“Main kaun hoon??? Main kahaan hoon????” – This is an evergreen dialogue heard in innumerable Hindi movies just after a character regains consciousness. More often than not, the character would have met with an accident where his head gets injured and he forgets about his past… Thus, asking this evergreen question….
But you know what --- I too have asked this question many a time to myself…. Hey… hang on…before you draw any wrong conclusion… let me clarify that I never had an injury to my head … nor did I lose my memory or forget my past….!!!!! But then, why do I keep asking this question to myself???
Well, I am one of those lucky few who can understand the lyrics of songs like “Gaajuvaaka pilla memu gaajulollam kaada…” or “Dhagaala laagli kala , paani themb themb gala…. “. Not only these songs, I am one of those who can watch and understand, with equal élan, movies like Puttinti pattucheera or Maaherchi saadi…. !!!!!! I am one of those who can read Eenaadu or Dainik Lokmat with equal interest….!!!!! I am one of those who can converse fluently with the likes of Sachin Tendulkar or Vangipurapu Venkata Sai Laxman in their mother-tongue….. I am one of those who can be called a Telugu Bidda or a Marathi Manoos…. !!!!!
Yes, I am one of those who can read, write and speak Telugu and Marathi fluently… But what is the big deal…. Anyone who stays in Pune for a substantial period would learn Marathi or anyone who stays in Vishakhapatnam can learn Telugu…. But not many are lucky enough to have a mother whose mother-tongue is Marathi and a father whose mother-tongue is Telugu…. I am proud to say that I am one of those lucky few….. The best thing about being in such a family is that you get to learn more languages… You get to understand the culture of two different places… You get to associate yourself with two different regions…. You develop a strong bond of togetherness with two different set of people…. What better example to quote than the fact that one of my best friends is Marathi and the other is Telugu… !!!!!
I am sure most of the people who are like me would tend to have these feelings… Not just this Marathi-Telugu combo, but it can be anything…. I have friends who are Kannada-Marathi, Telugu-Kannada combos…!!!! Not to mention my cousins who are of the same combo as I am… !!!!! We all know that India as a whole is an amalgamation of various languages and cultures… but still we are united… What better example of national integration than to quote examples like mine… !!!! But then, a coin always has two sides…. It’s not always hunky-dory..!!!!
As a kid, I faced a huge identity crisis…. I couldn’t understand if I was a Telugu guy or a Marathi guy…. Generally, it is accepted in any society that the father’s mother-tongue would be the mother-tongue of his son or daughter…. But somehow I was not able to fathom this fact…. I spoke Telugu as well as Marathi with equal gusto in my house…. In fact, I speak Marathi more than Telugu in my house… Then how come Telugu can be considered as my mother-tongue…???? What exactly is the definition of mother-tongue??? Does it mean that the language spoken by your forefathers is your mother-tongue??? Or is it the language which you speak more in your house??? These were some of the questions I had in my mind…. Well, honestly speaking, there would be different opinions about this issue… Some might argue that consistent with my logic since most of us speak in English at our workplace, we need to consider English as our mother-tongue… Well, this would sound completely absurd… But then how do we resolve this???
I thought long and hard about this…. Then a sudden revelation came to me…. It said that this hypothesis cannot hold good in the case of English because it was never the language of choice of our ancestors…. But then I thought, why can’t I consider both Telugu and Marathi as my mother-tongue because I love both the languages equally… I love both the regions…. I love both the cultures… So, there I was with gyaan in my life…. I started feeling proud of my heritage.. of my luck as not many have this kind of privilege of having a special bond with two languages and two cultures….
Before ending this, all I wish is that I marry a Punjabi or a Bengali or someone else… so that my lineage can be even better examples of national integration… !!!!!!
