What parlez-vous do you speak?

 

 

Recently I received the Census 2021 form in the snail mail. It said right on the envelope that I was legally bound to respond to it. Don’t you love it when they send you a letter with that text right on the envelope? Well, at least it was not a traffic ticket. But I did go on Google to check that they were telling me was truth and not like the TV licence thing. Oh, that’s a different story altogether.

 

Anyway, I know census is important and I expected that they would be doing this online this time, so I didn’t mind filling out a form. It was slightly longer than I expected but not too bad. I struggled with the educational qualifications bit, no, no, I did go to school, honest. I went to school in India though, and they didn’t make it easy to map it to the British education system on this form. I had to search around a bit on the web to find out which options to choose for that and I am still not 100% sure that I clicked the right buttons.

 

The biggest issue was the language question. They asked what was my primary language and I got stuck. French and German were out, while I do know a few words of those, at most I can say my name and that I am hungry. Spanish is even less of a candidate as my favourite sentence in that has something to do with a tomato that’s reserved for the soup.

 

At the moment I speak English most of the time but then I live in England so why wouldn’t I? But I was not born speaking English. No, even though I was born in Delhi, I wasn’t born speaking Hindi either. My first words were probably “ma” and “da” like most children but after that I did learn Hindi because it happened to be my mother tongue.

 

But that was years ago and since then things have changed a lot. In addition to learning English in school, I fell in love with the habit of reading and Enid Blyton, Ian Fleming and Arthur Conan Doyle contributed to my education as much as my English teacher, Mr. Kaushik. Add to that my love for the action movies in English - James Bond, Mission Impossible, Broken Arrow - and you can understand why I am as comfortable in English today as I am in my mother tongue.

 

And that was my problem. The question didn’t call for my mother tongue or any kind of official language but “What language do you use most at home?” So, I tried to sort this out with a few questions to myself.

 

What language do I think in? Both. Depends on which topic I am thinking about but these days is 80-20, 80% English, 20% Hindi.

 

What language do I dream in? Again, both. It depends on the characters in my dream.

 

What language do I speak at home? Hmmm, considering that I live alone that is covered by the thinking language, but let’s say what language do I use with my family? That depends on the family member I am speaking with but the family members I speak to most are bilingual and which language we use depends on which language we start speaking in.

 

Ultimately, I answered Hindi based on the last two questions.

 

What language do I curse in? While I do curse fluently in both languages (and a couple more) when I am genuinely pissed off and need heavy curse words that would be unprintable, I resort to Hindi.

What language do I do my calculations in? I can do maths in English and I can count to ten in French and German, if you gave me a column of figures to add and I had to it in a hurry I would have to use Hindi numbers.

 

Problem solved. But it was quite an interesting analytical trip down the labyrinth of my brain. I usually enjoy those.

 

So, what language do you parlez-vous in?

 

Poem: ज़िक्र उस दर्द का

ज़िक्र उस दर्द का 

चल रही थी बात, प्रियतमा थी साथ,
प्रियतमा थी साथ, चल रही थी बात,
दर्द की.
दर्द की बात थी हमने कहा,
प्रिये दर्द बहुत तड़पाता है,
न खाया जाता है, न सोया जाता  है.

वह सकुचाई, शरमाई, हौले से मुस्कुराई,
और बोली, दर्द तो सबको होता है,
प्यार में कौन चैन से सोता है,
वही दर्द तो हमें भी सताता है,
तुम्हारे बिना कहाँ रहा जाता है!

हम चौंके, "कहाँ बह रही हो?
क्यों बेतुकी बात कह रही हो?
दो लोगों को वही दर्द,
यह कहाँ सुनाई पड़ा है?
सच कहो, क्या तुम्हारा भी दांत सड़ा है?"

अब चौंकने की उसकी बारी थी
त्यौरी पर पूरी युद्ध कि तैयारी थी
बोली, "तुम भी कितने अजीब हो,
कल्पनाशक्ति से गरीब हो!
मेरे दिल में प्यार मोहब्बत की बात है,
तुम्हारे दिमाग में सड़ा हुआ दांत है!"

आह भर कर हमने बताया, 

दर्द ने कितना सताया,
"हाँ प्रिये, मैं सचमुच बड़ा अभागा हूँ,
तुम्हारी नहीं, डेंटिस्ट की याद में रात भर जागा हूँ!"

वह रूठ कर चल दी कि, "अच्छा तो जाओ,
डेंटिस्ट से ही जाकर नज़र मिलाओ.
तुम तो दिल से ज्यादा दांत के सहारे हो,
इसीलिए शायद अब तक कुंवारे हो!"

- सुनील गोस्वामी 

Yash Chopra - The King of Romance - Passed away

Yash Chopra, prominent Indian filmmaker, passed away this Sunday evening in a hospital in Bombay.

That single sentence is easy to read but it’s not easy to digest! The impact of this one fact is immense! Yash ji was not your normal run-of-the-mill film director - he was a creative genius and a bold trend-setter.

Some of his great films included Deewar, Kabhie Kabhie, Trishul, Veer-Zaara, Jhoom Barabar Jhoom,....the list is long. So many of these are in my all-time favourites list.

He made more than 50 Hindi films and most of them were extremely successful. I think his genius was in his style, he could portray any subject in a larger than life manner and still connect with the common man. He was a true merchant of dreams.

Yash ji sold many dreams to the Indian audience worldwide over his 50 years long career. I don’t want to type out the list of filmfare awards and the honours he won in country and internationally, the internet is full of those facts. I didn’t know they had named a railway station after him.

All I want to do is pay my tribute to the great dreammaker and tell you that he was a great inspiration, definitely to me, and probably to a huge number of filmmakers all over the world.

