My flatmates left the house this morning. I also found out that today is my last day in this beautiful house. That came as a surprise, but it’s fine. I also inherited most of the utensils, so you can say I’m the bhartan guy. As things stand, I have a few hours to pack everything up, and move. Then again, I hate packing. So, here I am – with another essay.
The idea for this essay originated from talking to a friend about my childhood. And from my conversations with Mom. I did not know what to call it – Memories from childhood? Learnings from the past? Adapting to change?
This essay is mostly a result of changes happening in life and of changes that had happened. Perhaps, it can be a part of a memoir someday, if I ever get to write one. This essay is also a result of the frustration that I’ve been feeling lately. I am yet to figure out the reason for that feeling. However, in writing these words I feel a sense of relief, and optimism. If not anything, writing these words helps me put a structure to all the thoughts that come and go as a result of the change.
A friend recently said that I write quite well, while others have told me that they love my blog. I’m unsure if they are just being nice because we’re friends or if the blog is actually any good.
You can let me know your thoughts anonymously or you can simply leave a comment.
Regardless, I thought I’ll talk about languages in this essay. And how the quest to learn a new language led to perhaps the single most impactful change in my life. I grew up speaking Kaubru (my father’s language) and Tripuri (my mother’s language). My parents taught me the Bengali alphabets from this booklet called Balya Sikkha which now I realise meant “kid’s education”. I also learnt the English alphabets but speaking either Bengali or English was something that I could not do yet. However, they made sure that I memorised the booklet multiple times before Class 1 started.
Kaubru and Tripuri are both spoken languages, without a distinct script, yet. I studied in a Bengali-medium school but the teacher spoke Kaubru and the Bengali I read in my books was different from what we spoke anyway. 1 But, of course, I was expected to write in proper Bengali during exams.
Thinking about it, I don’t think I understood the textbooks but it did not matter. They made me memorise everything even if I did not understand anything, especially in primary school.
I distinctly remember an incident where the village boys got into an argument with people from another village and someone used English to win the argument, apparently – they went to a school run by Christian missionaries in a nearby town. I remember thinking to myself, “Someday I’m going to speak it so well.” That village boy era me was full of optimism, and determination – a strong will to learn the English language someday. Now I’m just old, counting down my days, constantly hungry and dehydrated. 2 But this essay is not about aging, so I’ll not elaborate on this further.
After the village schooling, I took a test for admission to one such school. Surprisingly, I got in. An uncle back home asked me the name of the school and I could not tell him the name because apparently “St.” stood for “Saint” and I did not know how to pronounce that. So, I just said “es-tee full stop” and spelled out the rest of the school name. I was pretty good with spellings even though my pronunciations were terrible. The mission school is three storeys tall – it was the first time I saw such a tall structure. For context, I live on the 18th floor of a building these days. Humankind and human progress is an amazing thing.
Major changes in life are never easy but they also present a lot of opportunities. In the Bengali-medium village school, life largely revolved around the mid-day meal 3 khichdi (I wonder if that’s why I still love khichdi), learning at home and taking exams at the school. The new English-medium school presented opportunities as well challenges.
I don’t remember who dropped me off on my first day in the new school but I clearly remember getting very overwhelmed when the school day ended because it was so crowded. Worse, I did not know how to get home. I cried a lot, perhaps the most I’ve cried during my years in that school and somehow ended up home. It’s important to remember that at this point, I spoke neither Bengali nor English.
Things were about to get worse over the next few days. I had never heard about this thing called “homework” in my previous school because as I said, my parents made me memorise everything – I was never behind when it came to taking school exams. In any case, I did not know any English. So, even if the teacher had explained what was expected of me, I had no clue.
Because I just knew “What is your name? My name is Debashish Reang” by that point. The next day, the science teacher asked me to write on the board the ingredients needed to cook chicken curry. Like I said, I did not know that I was expected to learn all that. I could not write it, unfortunately. She made me stand in front of the board, and gently slapped the back of my neck. That was the first and the last time anyone touched me for the remainder of my school life.
