May Hinglish be immortal!

Now that the crowd funding blitz is over, I can move that post back a little bit. Sure, there are hundreds of things that need to be sorted out before we embark on the documentary shoot (By the way, I just fixed the YouTube video in the last post). But what’s backpacking without some uncertainty? If you cross all the t’s and dot all the i’s, it’s not backpacking anymore. So, I’ll procrastinate a bit and catch up on some writing to talk about one of my favorite topics: Language!

There are a million languages in India. Well, not literally! But we have 20-odd official languages here; all of them beautiful in their own ways. Bengali is like Brazilian Portuguese. It is such a sweet language that I don’t know if you can use it to fight with anyone. Punjabi is like Spanish. It has the oomph and romance and charm and some phrases like ‘Oy, chak de fatte!’ that remind me of ‘Cabron!’ in Spanish. You cannot translate it. Marathi is probably like French. A beautiful language, no doubt, with incredibly rich literature, cinema, and a theater culture. But Marathi speakers tend to be laid-back, philosophical, prefer endless debates over action, and seem to have a misplaced sense of pride in their language. Then there is Tamil (and other Southern Indian languages). A touch harsher on your ears compared to the Northern Indian language family and is like the present-day Russian. The Russians still want to be considered a superpower and want others to learn their language. But, sadly, the world has moved on. Tamil people didn’t like the fact that Hindi was chosen as the national language of post-independence India and still don’t like to speak in Hindi. Oh well! It’s been about sixty-five years now and even Hindi speakers have moved on to Hinglish! Sanskrit reminds me of German. Very rule driven with virtually no room for confusion. You memorize the rules and you’re done. No room for mispronouncing words, either. Urdu? Not officially an Indian language, but easily the most beautiful of the subcontinental languages. Urdu can only remind me of Urdu!

In spite of this buffet of languages to choose from, the language of choice in India seems to be English. The British are long gone, but just like their bureaucracy, their language lives on. In true Indian tradition, we have managed to Indianize it to create Hinglish. When I was traveling around the world, I noticed a lot of people saying ‘Oh you Indians, you are all good at English.’ And I had to correct them all the time with ‘You know, I don’t know the official stats, but I think only about 10-15% of Indians speak English. It’s just that 10% of India is slightly more people than all of Germany! And almost all the Indians you meet are probably from that 10%.’

Having spent three months or so in India now, I think the percentage of people speaking proper English is even lower. The irony of discussing the beauty of Indian languages in English is not lost on me. But when I meet fellow Indians, I at least start the conversation in Hindi or Marathi. After 12-13 years in the US, I am kind of tired of speaking in English all the time. Plus, English is not my favorite language. Sure, it’s easy to learn and flexible. At the same time, I think it lacks charm or seductiveness. But in India, English, er, Hinglish is the language of prestige; the language of the elite! Sprinkled with all sorts of Indian mannerisms, it’s a language in its own league. If you speak Hindi (or any other regional Indian language), you can understand exactly what they are trying to say. But if you are an outsider – a British, Aussie, Kiwi, or a Yankee – you will invariably end up asking ‘Pardon me?’ or ‘Huh?’ or ‘I’m sorry!’ or ‘Say what now?’ So, here is a sampling of my favorite Hinglish quotes from the past few months:

“You have been there, no?”
Indian’s response: “Yes, several times.”
Outsider’s response: “You mean to say ‘yes’? Or ‘no’?”

“We went to Switzerland. What scenery, yaar!”
Indian’s response: “Wow! I’m so jealous!”
Outsider’s response: “What scenery? Would you mind elaborating a bit? And what is this ‘yaar’ business?”

“Can you put on that light switch?”
Indian’s response: “It’s not dark yet.”
Outsider’s response: “No, I prefer clothes.”

“I was standing right there only.”
Indian’s response: “Oh yaar, don’t know how I didn’t see you there.”
Outsider’s response: “You mean to say that you can actually stand in two places at the same time and still chose just one? That’s so modest of you! How the hell do you do it? Yoga? Meditation?”

“Kindly revert back.”
Indian’s response: “Let me finish this and I’ll get back to you right away.”
Outsider’s response: “I’m not in the mood to revert back. How about just reverting? And who cares if I do it kindly or violently? It’s none of your business.”

