Hindi malum nahi hai!

And that pretty much exhausts the very rudimentary, broken Hindi I know.

Nothing to be proud of, considering that it is our national language after all, and I have the audacity to call myself 'educated'.

We had Hindi subject in school only from classes 4 to 8. We had to learn everything by-heart, and I sucked at by-hearting things. And its worse when you don't even know the meanings of what your'e memorising. Our teachers gave quick, brief translations of what the lines meant, and I'd always get lost somewhere in the middle.

During exams, I'd stay up all night when we had a Hindi paper the next day, chanting, "Mera naam Lalchati hai", "Vunga bahut achcha larka hai", and all those stuffs. And then when the question paper arrives, I would have forgotten everything, and I'd inevitably fail the paper. I breathed a huge sigh of relief when we no longer had Hindi in our syllabus by class 9, only to be confronted with Quantum Physics and Trigo maths, urghhh!! But thats another story. I digress.

, dos

I had not foreseen how my Hindi impairment would come back to haunt me. If I had, maybe I'd have tried harder, I don't know. I was bad at it right from the very beginning.

I rarely venture out of Mizoram. I spent 3 years in Shillong, where practically everyone can speak English... except the alu muri man. And he understood our broken Hindi perfectly, "Bhaiyya, khale alu, zyada pyaas, zyada tel, zyada mirchi, uff, zyada everything.. 10 rupees, 5-5 Rs. packing". Then a three month stay in Kolkata, where I hardly ventured out, and few trips down south, where we'd travel in groups, and there would be at least one person with good Hindi to speak for us. So my lack of Hindi did not impair me that much.

Then last year, I went to Delhi and Kolkata with a friend who knew even less Hindi than I do. The Delhiites were very helpful. We stayed at blogger Chawngtinleri aka Mapuii's place, and she gave us detailed info on how to deal with auto drivers. We even memorised her address, I remember that we had to say "Burra Gurudwara ke pas", besides the name of the locality and stuff.

Now couple our lack of Hindi and a completely awful sense of direction. My friend Mami took us DU, JNU and lots of other places and we managed to get back fine. Then Nunpuii took us to Sarojini, and my travel mate and I told her that we can get back on our own, so she left us. Mapuii had told us that an auto fare from Saro to her place costs no more than 25, and told us to be wary of crooked drivers. The first driver we spoke to said that the fare would be 'Bis' and my friend got really pissed. "Nahi, pacchis!", she screamed (is the spelling correct?). The auto driver tried to tell us that he could get us there for 'bis' rupees, but my friend insisted on pacchis. By this time I had finally counted through my Hindi numbers, and found out that pacchis was twenty five, and bis was twenty. I told my friend, and we sat squirming and giggling all the way home.

Then disaster struck. The driver took a completely different route. We were lost. He let us off somewhere, and I summoned all the Hindi I knew to ask him where the burra Gurudwara was, and he gave me some directions which I did not understand. There we were, laden with sooo many shopping bags, completely lost, and Hindi-less. A few days previously, a North-east couple had been assaulted and robbed, so we did not want to appear vulnerable. So we walked, and walked briskly, confidently, with absolutely no clue where we were supposed to be going. After about an hour, we managed to somehow locate Mapuii's place. Bliss.

We stayed for two days in Kolkata, at my cousins' place. They still talk about the time big sis came over and stayed for two days and got lost five times. It was actually seven times, but I didn't tell them. Somehow we always managed to find our way back, though after about an hour of going round in circles and asking for directions, and getting back indecipherable answers. We were fleeced three times by cab drivers, had to give an extra 5 rupees above the normal fare to an auto driver for his breakfast, cos he just wont stop asking, and we didn't know how to tell him to get lost.

And everytime someone asked where we were from we said "Korea" or "China" because we were ashamed to admit that we were Indians with zero clue about Hindi. I'm not surprised that we got fleeced because we were so clueless.

See thats the thing about a majority of us Mizos. We barely know Hindi, and we complain when we are fleeced. The thing is, we are sitting ducks for them- vulnerable, lost and clueless. We are notoriously anti-Vai, and a lot of us think that we do not even have to know the language because we rarely venture out. But unforeseen events can occur. You or a family member might need medical treatment outside Mizoram, and unless you have a guide who can be there 24-7, you need to know the language. Chuvang lo pawn thiam hrim hrim a trul. Unless we are comfortable interacting with them, there is absolutely no chance for development.

I'm thinking that I should make more of an effort to learn the language. I want to travel, and monetary factors not withstanding, I prefer radside food and fashion and auto rides to Malls and restaurants and prepaid cabs. So I really, really need to learn the language. Have gone to Hindi classes but I didn't benefit from them. I know a few words, but not how to frame them into sentences. Maybe if I watched a lot of Bollywood movies....???