It must have been my father or some relative – someone bought a Bengali to English dictionary and the Oxford English dictionary for me. I read both of them cover to cover. It was the most I had worked for anything. And I mean this. I really wished to speak fluent English – my spellings were okay, and I could recall most things, I just needed to figure out a way to understand this foreign language.
Bengali is not my mother tongue, so understanding Bengali was in itself a task. Add to that not understanding any English. Both of my parents’ languages are spoken languages – there are no dictionaries, obviously. I focussed on reading the two dictionaries multiple times and things slowly started to make sense towards the end of Grade 6.
For example, I could slowly understand why some king went to a battle, why seasons change, the various short stories started to make more sense. I was not simply memorizing things now. In fact, I had started to “make up” answers 4 in exams. Mom hated that so much but it was fine because she was not the one checking my papers. You are currently reading made up answers, if you think about it. :)
One day it all came to me, just like that. Even though my spoken English contained errors, my writing was more or less up to the mark and by the end of Class 7 or 8, I started scoring the highest marks in my section. I’m not saying I knew everything or that I’m very smart but my point is that I really wished to learn how to speak fluent English as a little boy and it all came to me one day. It’s mind-boggling. I have never wanted anything so badly.
I cannot say the same for Bengali but I learnt it anyway because the school offered only two languages. And Bengali is one of the state languages of Tripura 5. My Bengali skills came in handy recently during house hunting. I saw a house that I really liked and apparently there were multiple “interested parties.”
“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart”. – Nelson Mandela
One such party was with the broker when I went for the house visit, so I did the rest of the negotiations in Bengali. He was surprised hearing me speak Bengali. It felt nice when he said I speak Bengali quite well. What do you mean? I scored a “letter mark” (>80) in my Class 10 board exams and got ₹250 or something in cash from the school.
Another time, a traffic police officer had a visible mental dissociation when I started speaking to him in Bengali. He had an expression that said, “Wait! Where did that sound come from?”
Things sound very funny in my head sometimes and my pronunciations get messed up – a small price to pay all things considered. It is as if these languages are compartmentalised in my head, depending on the context and whom I’m speaking to.
For instance, when I speak to Mom, Tripuri flows effortlessly. When I speak to my father’s side of the family, Kaubru comes to me simply. I think in Bengali when I do calculations – in my head I go, “2 goon-e 2, 4” (two times two is four) because I learnt Bengali numbers before learning numbers and math in English. Most exclamations are in Hindi. When I’m frustrated I might exclaim, “Arey yaar!”
And weirdly enough I can express my feelings best in English. Things such as “I’m sorry”, “Thank you”, “I’m grateful”, “Situationship”, “Bread crumbing” 6, etc. are best expressed in English. If I start asking Mom for forgiveness in Tripuri, she would probably think I’m not eating rice thrice a day and that something bad had happened to me.
There is no concise of way of saying that you have a crush on someone or that you like someone in my parents’ languages. Speakers of Bengali, Hindi, and English will point out that “liking” someone and “loving” someone are two different things. In both Tripuri and Kaubru when you say you “like” someone it is understood that you are in love with them and would ultimately end up getting married. Saying you “like” your friend or your relative, “My cousin is so cool. I love her!” makes sense in English. If I say that in front of the elders in Kaubru or Tripuri, I might have to attend the village council meeting.
I once tried explaining to Mom the concept of “individuality” and the “liberty” to choose a life partner of one’s liking in Tripuri. At the end of my long monologue she gave a long sigh that seemed to say, “Beta tumse na ho payega.” 7 Another time I was trying to explain to her “infant mortality rate.” In my head, everything made perfect sense, but I faced an uphill battle in trying to explain “mortality” and “rate” in my mother tongue. So, I just generally explained to her the concept using examples from whatever I have seen in our extended family and then there were two sad people on the call.
Mom is pretty cool because more often than not she answers my silly questions. For instance, I once asked her how she would communicate with her daughter-in-law in the future, someone who may not speak any of the languages that she knows. After some thought she said that she will teach her Tripuri in her lifetime and that she would also learn to speak English. I was speechless. Perhaps it is time to pass on my dictionaries to her. I’ll do a podcast with Mom the day she gets conversationally fluent in English. Maybe she’ll have her “aha!” moment when she learns the meaning of “podcast.” You can subscribe to the YouTube channel here.