“Where where we went and who all we met!”
Indian’s response: “Looks like it was a pretty busy day for you.”
Outsider’s response: “I’m all ears!”

“She’s doing some timepass, nuh? Let’s go join her”
Indian’s response: “I’ll see you guys in five minutes.”
Outsider’s response: “I’m not sure what it is, but I think I’ll pass.”

“He was putting some fight on her.”
Indian’s response: “So, did he get lucky?”
Outsider’s response: “Is ‘fight’ some new kind of make-up that I haven’t heard of? Maybe I’m missing something here.”

“Where do you stay?”
Indian’s response: “On M.G. Road.”
Outsider’s response: “I think I have overstayed a bit and it can qualify as living now.”

“Shit!”
Indian’s response: “Shit!”
Outsider’s response: “Did you just say that? I thought we were in a business meeting.”

“That he will have to do in any case. I’ll see how he doesn’t do it.”
Indian response: “I just hope you’re not setting yourself up for disappointment.”
Outsider response: “Here is a Flipkart.com coupon worth 500/-. Why don’t you buy a Webster’s dictionary and start afresh?”

PS: Samantha Jo Fitzsimons, the female protagonist of our upcoming documentary with national-award-winning director Brahmanand Singh, has started a crowd-funding campaign of her own. Please check out the YouTube promo and contribute if you can. With your help, we can make it happen!

http://igg.me/at/ridingonasunbeam/x/3858038

And feel free to join the Facebook group to follow the documentary project ‘Riding on a Sunbeam’:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/118658161641320/

Voila! Making a documentary.

And finally, I am getting an opportunity to switch media to share the joys of traveling. After moving back to India, I got in touch with a national-award-winning documentary director named Brahmanand Singh. It is pretty uncommon in India for people to pack their bags and travel solo in South America on a motorcycle for 8000 kilometers. Or to buy a round-the-world ticket and spend a year going to all corners of the world. Brahmanand saw a story in it that needs to be told…to the youth of India.

There is a palpable reserve of energy among the Indian youth, which has nowhere to go. Over time, it gets eaten up by the forces of nature. Aging, rigid cultural norms, societal expectations, herd mentality; you name it. With this documentary, we will try to convince them – and youth around the world – that the plunge into the unknown is not always easy, but there is always something beautiful waiting for you at the end of it. The key is to learn to enjoy the free fall.

Our plan is to travel through India for 3-to-4 weeks to highlight the contradictions of life in India and that will certainly excite the backpacking crowd looking to do off-the-beaten-path adventures. The overarching idea is to use travel as a metaphor to embrace the uncertainty, let the waves of time take you where they want to go, and bring the kind of excitement to life that a 9-to-5 job can never bring.

Given Brahmanand’s reputation and credentials, I am sure the documentary will be done professionally. The adventures we will capture? As a reader of this blog, you can make your own judgment about what kinds of crazy, insightful, or downright stupid situations we will get into!

Here is the YouTube video:

And yes, feel free to share it with your family and friends by reblogging, e-mailing, or through social media. We have already gotten some investors and a UK-based travel company has pledged logistical support for the trip. But we need some more support from you. Let’s see where this new adventure takes me.

Gotta love sweet taste of India – The land of Chotus, Rajus, Bosses, and Sirjis

There are 1.2 billion people in India and at least half of them are male. It is safe to say that in spite of the rich tradition of digging out interesting names from Indian mythology for their kids, every Indian male is either a Chotu, Raju, Boss, or a Sirji. Not just Sir, but Sirji.

After thirteen long years overseas, chasing all kinds of things, I have moved back to India. I left this country in 2000, just when the IT and telecom revolution was gaining a foothold in India. And I am happy to say that things have changed a lot in India. It is tempting to say that the more things change, the more they look the same, but here are some anecdotes from my first month of re-learning India.

I landed in India just a couple of days before the arrival of monsoon, the 3-4 month rainy season. I was riding a rickshaw in Pune and the road was riddled with potholes. The driver noticed a huge pool of water in front of us and slowed down, but the guy coming from the other side, riding a big SUV, didn’t slow down and splashed muddy water all over us. Within a few hundred meters, it happened again. I was trying to protect my wallet and cellphone, but the driver was not bothered. He calmly cleared his windshield with his manual wiper. The Indian rickshaw (or tuk-tuk) is probably the only motorized vehicle in the world that is still manufactured with manually operated wipers. Welcome to India!

