On Jhumpa Lahiri, Languages, And Why I Failed French
"I used to judge, now I blush."
when i decided that i would try to write at least once every week, i knew i was being too ambitious. anyway, i spent last weekend feeling extremely low, anxious, and conflicted. instead of ranting here, i ranted to my friends on WhatsApp. and now i’m finally back. so, hello. how have you been?
A Fascinating Anecdote To Start Off
within the first ten days of every month, after my salary has been credited, i make a bunch of purchases. i’m sure everyone does. it’s generally stuff i need, but for the past one year, it’s just been a way to feel something.
this month, i ordered stuff on Nykaa. my order got delivered pretty much the next day, which was great. the same evening, i got a call from an unknown number. now that i am no longer a journalist, i generally don’t pick up unknown numbers. i think the only situation when i would pick up unknown calls hereon is if i’m expecting potential employers to get in touch with me. anyway, so when i received this call, i decided to pick it up because the number looked oddly familiar.
“hello?” i said, only to realise it was my Nykaa delivery guy. now, i was surprised by this call because the package had been delivered more than four hours ago already. so, i immediately started reassuring him that i had in fact received the package which he had dropped off in the lobby. to my surprise, that wasn’t his concern. the man had a very different agenda. he said that even though he had delivered the order, it hadn’t gotten updated on the server. he further explained that i would need to click on a link (that i would have received as a text message) and manually update the status from my end.
i know i am sounding like someone who gets scammed easily but i promise you i am much too paranoid for that.
in retrospect, this particular interaction seems to be heading in a similar scam-like direction. yet, in the spur of the moment, i found the message he was talking about and clicked on the link. the entire time, he was sort of pleading that i “update” the status of the package from my end. he sounded very confident but also very earnest. anyway, i didn’t have much time to process so i quickly opened the link and you know where it took me? TO A FEEDBACK PAGE.
turns out, the poor guy just wanted me to rate his service.
it all happened way too quickly for me to even process but once i hung up, i thought to myself “wow. what a guy.” now, idk if this is something that these delivery guys do often but i was frankly impressed with his jugaad. dude just wants people to rate his service and most people don’t, so he came up with his own smart way of getting it done.
i’ve decided that from now on, i’m going to be filling up ALL those feedback forms because, MESSAGE RECEIVED.
Jhumpa Lahiri Is A Cool Italian-Speaking Woman
in other exciting news from around the world, american author Jhumpa Lahiri is coming out with a new book. well, a ‘new book’ for her English language readers, that is.
for those of you who need a crash course in Jhumpa Lahiri: she’s one of those really famous Indian origin authors who has penned single-digit works of literature that got her a lot of praise and fame. she’s pretty famous, authored The Namesake (book as well as a movie starring the gorgeous Tabu and the late Irrfan Khan) and a bunch of other stuff. a lot of her work captures the convoluted indian-immigrant experience. in a way, you could say that she’s a one-hit-wonder, but it’s not a popular sentiment and she’s generally quite respected and adored. you can obviously wikipedia her if you want more information. meanwhile, i am going to skip to the best part.
what makes jhumpa lahiri *incredibly* cool is that, at some point, she just decided to give up the language she had been writing in and speaking her entire life (english) for another one (Italian).
in 2015, she published In Other Words (originally published in Italian, and translated into English by someone else). in In Other Words she talks at length about her relationship with bengali, english, and now, Italian. you can find a fascinating excerpt here:
“As for Italian, the exile has a different aspect. Almost as soon as we met (on a trip to Florence with my sister in 1994), Italian and I were separated. My yearning seems foolish. And yet I feel it.”
in the book, she also explains her struggle with Italian. languages are complicated. a simple theoretical understanding of a language is never enough. the only way to really adopt a language is to experience it. and lahiri knew that in order to be true to her desires, she needed to sacrifice some things. and so she did. she left both english and america to go live in Italy and pursue italian.
if it were *any* other person in the world, they would have continued to write in english on the side so as to keep the money coming (well, i’m sure she comes from immense privilege and that’s probably not a concern here but still), and embrace italian as an adulterous pursuit. for lahiri, however, that’s not the case. her creative decision to adopt italian as her first language is inexplicably courageous and i am in awe of her.
here’s something interesting she said about switching from English to Italian:
“I wrote in Italian and everyone said, ‘You’re throwing your writing career away!’ I never had one, in my head,” she said. “I don’t think writing is a career. It’s a need. You would do it no matter what. You write because you have to write."
i say she’s ‘courageous’ because, despite having a similarly complicated relationship with language, i can’t imagine following her path. i think, if you’re born and raised in India then your relationship with language(s) is bound to be slightly fractured, slightly conflicted, slightly chipped on the edges, and also slightly amusing.
we all have a language that feels like home; a language we’re taught/we learn so that we can survive; a language that is imposed on us by the state'; a language we hold on to as a way of keeping our legacy/culture/ancestry alive.
language is so many things for us — a means of oppression, a tool of freedom, a symbol of hope, a reminder of change, a timeless memory.
recently i came across an interview of aishwarya rai (bachchan) by david letterman. in the interview, letterman is impressed AF when she tells him that she can speak four languages. little does (or did) letterman know that for indians, language(s) is a lot more complicated than he can ever comprehend.