He will be greatly missed!

Let's test your Hindi

So you think you know Hindi? Let's see how much....

What is this sign called...in HINDI!!

Poem - Harivansh Rai Bachchan's Masterpiece - Main Hoon Unke Saath

I heard this poem a while back in Amitabh Bachchan's voice in an album called Bachchan Recites Bachchan. There are several great poems in that collection but this one somehow stuck in my mind.

The second and third stanza from the bottom are my most favourite.

मैं हूँ उनके साथ खड़ी जो सीधी रखते अपनी रीढ़.


कभी नहीं जो तज सकते हैं अपना न्यायोचित अधिकार,
कभी नहीं जो सह सकते हैं शीश नवा कर अत्याचार,
एक अकेले हों या उनके साथ खड़ी हो भारी भीड़.
मैं हूँ उनके साथ खड़ी जो सीधी रखते अपनी रीढ़.


निर्भय होकर घोषित करते जो अपने उद्गार विचार
जिनके जिव्हा पर होता है उनके अंतर का अंगार
नही जिन्हें चुप कर सकती है आतताइयों की शमशीर
मैं हूँ उनके साथ खड़ी जो सीधी रखते अपनी रीढ़.


नही झुका करते जो दुनिया से करने को समझौता
ऊँचे से ऊँचे सपनो को देते रहते जो न्योता
दूर देखती जिनकी पैनी आँख भविष्यत का तम चीर
मैं हूँ उनके साथ खड़ी जो सीधी रखते अपनी रीढ़.


जो अपने कंधो से पर्वत से बढ़ टक्कर लेते हैं
पथ की बाधाओं को जिनके पाँव चुनौती देते हैं
जिनको बाँध नही सकती है लोहे की बेड़ी ज़ंजीर
मैं हूँ उनके साथ खड़ी जो सीधी रखते अपनी रीढ़.


जो चलते है अपने छप्पर के ऊपर लूका धर कर
हार जीत का सौदा करते जो प्राणो की बाज़ी पर
कूद उदधि में नहीं पलट कर जो फिर ताका करते तीर
मैं हूँ उनके साथ खड़ी जो सीधी रखते अपनी रीढ़.


जिनको यह अवकाश नहीं है देखें कब तारे अनुकूल,
जिनको यह परवाह नहीं है कब तक भद्रा, कब दिक्शूल,
जिनके हाथों की चाबुक से चलती है उनकी तक़दीर,
मैं हूँ उनके साथ खड़ी जो सीधी रखते अपनी रीढ़.


तुम हो कौन कहो जो मुझसे सही ग़लत पथ लो तो जान
सोच सोच कर पूछ पूछ कर बोलो कब चलता तूफान
सत्पथ वो है जिसपर अपनी छाती ताने जाते वीर
मैं हूँ उनके साथ खड़ी जो सीधी रखते अपनी रीढ़.

Hindi Movie - Woh 7 Din

I like this movie, an old classic, though I don't like the climax but well, no director usually goes again the public sentiment, any other climax would cause the movie to flop at the boxoffice.

So, here are 2 clips from it, one a comedy scene that I absolutely love.

The other, a powerful, emotional scene that refers back to the comedy scene.

एक पोस्ट मातृभाषा में

एक ज़माना था कि मुझे लगता था कि हिन्दी में कंप्यूटर्स पर काम करना यानी जैसे हम लोग वापिस जाने कि कोशिश कर रहे हैं और वक़्त कि रफ़्तार को रोकने की कोशिश कर रहे हैं, लेकिन वक़्त के साथ साथ मेरे विचार भी बदलने लगे और मैने महसूस किया कि इतने बड़े देश की इतनी पॉपुलर भाषा को अगर कंप्यूटर्स सपोर्ट नहीं करेंगे तो बात अधूरी रह जाएगी.

खुशी की बात ये है कि मेरी तरह और लोगों ने इस बात को समझने में इतनी देर नहीं की और इस दिशा में बहुत सी तरक़्क़ी इस बीच में हो चुकी है.

ये पोस्ट मैं एक वेबसाइट पर टाइप कर रहा हूँ और ये देख कर हैरान हूँ कि कितना आसान है हिन्दी में टाइप करना इस phonetic editor में. ग़लतियाँ तो हैं ही नहीं और रफ़्तार बहुत अच्छी है. इसका नाम है Quillpad और URL है www.quillpad.in. अगर आपको हिन्दी आती है तो टाइप करके देखिए बहुत मज़ा आएगा! और अगर आपको हिन्दी नहीं आती....तो मैंने कुछ कहा ही नहीं :D

O des se aane waale bata

I sometimes wonder on that one point on which everybody and their dog has given an answer - what is it that separates us from the animals? Makes Man a superior species. At this moment, I'd say it's music and poetry.

I have posted about this song before, today I found the lyrics on another blog. Now I am looking for the soundtrack, to download of buy. The blogger has written his own comments on the song/ghazal and they are exactly my sentiments so I am not going to say any more. If you can read Hindi and like poetry, go read this post.

http://ramblings2reflections.wordpress.com/2007/09/07/o-des-se-aane-wale-bata/

Internet in Hindi - Hinternet

This morning my sister sent me this link for a Hindi search engine, I have to admit I was not very interested but gave it go anyway. I was surprised to see there are so many sites available in Hindi these days.



http://raftaar.com/search.aspx



I have never been very fanatical about Hindi-izing the web, (call me unpatriotic) but it does feel nice to see sites in my mother tongue. I actually consider it an addition to all the English material that I can enjoy on the web. :)



While I am able to think, communicate and express myself in English, there is still some material that is un-translatable from Hindi to English and vice versa.