Confessions of a linguistic convert

Introduction: I am a born Telugu, studied in a place where Hindi is most prominently spoken, married to a lady whose linguistic roots come from Punjab, currently working in a Marathi speaking place, working on software written by the French and working for an English(American) company.

Ohh.... As complicated as it may sound, I must say it is not a rare sight, people like me. Born in India more than half a billion have to face more than one language sometime or the other during their lifetime. And you walk into Switzerland, one is confused between 3 languages. Or so I was told. Then what prompts me to write this?

It has been over 8 years since I left the state I was born in, in search of a career which had taken me to different corner of the country. And the journey is so far so good. No complaints. And in the journey I found my soul mate or she found me (a long story). Since the time I stepped into the campus of IITKanpur, and to this day, Hindi has been the primary language of conversation. From the time I would try hard to make a sentence to this day where my sentences come in a flow except for the Gender recognition, I have come a long way. The fact that I speak Hindi or think in Hindi or for that matter at times have dreams in which I am conversing in Hindi show how well I have adapted to it. Okay no more blowing my trumpet.

Few days back I saw a Telugu movie made in mid 90's. Those who know the Telugu cinema industry even a wee bit, would know K Vishwanath. The man is well known for his choice of stories which rotate around various forms of art. Also the scripts come with beautiful and artful language. The kind the current generation has only seen in textbooks. The dialogues in his cinema flow like poetry. The one that I saw happens to be of a very talented young classical singer whose career and life meet an unfortunate fate with jealousy showing its worst colours in the face of his guru.

In a certain sequence the kid requests the Guru to be, to accept him as his disciple. He compares the Guru to lord Shiva and asks him to bless him in well worded lyrics describing the guru and his appearance as Lord Shiva. The words reminded me of my school days when I thoroughly enjoyed learning the grammar of Telugu. I performed far better in Telugu than in Hindi or English as I enjoyed the language just I did Mathematics. The movie made me fall in love with the language again.

I do not mean to say that there is no beauty in other languages. Just that flow of memories made me wonder for once if I ever came across such grace in any other language. Well the answer is simple. I never took any opportunity to explore any other language as I explored Telugu. Perhaps I will never get the time to in future as well. But when I come to a phase in my life where I have all the leisure in the world, this would be one thing I would want to do. Enjoy the literature!! And by that time I may have come across a dozen languages. But something tells me that nothing would be taste as sweet as ones mother tongue, Telugu in my case.