Know your local language

It was my cousin sister’s engagement the day I reached B’lore and it was great fun. It was a gang of only girls and there was no one to stop us, we just had lots of fun and we had bhavis talks, all just enjoy the way she speaks kannada…. ;)

Then I realized it really does not matter much, if you do not know kannada in B’lore. Infact I find very few who talk the language or even if they know, they will prefer talking in English or hindi….My sister tells me, you should talk in kannada only with your family or where it is necessary. I really did not get why was she telling that and then I realized it a few days later;

One day, our bike was towed by the police and we went to the station to collect it. The police asked us to give 300 bucks and i asked him, why 300 for? The usual charge is 150 (100 for parking in Non-parking zone+ 50 as towing charges). I was about to debate with him, and then my sister told me, “Let me talk to your head officer”. We met the office, he was of 50+ aged and my sister, who never talks in kannada outside, started speaking to him in kannada and very softly. She told him, “Sir, it’s so late in the night, we are just 2 girls and we did not see the No Parking board there and why do we have to pay 300 bucks. Please be generous to us sir.” He got so emotional, he asked the other office to take only 100 bucks from us and give us our bike. I was stunned, he did not ask for the DL, bike papers, etc, just let us go so easily…. Then my sis tells me, if I had spoken to him in hindi, I doubt if he would have let us go without 200 bucks.

The other place she tells me to talk in kannada is with bus conductors, they will help you get down to the right bus stop and give you the change properly. Preferably, in all govt offices, try talking in local language, you can get your work done easily.

So, if you know the local languages, it really helps you a long way. It is way of showing that we respect the place and the language and it is mental psychology; we always get well with people who know our language than the person who doesn’t …..

This is everywhere; I am not telling this in particular to B’lore, but this really sucks, why we don’t treat “Hindi” as a common local language, why discriminate, people by language or places. At the basic level, I am a human being and I should be given all rights, it should not change as I move from one place to other. I believe, we should all change this attitude in ourselves and educate others too… But till the change happens, I would recommend learning local languages of the places we stay, it really helps….:D