in school, we were expected to pick a foreign language to learn. apart from the fact that foreign = european, i always hated that there was no basis for how we selected the languages we learnt. why am i learning french? or spanish? did you ASK me my choice of foreign language?
another thing that really bothered me is that i wasn’t really learning the language, was i? the three years i spent learning french, we never consumed any french media. we never really experienced the language the way we should have. we just learnt all the rules of grammar and sentences that would help us pass. language(s) is beautiful and somehow, the indian education ruined that too.
no points for guessing that i barely passed french and was more than happy to drop it in ninth grade. even though learning french in ninth and tenth standard, in our school, was considered as a mark of elitism and all the rich, popular, cool kids studied french.
anyway, i think that’s enough of me fangirling over jhumpa lahiri. the reason i decided to write about her is that an english version of her first italian novel is releasing in India soon: Whereabouts. (or maybe it’s already released, i’m not sure. i just know amazon’s delivering mine on 16 may.)
as you can tell, i’m pretty excited.
fun fact: jhumpa lahiri translated Whereabouts into English herself.
i wonder what it’s like for her to translate her own work..
Language Limbo
my own relationship with language(s) is complicated in a rather juvenile way. my ‘mother tongue’ happens to be HINDI. which, considering my privileged UC upbringing, is a very common language. i grew up feeling like i didn’t have a ‘real’ mother tongue like most of my friends did. of course, the focus was always english, but even that was strange because even though english feels a lot easier and natural to me today, i don’t think in english. i think in 1) hindi or 2) a weird amalgamation of the two: hinglish, if you will.
in my attempt to become more comfortable and fluent in english, i’ve lost touch with hindi and now feel stuck in a weird limbo. i would rather talk in hindi, but i don’t always have the right words for it.
english, on the other hand, makes me feel empowered but i don’t think i will ever be fully comfortable with it. talking in english is like wearing makeup once a week when i go out. it’s fun, makes me feel confident, but not enough to do it every day.
when i was in KG or something, i briefly attended a marathi medium school and quickly picked up on the language so much so that i would speak in marathi all the time. but that didn’t last long. all the english-medium education that followed pretty much erased that language from my memory. knowing how to speak and write in english just always felt so important, you know? so, in a way, marathi feels like a long lost lover.
having said that, language is more than the technicalities it comes with. no matter which language you speak, you’re going to have a vocabulary that’s filled with inside jokes and weird phrases you pick up, and drop, along the way. words you started using ironically, or as a joke, but are now a full-fledged part of your language.
so, on that note, here are three phrases that have recently become a part of my vocabulary. there’s no logic behind why i picked these three out specifically except that each one has a distinct origin story.
“Good Evening”
sorry to be so embarrassingly sappy but the other day i caught myself blushing when this guy i’ve been talking to for quite some time said “good evening” to me. naturally, the moment was followed by a lot of overthinking and i realised i am pretty much heart emojis irl every time he says “good evening” on the phone.
it’s surprising because the first time he ever greeted me like that i (did not think before speaking) made fun of him. eventually it became a running joke but i remember feeling awful about snapping in response to a polite greeting (ok but for real, who starts conversations with “good evening.” i mean i can barely get the words “good morning” out of my mouth when i’m interacting with colleagues every morning.)
TL;DR - i used to judge, now i blush.
“Cool Hai”
i recently got a new job and my first day at work (virtual, of course), i noticed that my entire team had a habit of saying “cool hai” (English: it’s cool) instead of “okay.” i am not sure why but i was pretty amused. so i spent my initial couple of days trying to use “cool hai” whenever i could but that didn’t last long. cut to three months later (read: now), the words “cool hai” slipped out of my mouth as smoothly and swifty as melting ice cubes on a tongue.
so i guess, cool hai.
“Girau Kya?”
this one isn’t new, but i’m including it because i have only recently become conscious of it. you’ll need some context definitely so let me dive into that.
context: every time i am about to pour something, i have a habit of asking, “girau kya?” - which literally translates to “should i drop it?”or something like that, depending on the context. now, for example, if i ask “girau kya” while making tea, i am literally asking if i should *drop* (pour) the tea into the cup. if you ask me, i think it makes total sense. but, it has recently been brought to my attention that when i say “girau kya?”, more often than not, it ends up sounding like i am about to drop the cup or spill the tea or make someone fall. which…is also understandable.
according to my mother, years ago we had a cook who would use this phrase and that’s where i picked it up. now, i have no memory of the woman but i find this whole incident pretty poetic in a way.
“Lappad” (Honorary Mention)
until the age of 15, i was in the habit of using the word “lappad” a lot.
basically, lappad = thappad. it’s quite simple and not funny if you’re familiar with the slang. however, i live in Maharashtra and “lappad”, i believe, is a slang from UP. so you can understand my struggle.
every time i tried to threaten to slap someone (as a joke of course, i don’t have a violent bone in my body unless you’re a mosquito or cockroach), they would…laugh and make fun of me for saying LAPPAD instead of thappad. pretty sure some people just assumed it was a slip of tongue or that i had a speech issue.
anyway, it was funny and cute and sometimes i feel nostalgic thinking about it because i don’t use the word anymore and that thought makes me feel farther away from what all the versions of me that i used to be.
so, that’s all. once again, thank you for reading. if you have similar phrases and words with interesting back stories, please do comment and share.
see you after two weeks! (yes, i am now hoping to make it a fortnightly thing)