What Language Do You Speak?

That was a normal Sunday evening on Mumbai streets. Walking with my gal, holding hands together we went inside a boutique (I had no choice but to go inside, as my “Should we?” or “Shouldn’t we?” had to be “Yes we should…” just not to spoil the beautiful evening). The boutique was very small but well designed to attract people like us. There were three women inside. One was fashion designer with her collection of dresses hanging in one corner; another was jewelry designer standing besides small collection of jewelry she designed and a granny sitting on the cash counter. This situation with so many women around made my ‘shy level’ increase by 3 times.

Things were normal when my gal interacted with the gal (fashion designer) in English. They discussed about the dresses, materials used and so many other things that made me feel much as an alien. *Very Imp: It is always better to keep quite when gals chat around*. Then my gal turned around to old granny and said “आंटी आप खाना खालो | it’s ok”, as we saw her having food while entering the boutique. They conversed in Hindi for some time. It was still OK with Hindi and English. Now, she started talking with the gal who took care of jewelry, in Gujrati saying “આમાં કુંદન work કરી આપસો”, as she looked pure Gujrati from the time we saw her. She replied back “I am sorry but I don’t understand Gujrati” and my gal was “I am really very sorry” and started with English again getting involved in their unilateral conversation.

All I was thinking in my mind was the language transformation that took place within few minutes, English to Hindi to Gujrati to English again. It flashed in my mind the values I learned in my schooling about diverse Indian culture. I was about to abort this thought of my mind and “तन्मय... ह्या दोन मधून कुठलं चांगलं आहे. तुला कुठलं आवडलं? सांग लवकर मी confused आहे.”, my gal asked me. This made all eight eyes stare at me. I could make up from their expressions as first pair of eyes were like “Is he Marathi??? the Sena boy… ”, second pair “Select the second one so that I can convince her to buy dress hanging in right corner”, third pair of eyes were still confused on “how a Gujrati gal is with a Marathi boy? Is he going to answer in Marathi?” and fourth pair said “You decide on any one it doesn’t matter, I will take the one I like…”. You believe it or not, it was the fourth language spoken… damn it man. Four languages in few minutes!!! Unbelievable. It made me feel more uncomfortable to answer as all were waiting for my shot. Confused me, trapped in language fuss, controlling my timid behavior moved my finger over the second jewelry piece to tell my choice without speaking a word. To make me finalize my choice attempt, my gal asked me for one last chance “Are you sure on this one ?” and I had to speak a word to make it count for all and I said “hmmmmm….” with facial gesture of little up-down movements which meant the same thing in all four languages. ;)

Imagine the language transformation: English -> Hindi -> Gujrati -> English -> Marathi -> English
Believe it or not, we have diverse Indian culture but all we know is how to handle the communication medium with having female counterparts. ;)