in their own tiny world and expect everybody to have same habits, culture or language like them.  One of my colleague who has MS in computer Science working for a world-famous tech company asked me “Can you get bubble gum in India?.Duh.  I’ve been asked countless times about “What language do you use when you think?. Duh.  I‘ve had many opportunity to meet such people who made my day  look so simple and easy. I can write so many stories for "All in a day's work " segment in Reader’s Digest.

 Even when immigrants speak and write fluent English they are expected  to use American accent. I don’t know if this is the case with any European countries. I would love to hear the stories/events from Indian expats living in European countries about expectation set for them. Are you able to survive with just English or forced to learn the language of the country you live in. I know this  is the case for France since many of CB’s cousins have settled there since seventies.

 I’ve had very similar experience interacting with desi crowd. Every Hindi speaking people expect every single person from India to know Hindi.I can understand Hindi and manage to reply like a 4 yrs old Hindi speaking kid. The same goes for my mother tongue (in literal sense) Malayalam. My poor husband who knows may be ten words in Hindi (ek, do-----Dus and lyrics to “chura liyah” song since his dad listened to it all the time) got harassed  by this Hindi speaking clerk (girl) working in a desi grocery store. In spite of telling her politely (we 've been shopping there for many years) that he doesn’t speak Hindi, she continued to converse in Hindi. She stopped bothering him when he snapped at her in his own cool way by replying in gibberish resembling Hindi. I am sure, he made all non-hindi speaking customers standing the line very proud.

 When you go to a desi gathering and if you spot English speaking people you can blindly say that they are from Tamil Nadu. Tamilians are proud to say that we are not fluent in our language because we took “Hindi, French, German and what not “ as our second language.  My husband belongs to that crowd. He can talk and write in Tamil but not like he is supposed to for his age. He kills Tamil when he writes and don’t understand lot of words and needs me to translate/explain. His mother is a Tamil language teacher with two masters degrees yet failed so miserably to teach her kids her own language. “Teacher pilla makku (Teacher’s kid is stupid) stands good in this case. Thank god, she was not computer science teacher.  If we don’t love and learn our native language who would? And those people who aren’t fluent in their native language lose their right to point out or correct the errors of non-native language writer(s).

 CB once wrote “Malai ” for “mazhai ” and never realised his mistake even after I pointed out. (Malai=> hill , Mazhai=>Rain). I wished instead of mazhai , malai came and hit his Tamil illiterate head.

And now my readers you know the reason for this post where I vent my feeling about his concern for English engliphish.