PS: This blog is a reflection from the same situation I've been faced at many stages when I meet new people. Nothing happened recently to prompt it.
Have you ever been faced with this situation? You're in a group of Indians predominantly speaking one regional language. And it happens to be your Mother tongue too. Yet, there are some people who assume you don't speak it well. While I've found that preposterous and ultra-presuming each time, I thought I should dig a little deeper to see what makes these people assume such things. And conclusively it was one of two things -
1. My English is so well-developed that they've assumed that I speak English with everyone around and just a smattering of the regional language, to my family included. Loosely translated: Pure BS. I mean, just because I am one "Mary" (English speaking Tamil woman - read "Peter's" female equivalent), doesn't mean I can't speak great Tamil. Come on!
2. Dialect: Being from a TamBrahm family means that my Tamil has remained sheltered in spite of all the Chennai glory years probably because most of my closest friends are TamBrahm as well. So sure, we have a lot of specific lingo which the others probably don't understand sometimes but hey, it's a two way street . And even if it does sound different, you don't hear me mocking your poyirchu to my poyiduthu , both essentially meaning "it has gone" or use the age-old wise-crack of naan kolathuku poren (I'm going to the pond) while I ask "aathuku polama?" (Brahmin lingo for "shall we go home". Basically aar(th)u also means river in Tamil). And speaking a different dialect doesn't preclude me from understanding others. And just 'coz my vocabulary in galeej words may not match some others', it needn't lead to the conclusion that my Tamil isn't proper.
I'd love to extrapolate that logic to English and see how many people actually know English. Now wouldn't that be fun... throw in the word play and we'll have a riot. Nakkal? Not really.
On the other hand, out of the blue, time's freakin' flying, don't you think? It's the end of May!
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