My tryst with Languages

The linguistic diversity of our country never fails to amaze me.My roots being from the erstwhile north-east India and mother tongue being Bengali, I had always been subjected to learning and appreciating the literary finesse of the Bengali language and the Bengali diaspora respectively.The environment inside my school was different though - English (Shahebder bhasha -- as my teacher used to say) was the lingua franca, the medium of instruction.Along with Bengali, I grew up admiring and learning the literary works of Wordsworth,Shelley,Dickens and other stalwarts and legends of English literature.Couple of my school teachers with their scholarly aura tried their best to make us understand the sublime beauty of these literary works.One of my personal favourite happens to be the following lines from the poem "The Solitary Reaper" composed by Willam Wordsworth..... "Behold her, single in the field , yon solitary highland lass ! Reaping and singing by herself , stop here or gently pass.. Alone she cuts and binds the grain , and sings a melancholy strain. O listen ! for the value profound is overflowing with the sound " .... I wish I was there to listen to the melancholy strain.These lines pop up in my memory whenever I happen to see a lady working in the country side farm or crop field.Then there was the Bishop with his candle sticks, a story of submission and charity.We used to listen spell bound , the languid flow of poetry used to touch our mind and soul.I had quite a bit of rendezvous with these two languages.The media, visual as well as audio were tireless in their efforts to propagate Hindi to the nook and corner of this country.Being the national language, it should be learnt and learnt the right way.I learnt hindi too, faltering at times, making the stumbling blocks as stepping stones.The traditional spectacled and intellectual Bengali speaks Hindi in a bit different way though, with a lot of Bengali overtone and accent. They sound quite hilarious to our north Indian friends.They seem to enjoy listening to a Bappi "da" Lahiri or a "Pronob" Mukherjee (With all their misadventures with Hindi ), never quite understanding why a "rasgulla" becomes a "roshogolla" or "music" transforms into "mujic" for that matter. My Hindi does not have such flavour though. I took the train down south next , to pursue a career in Engineering , feeling the summer heat all the way.It's pretty common to hear the term "Madrasi" , an euphemism sort of, an umbrella word used to represent all south Indians.It still exists , though in the vocabulary of only a few geographically novice Indians.It was an altogether different experience down south , an experience that runs through the idlis, the dhosas , the tamarind trees and the Tamil language , a language I can claim to be good in. It was tough learning , years of practice to be precise. "Serri Serri ..." You have learnt enough. The Swaminathans and Ranganathans are alive in my memory ! Malayalam is another language which has a unique trajectory of it's own, quite similar to the Sine-Curve and Cos-Curve of mathematics.The language is a bit tough to follow and is spoken in a unique rhythm which only the "simble and humble" Malayalis might explain. My experiments with the language has been tangential at the most, never quite been able to follow the trajectory ! May be I didn't try hard enough.Hyderabad with all it's colours and "tehzeev" comes next in the journey. "Khaali peeli bheja garam mat karo bhai.Hyderabad mein saab kuch hota, saab kuch milta !" -- Hyderabadi precisely. The fusion of Hindi , Urdu and telugu has given birth to Hyderabadi - a language I have followed with interest ! Standing "Roobaroo " in front of the Charminar , enjoying a small dish of Ramzan Haleem, I appreciated Hyderabad and it's language. I never seem to understand how a plural version of a noun is meant when Hyderabadis add a "aan" to any possible noun. "Bus" becomes "Busaan" , Car becomes "Caraan" ! But I love when every auto rickshaw wala says "Achchi baath hain ! " to anything that is spoken to them. A lazy afternoon in Paradise Hotel, enjoying an Irani tea and listening to localites chatting in Hyderabadi would be quite an entertainment.My tryst with languages seems to be never ending. I guess that's why I am here in Pune or "aamcha Pune" (As Marathis would love to say) now. And true to my nature, I am following Marathi with keen interest.