A Mother Tongue Hiccup

 For someone coming from one language-speaking community and living in one that speaks another, many of u reading this can relate to the plight I am going through. We are most likely to be caught between the home and host languages. In my case, it was Malayalam and Tamil. 

When I was in Trichy, I was caught between the Malayalam spoken at home, the Tamil spoken outside, and the English spoken at school (Yeah the last part was of no consequence). 

My mother always tells this with a story of me in playschool. The word for water in Malayalam is 'Vellam'. So whenever I wanted water at home, I would say 'Vellam'. However, the same Vellam in Tamil means Jaggery!!! And my mom said that my Preschool teacher was initially confused, for she would have wondered, why does he need Jaggery but doing the action for drinking? (The actions kids do to clearly convey what they are trying to say.. Yeah that's the one).  So my mom had to tell my preschool teacher that whenever I said Vellam, I meant water (called Thanni in Tamil) and not jaggery! 

My formal introduction to Malayalam was in class 3 when I was sent to the Malayalam classes conducted by the Kerala Samajam ( the Malayalee Association ). Found out that there were only three of us in the Beginner class. Studied there for two years and got a sufficient hold of the language. But my knowledge of the language was not what it should be for my age. Little did I realize that it was to get worse..... 

When I joined class 7 in Kerala, I was equipped with the knowledge of a first-grader in Malayalam when all my classmates wrote poems in Malayalam. The first question my Malayalam teacher asked me was "Do u need a separate paper for the exams?". My father had strictly opposed such proposals right way. I had to go through this ordeal till class 10 ( Not to forget the devil and the deep blue sea decision- to choose between Hindi and Malayalam as the second language for classes 9 and 10). Class 10 Board Exam happened, Malayalam exam happened, and good grade happened...  At that point, I was like.. 

This is comedian Vadivelu, and the caption translates to Thank God! Now I can be in peace!

After that, I discarded Malayalam from my academic life and felt that I would never need Malayalam beyond a specific level. Later I realized that not knowing my own mother tongue would come to haunt me someday. So I started reading Malayalam newspapers for a start. Now I am reading a book on India's Metro Man E Sridharan written in Malayalam. It's tough, but I'll get used to it. 

So...  Enikkayi Prarthikkuka!! (Please Pray for Me in Malayalam)