Tower of Babel

Growing up in a multi lingual family has only its down sides that seems to raise its ugly head at the queerest of times. Being the only not-so-laudable scion of a Parsi mother and a staunch Hyderabadi father left lingual scars on my personality. To date I lapse in to non-understandable jargon that delights the auditory recipients and makes me more accepted in this society that pities all types of "beychaaris".

My earliest recollection is of my father ensconced languidly in his favourite chair with a Macho Marlboro in his mouth making fun of my mother and my aunts as they cackled away in Endlessgujrati. Papa would make similar cackling sounds drawing angry glares from my aunts that later translated in to rebukes to my mother for marrying an "insensitive clod". Years later, Papa finally succeeded in training my aunts and mother of accepting his peculiarity that singularly consisted of presenting a "jhankar" version of Gujrati. Later, at some family gatherings, he was requested to embarrass my aunts further by presenting his skill acquired through the years! In their old age, I would often notice Papa making up with Mummy in the same vernacular. A bone of contention had transformed into a sweet and loving memory.

Till the age of four, I too spoke a curious language. With my father speaking to me in Hyderabadi, my mother in Gujrati, my neighbours in Urdu, my schoolteachers in English, what else was expected of me? I spoke the happy mix with much aplomb for I was a talkative child. Every one who imparted language education to me was concerned. "What will become of the poor child?" they all wondered. I meanwhile continued to elude any one who wanted to understand me and thus perfected the art of modern-day political lingua.

One evening I accompanied my cousins to the small unkempt garden of Alliance Francaise where the Peer Brothers were holding their puppet show. I was delighted at the prospect of meeting the "cousins of Fraggle Rock". As we waited on the ricketyrockety chairs, I struck up conversation with an auntie sitting next to me. I was curious about her jewelry, her car, her clothes, her make up, her stocks, her bank account, her cook and all those other topics that curious 7 year olds are curious about. In the mean time, the puppets began playing out the lovely story of the Sleeping Beauty. I, however, was still engrossed in the auntie's lineage and she increasingly obliged the "cute-looking child". More than an hour passed and my assault of questions did not stop. As the puppet show drew to a close, I was still speculating the gender of the child she held in her hand. So I decided to satiate my curiosity and just as the Prince was about to kiss the Sleeping Beauty I asked in my most officious and loud voice: "Yeh chokra hai keh chokri?"

At that instance the children learnt the all-important lesson of asking this question before venturing a kiss to a Beauty. The puppet too was stunned! Instead of the Beauty he looked quizzically towards the new protagonist. Only then did I hear a few muffled snickers. These quickly translated into raucous laughter with the puppet still left wondering what to do. I perhaps gave the best climax to any puppet show that the Peer Brothers have ever performed.

At home, my "chokra-chokri" incident was repeated for nth number of times. As soon as my father got wind of this, it precipitated a fresh bout of fight between Papa and Mummy. Papa knew he had to take quick and ruthless action. From then on I was to speak only in Hyderabadi. I resigned myself to this fate while my mother lamented losing her scion to slightly evolutionized Dravidians!

Now Hyderabadi is a curious language. Females are to address themselves after the aspired male gender. Thus, began a new phase in my life that shall henceforth be chronicled as The Gender Crisis. My language was peppered with "baithtta hoon" and "khata hoon" along with the elongation of almost all Urdu words with "aan" such as "ainak-aan" and "bottle-aan" and so on. In short, my language was turning queerer and queerer and I was headed the same way.

Soon, it was time to get me admitted in a "prestigious school" and preparations were put into full swing by my parents, cousins, aunts, uncles neighbours, servants and the grocerer. On D-Day I was taken to a playroom where my intelligence was insulted repeatedly by making me recite nursery rhymes, numbers and alphabets. None of them were interested in my newly acquired skills of imitating C.H.I.P.S., biting deepest into someone's flesh, and emanating a scream to match the decibels of a full-throated soprano. After excruciating 15 minutes of imbecile recitations I was asked the all important question for which I had been prepared for weeks: "Shehlah," asked the convent nun whom I repeatedly called a nurse, "do you know English?"

I took a pregnant pause.

Hundreds of answers milled in my mind. I felt distraught and disoriented and then suddenly the face of my father flashed in front of me. His expression were grim with the demeanor of a strict Hyderabadi teacher. "Shehlah", repeated the nurse-like female, "do you know English?" Suddenly I came out of my trance and shouted in perfect Hyderabadi: "Nakko". The sisters were aghast! They thought I had uttered some expletive uptil now unheard of! They wondered how I had even made it till this stage. Like one diseased, I was quickly shooed out of the room and a next bout of fight ensued between my parents.

Despite such numerous events in my life, I grew up fully conversant in English, Gujrati, Urdu and Hyderabadi. And despite of all the above I look forward to teach my kids Gujrati, Urdu, English, Hyderabadi AND French so that their childhood is as colourful as mine. And yes, if ever your 30-something boyfriend or girlfriend asks you a gender verification question before that all-important magical moment… do forgive me!