Kehna Kya Chahte Ho?

As a child I went to a government aided school where I had friends from different economic as well as linguistic backgrounds and we rarely spoke to each other in English. And so like many of my friends I had the habit of translating whatever I think in Hindi or my mother tongue into English. So I would go like "How long are you?" direct transation of "tumhari lambai kitni hain?" and then my convent school friend would try best to control her giggles and tell me, "Sanjana...how Tall.. how tall are you?"

Thank fully I had generous friends and my family helped me out. But I think this language puzzle is more than it seems. It is not just communicating, its about how every language has its own way of communication, and languages change in different social settings and different social groups. You can call it Lingo or may be different ways of articulation. Because of these differences we might make the horrible error of judging someone as a dumb person.

To give another example, in my class while discussing economics our professor began, "Economics as a discipline looks at the problem of choice. We have a set of constraints within which we have to make choice which is central to economics" It was quite clear what he meant. One of my classmates seemed perplexed and had a funny expression on his face like someone who just finished crapping and found out that the flush is not working! "But sir, if I have a cycle and I want to go to somewhere then I would choose the cycle. Iss me Problem Kya hain??" he asked. The professor shook his head and said, "Agar yaha se 100 km 15min me jaana ho toh tum cycle me jaoge ki auto ya car me? So you make a choice according to your location and time that is the problem of choice". Again irritated my classmate goes on, "Agar door hain toh bus/auto/car me jaao, paas hain toh cycle me jaao! Iss me Problem Kya hain? Samasya Kya hain? Agar hum har cheez ko samasya samjhenge toh life me aage kaise badenge??". At this point we all were falling off our chairs laughing! The professor realized what had happened and he said pressing every word. "Ye Hindi wala Samasya nahi hain. Problem matlab charcha aur gaur ka vishay. Matlab ki Samasya nahi hain....par yahi samasya hain". That was it I fell off my chair laughing could not take this anymore!! 

I realized later that the way we talk in academic circles is very different than how we converse in everyday life. There is a specific Discourse (a written or spoken communication which uses specific terms and terminology which have different meanings within the context) in which different words mean different things and are used differently. Corporate houses may talk about efficiency, value and profit in different connotations. The more diverse the meanings get the more scope it provides people to express themselves in different ways. And this diversity is required to break the monotony and often to challenge certain dominant ways of thinking.Wonder why we like Poetry, short stories and protest music so much? Because they blow your mind by using the same language but say things differently, open up a new perspective within the constraints of the same language. And I think this diversity is fun and nice to experience because it opens our mind new narratives and understandings.

This again reminds me my most favourite comic book character - Suppandi! I'm sure most kids from the 90s have read Tinkle at least once and skipped most stories to find the Suppandi story and read it first.

Many people think that Suppandi is a fool but the truth is just a simpleton villager who struggles with the ways of the city life. He is so loyal to his masters that he enjoys every work given to him and thinks for the well-being of his master. But he does not understand the work language of the city dwellers. If you ask Suppandi to keep a watch on some property he would remove his wrist watch and place on it. He is not an idiot, he is just literal. And every time he is thrown out or fired he again comes back with the same energy to get a new job. He gets disappointed for the fact that his master lost a loyal servant or for something else but not because he cannot earn. (read cultural capital )

 Now what if one of the generous masters enrolls Suppandi in a Public speaking class or for that matter a grooming class or make him do a course that trains him to be the perfect labour like how we have become by being trained into the formal education system where in we all think the same and look at things in a fairly similar way. Here Suppandi loses his charm of resistance. Suppandi relates to all those people who struggle with the language of work in formal spaces. And it is this resistance of Suppandi who refuses to reform and learn the ways of his master and the ability to get back with a bang with a new work, new story and a new master which makes us laugh and secretly admire Suppandi. As he can afford to not conform by the virtue of being a fictitious character and we have to get an education, get an MBA to get the job and be the perfect product of the system which can be absorbed into the labour industry. 

By the virtue of being Humans we are creative and find ways to do things differently within the things that we have been given and hence we constantly try to break out of the systems that bind us when we reach a saturation point. And these multiple understandings and diverse ways of expressing gives us the window to be creative and look at things differently and be able to understand others and incorporate what they feel. Diversity sucks! b'coz there will be no standard way of communicating but then you can not have a Mcdonald burger everyday. We need noodles, kadi chawal. sambaar and sometimes khichdi and variety in everything that we do. 

So next time someone cannot understand what you are saying I think its not that the other person is dumb, it means that its your opportunity to understand things differently! :)

This is my first blog post. Hope you like it!
If you feel like saying-" Arey! ye kya bakwas hain" then please comment, lekin zara pyaar se!