Pondicherry Chronicles Episode 1: A language barrier
It is always a delight for me to visit a new place, places where I’ve never been before. I love the way it unfolds for me, presenting the bits and pieces of new culture, people and heritages. Even though for academic reasons, when I first came to Pondicherry, my experience was nothing different. I began to appreciate the people, their originality, helpfulness and enjoying the ways of life. But, there’s a certain period when the bubble bursts, hurling people inside to a harsh realistic world. Parents left for home and suddenly it felt like a huge amount of void appeared out of nothing. Responsibilities became clearer than ever, for nothing other than my own survival, alone.
I was never afraid of taking a duty, especially when it’s for my own interests. So, it did not become a pathetic situation for me where I can’t do anything but cry along (it became like that for so many people in university, mostly for girls). Eventually, I decided to kick start things and everything began to roll out finely. Well, ‘almost’ everything. The first and foremost problem I faced which blew my mind away was the language barrier. More than 85% population of Pondicherry are Tamil and frankly speaking I did not have slightest idea of that language apart from a vague image that it was something really hard to learn for non-Tamils. And that image isn’t changed as of now. Nevertheless, one has to live. I quickly found out that common people have really impromptu concepts of English and it would be a tough job for me to get them and make them understand me. Regularities didn’t pose any problems for me, since even a dumb guy can express if he needs to get a cup of tea standing beside a tea stall. But soon things went beyond being simple and hilarious incidents started taking places. One for example, our University Canteen -2 doesn’t serves meals (it means a plateful of rice, sambar, some vegetables and a cup of butter milk) before 12:30 PM. Unknowingly, I went there and asked for it, only to be refused and advised to come on or after 12:30. Incidentally, the time was 12:15 then and I replied to the counter “OK, so it’s just 15 minutes to go”. Adding to my surprise, the man on the counter promptly retaliated, “NO NO, DON’T go, stay here!” For a while, I was awestruck and couldn’t manage to tell something. That guy really knocked me out. Just picking the last word of my speech and ignoring the whole of it, he thought I needed to go out and quickly asked me not to do so!
I feel these incidents are more on the funnier side than posing serious problems. Those are the little mischiefs which give some comic relief to otherwise hectic and ultra-dull present lifestyle of mine.
