Around a year ago, Pankaj and I were walking back to our block from somewhere, discussing the linguistic demography of our town. It seemed to us, and seems so still, that most were obsessed with speaking in Hindi, and that too, a dialect of hindi that would come as natural to those who were either from small towns, lacking proficiency in english or uncouth. Whichever be the case, we were reluctant to let ourselves be driven to that state of being owing to interactions with them, and we pledged to help each other stay on our toes with our oratory skills.
Well, we don’t exactly live together, and as luck would have it, our interactions were limited through the period. We have now come to a situation whereby he sounds quite the way he did a year ago and I….
Ex-Roomie : Psalm, you’ve started speaking a lot in hindi
Me : Chup-Kar (Shut up!) *Gasp*
Ex-Roomie : Ha! See?
Me : Bloody hell, I have! I almost speak no english anymore! Shit!
I suppose many factors could be held responsible; my excessive use of the language to try and connect with everyone around me, my sharp fall in TV and Film-viewing owing to practically no time at hand, my endless conversations with my former-hag, which aren’t necessarily in hindi, but her regional accent has worn off on me.
Thus, I sound quite terrible, have become insecure and am hoping to become paranoid enough to take punitive actions to restore myself to previous glory.
Henceforth, I shall make every conscious effort to converse in english alone, with a hint of a fake accent that may trouble many… but I don’t care.
Wish me luck!
(Shan is requested not to comment on this post, for it would amount to hypocrisy. His english and hindi are quite accented… not really a British accent, as much as a gay one 
)
Ok, so what exactly is wrong with speaking in Hindi?
so? what’s the point??
I love talking in hindi and am proud of it!
I know exactly what you mean. Ben there, done that, brought the T-shirt.
But when you reach my age, all that really matters is how good your ass looks. Everything else is just bull.
Oh, I forgot to mention that aspect.
The problem is that I am inherently monolingual. It’s one of my deficiencies; I’m unable to master more than one language at a time, and if I improve my command on one, it comes with compromising on another.
So one has to pick, really. And I pick the language of the future. I would not want to forget hindi, of course. There is always a special corner for the mother tongue; I just wouldn’t want it to be the language I primarily use.
Some people are just ashamed of their mother tongue…tch tch tch…maybe they are ashamed of the very country they are living in as well? Sad, no?
i used to speak perfect hindi..and now it’s all mish mash.
and my english is no better..though, i love ppl who are articulate and have a good voice
I don’t really understand. I come from Kerala and I can speak in very average pedestrian Hindi. I think it’s fun to do so.
Vinokur is an exert of languages and accents. He always tells me that no language/accent is inferior to another. When we speak, he tells me what things that I could modify to sound more polished. But he would hate for me to start speaking in either an American or English accent. He thinks that ‘Indian accent’ is a beautiful accent.
I hope that was useful.
It’s my own disability. 2 years ago, when my english was in great shape, my hindi used to be quite poor. Since, I improved my command on Hindi, and my spoken english took a hit. As I said, it’s my own inadequacy. I can only master one language; and if I have to, I’d rather it was english as, since I wish to leave the country, I would be using it far more than I would speak Hindi.
*coughstopattackingmeeveryonecough*