The pursuit of humour may not be achieved in this article intentionally but I am sure some grammar nazi will find enough scoop here to LOL. I have been wanting to share this piece for the longest time mainly for self healing purposes but then keeping in mind the reach of my friends network, I had stopped. Now lately things are stressed out, people are growing up and there are responsibilities, tensions etc. so if not much, this will give you something to make fun of or have a laugh or two at my mistakes.
Before and After stories are a rage on the internet specially on Instagram where you can see pictures of people losing weight, getting their face painted and turning themselves into unicorns or even the Before and After of a job candidate who is now running a successful business (yeahhh). But one thing that may never trend in a country like India where our native language is English — The Before and After of learning English.
In fact, by knowing ENGLISH one is automatically confused for being a literate in INDIA.
I always cherish my visits to the European countries. There everyone is an equal. An Indian who doesn’t know English is proud to make a conversation with an Indian who is struggling and still using English. But then there have been exceptions. Movies have spoken about the sensitive question- Do you know English? Example: English Vinglish (an easy take on my mom’s life’s first year with her kids staying in the States)and Hindi Medium (which was literally my dad’s life story that someone stole and made into a movie) or Spanglish (for my friends who don’t watch Bollywood movies) and then Entrepreneurs like Arunachalam Muruganantham (again who you would only know if you read his story or wait — Padman movie is made on him, shame on us if we don’t know him otherwise) have started being vocal about it.
The price of learning, knowing and being good at a language in general is unexpected but the price of learning, knowing and being good at English language in India in a lot of ways defines your class. Now everyone who cringed on this last statement are probably on the other side but I don’t have a R&D department to back my statements so I am just going ahead and making them. If you really reflect on it, our emotions towards the ENGLISH language are very similar to a Twitter controversy with various opinions coming from personal experiences and little research but using the free content platform either ways to post our views on it without knowing its impact or its reflection.
I often meet people with great caliber but then they have a hard time communicating in English. That sometimes becomes the sole reason to not hire them. And I am confident it stands true for a lot of organisations. Its the sad and unfortunate truth of the work world (and now globally) that mostly in companies, communication through emails, presentations and at networking events is done in English. Some smart, wise kids learn that early on and anyways don’t opt for a job type where that is a prerequisite, some other kids work doubly hard to pick up a language and fit in and a few enter the work place unprepared to continuously struggle everyday.
But what is the real reason for one person to be better at English than the other? There is not one, there are several. But one thing that is common is that young adults find it easier to communicate in English if during their growing up years, their first language at home (not mother tongue) was English. This is also the same reason that leads to kids going to the same school with similar classes and learning similar techniques, end up with different experiences with a few similarities. Luckily, I went to a school that had a wide variety of kids when compared to some other good schools but not wide enough to create a good sample example.
Anyways, coming back to main topic “How is your English so good?” This is the question that I have asked in my mind whenever I hear someone talking in length (without pausing) with me but then this is also the question I was asked throughout my time in the United States. Ironic. How is my English so good? (but only for a country outside India)
Now I give everyone an open right to judge me. As a true privileged Indian, I have been provided all the right things. Good school, unlimited access to literature, Hollywood movies, public speaking opportunities etc etc. and I have Aced all of them in theory. In fact, in my English 401 class in college, a tough level, I got an A. That class was a struggle. It had so many rhetorical references. And I have spoken in a room of 2000+ people, given talks, presented at multiple occasions in life and never failed at these opportunities (this word just took me two auto-corrects to spell it correctly). But then I am the same girl who has been made fun of once a year by people who would in an ideal world care about me, by insensitively dismissing me for simple mispronunciations. This act was more practiced among my core group of friends in school (who later could barely write one good essay) and then by random people at my multiple work places. But with time I got wiser and made an excel sheet in my brain based on types, categories, people’s reaction and intensity. Imagine a pivot table that is easily filtered and has a vlookup for connecting sheets that talk in detail about the person and rating their reaction intention and intensity (difference between these two words was unknown till I googled it at 20). And this excel sheet only helped me to learn, grow and get stronger with more passion to get better at this cruel language everyday. My brother must have realised this early on. Since he knew that our parents don’t speak much English at home, he worked marginally harder than me improving his vocabulary and reading books that are yet to be touched by yours truly. I being the lazy one picked up this habit in the recent years but only to learn that some words that I pronounce are not meeting the expectations of us Indians who believe in profound Victorian English regardless. While I work hard everyday on it now and get excited to hear when someone says, “how is your English so good?” (rarely happens in my country), I am no where close to not being made fun of. Its a constant struggle.
I know the song Ella Fitzgerald sang could (in theory) help me heal but then it wasn’t sang in terms of the language, it was more about two people fighting over differences that are barely different or are irrelevant in the bigger schemes of things, but honestly can we call it truce? For I am struggling to make sure every time my tongue touches the inside of my mouth it brings out the correct word pronunciation even at this stage in my life. Maybe I am not trying hard enough. But
You say either and I say either You say neither and I say neither Either, either, neither, neither Let’s call the whole thing off
(ha funny how you read the same word again and again)
You like potato and I like potahto You like tomato and I like tomahto Potato, potahto, tomato, tomahto Let’s call the whole thing off
:P :)
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