I walked into the local office of the biggest Indian bank (by far) to figure out why my ATM card and checkbook hadn’t shown up. The guy showed me all the paperwork he had done, gave me an 800 number, a new concept in India (at least for me), and asked me to inquire about the status of the application. I called them up and they said they could not locate my application in the system! The 800 guy asked me to contact the local branch and send the information again.

Things got more interesting when I asked about the status of my checkbook application. I wanted it shipped to an address different than the one that was on file. I e-mailed them the new address, but it never showed up. When I asked the bank guy, he repeated the address he had entered into the system. Sure enough, they had omitted the name of the building from the address, one of the most important parts of it. When I asked why it was eliminated, he said it wasn’t fitting in the online application form.

At some level, given the size of this bank, it is astonishing that they have computerized the whole system. It is doubly astonishing since it is a nationalized bank, which had virtually no incentive to keep customers happy until a decade ago. But now those pesky private banks have entered the market and they have to keep up with the competition…and the rest of the world.

So, this teller I was talking to had to put his thumb on a fingerprint scanner to access my account information. While he was reading out the address to me, another customer coolly walked past me, went to the other side of the window, and started staring at the computer screen. As I was correcting the shipping address by dictating it again to him, this random dude looked at me and told me in the local language that the teller takes a lot of short-cuts when working. I wasn’t sure whether I should be happy or sad about this whole situation. Should I be happy that computerization and fingerprint scanners have made banking more secure? Should I be sad that a key part of the shipping address was eliminated without asking me? Should I join this random dude and laugh at the teller’s shoddy work? Or should I be sad that, in spite of installing fingerprint scanners, this random dude is staring at all my bank account information while pointing out the teller’s incompetence? In India, privacy is still an alien concept and everything is everybody’s business.

Then again, a lot of things have been computerized. More so than this nationalized, largest Indian bank, computerization of the Indian Railway ticketing system should qualify as the eighth wonder of the world. The Indian Railway system is as vast as, if not bigger than, the Chinese train network. And given the number of crisscrossing train tracks, a touch more complicated. But they have somehow managed to put the entire booking system online. And now, they have even started train bookings through SMS. The Chinese system is nowhere near that. I still had to go to the train station and stand in line to book all my train tickets in China. Kudos to Indian software engineers!

But this train network is perpetually playing catch-up. There is never enough room for everyone. Train tickets get booked two months in advance. Almost as soon as they are available. Local metros are even worse. Mumbai, the city I have to reluctantly call my home for a few months, is the worst in terms of public transportation. Sure, there are lots of buses and trains and a lot of them run roughly on time. That doesn’t mean there are enough of them to go around. The rush hours, which last 2-3 hours in the mornings and evenings, are not meant for the fainthearted. You walk in and walk out touching and smelling fellow commuters’ sweaty elbows, hair, armpits, legs, and pretty much every other body part.

I was talking to another rickshaw driver about the inauguration date of a new metro line to ease some of the traffic and commuter congestion. With a voice dripping with sarcasm, he said “They have just started trial runs. People still have to die. If it opens to public without people dying, they will think that something is amiss.” Human life in India doesn’t have a whole lotta value…still.

This one takes the cake: I was visiting my hometown and I was driving with my family to visit an old family friend’s house for dinner. We stopped by to pick up some sweets at one of the best stores in town. My dad pointed at a few of the sweets on display and asked the vendor if he could mix them all up and make it 250 grams. While the vendor was packing it, my dad noticed a swarm of ants (pretty big ones) at the bottom of the display rack. He pointed them out to the vendor while he was pulling out our sweets from the same rack. The vendor said “Yeah, it’s that baalushaahi (a type of Indian sweet) that always attracts ants.” My dad, the vendor, and another guy behind the counter all nodded in agreement. Even my dad, a doctor who has spent 15-odd years in the United States, didn’t find anything wrong with the levels for hygiene in the store. We packed our sweets, had dinner at our family friend’s house, and all had the sweets. This is how you build a strong stomach. Gotta love…sweet taste of India!