At present, I can understand English movies and shows without subtitles. I can come up with original meaningless English expressions, and understand most accents without making the speaker repeat what they said. I wish to learn another foreign language (getting paid to learn one would be a dream come true) and of course, I’ll learn to read and write the mother tongue of whoever I get married to. These are bucket list items.
Knowing a language gives one access to rich literature, media, and music in that language and that makes life so much more vibrant. You would not be reading this essay if I did not know English. I can read Prothomalo and learn about the latest happenings in Bangladesh (people have hobbies, okay?). I should probably ask my sister-in-law to teach me Kokborok (it is one of the three official languages of the state of Tripura, along with Bengali and English).
Assamese is another beautiful language; I can understand most of it but I can’t speak it fluently – I should ask my friends to teach me perhaps. I can speak Hindi, and read computer-typed Hindi letters but I cannot write. That is so strange! I don’t know how the reading ability came to me. So much to learn, so much to do, but only one life. SMH.
Is there a point to this essay, especially at this hour? I have no clue. Thank you so much for your time, if you have read this far. More than anything, this essay probably serves me better than you, the reader. Long after I am gone, or when I am still around, I can narrate these stories to my children or they can read the blog 8 themselves.
Yes, I am going to be that parent who says, “I crossed a river to get to the school during my time.” I actually had to cross a small stream during monsoon to get to my village school and we tried fishing on our way back home, but I’ll save the fish lore for another day. Maybe I can save it for the book. I hope you will read it whenever it hits the shelves.
Oh! Also, Happy Diwali!
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The examiners expected us to write our answers in something called suddha Bangla (“pure” Bengali) whereas in day-to-day usage people spoke something called khati Bangla (practical Bengali or something like that). ↩
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I’m just kidding, okay? ↩
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The egg days used to be my favourite because the cook (we called her kesori-soung-nai-ma, literally the lady who cooks khichdi) served egg curry with freshly boiled rice on such days. We would have the meal after school and clean our plates using ash. Vim dishwash liquid had not come into my life yet. Oh, did I tell you that I love washing utensils? ↩
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Making up sentences served me quite well, historically. For instance, when I was in Class 8 or 9, I went to a BSF (Border Security Force) camp during Durga Puja to see the deity. They had organised an essay writing competition; so I took part. I remember sitting crossed-legged, writing my heart out, making up sentences. After I submitted my essay, I distinctly remember my legs going numb because I sat cross-legged for so long. I thought I was never going to walk after that, but it went away in 15 minutes or so and I could walk again. Apart from that small mishap, the essay was a success – I won second place or something. They called my father, who does not speak English and I was too shy to speak to the officer lol. I remember my cousin speaking to them on my behalf. I got a tiffin box, so I think all of that was worth it. I still hate phone calls to this day. ↩
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Perhaps I should clarify something here: Tripura is the name of one of the states of India. Tripuri is the language spoken by the Tripuri tribe (they bear the surname “Tripura”). So, Tripura is both the name of the state, and also a surname. My mother’s tribe call their language “nai-tong kok” but for all purposes, the Tripuri language is the language of the tribe bearing the surname “Tripura.” There is no one homogeneous language. There are 19 tribes in Tripura and within each tribe there are clans. For instance, Bru/Reang tribe (my father’s tribe) has 12 clans. Kaubru or Reang kau (language of the Bru/Reang people; kau means language) is the language spoken by the Bru/Reang people. So, is Reang both a surname as well as a language? Yes, you could say so. Confused? You are not alone. The Government of India spells the surname of my people as “Riang” in their official documents! ↩
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My people did not have enough to eat on several occasions. My grandmother’s generation survived famines, and riots, so expressions related to bread and their crumbing never made it to our language, understandably. ↩
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“Beta tumse na ho payega” is a feeling that only Hindi speakers would understand perfectly well. It roughly translates to, “Son, better let it be. No point in explaining further.” ↩
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Hey! I got to keep the blog readership going, right? ↩
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