Oru Tamizhanin Kural ! (Voice of a Tamizhian)

Ahhhh !! Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, a place where many students dream to study in. But how is the life of him/her after entering into such an Institute? How do they survive here ? ENGLISH !! Yes, a good answer but not a useful one. It is of rare use here, maybe only while writing exams. Coming from south to the north, with lot of expectations, obviously I didn’t mean the acads, the only thing we get here is.. BULBu.. A gorgeous looking girl you see the first time here and she comes to you and asks something. After 5 mins of one way communication, you say to her Meh hindi maalum nahi. She gives a look at you, which you ll feel embarrassed for next 48 hours, and then she goes to another good looking hindiwala. Vada pochae.

Next what, we get an auto and tell him bhaiya meh IIT ke ja hae. The very next moment he will find where you are from. He will tell us a rate, I’m sure we will be able to understand it coz before coming here we will learn at least numbers, dhas, bhese, theese . Kanungala athu pathathu ma, we should learn what it is for 15, 25, 35 too L. There were situations where the autowala told me pucheese(25) and I argued him for these(30). What else to do ! Namaku athuthana thaeriyum. Then somehow we will slowly learn 11, 12, 13… without knowing that 25 and 50 are very commonly used numbers for purchasing. My personal experience is that, while buying something, the shopkeeper told me it costs theese. I know it’s neither worth for theese or bheese. Somewhere in the middle.  I should thank my friend for telling me one of the incident that happened to him. Avanum namba aalu than but he knows numbers till 20 !!! Amazing ! atleast for me actually. Using that, I told the shop keeper, eh final heh, bhara+thera (my friend used the same strategy before). After that the shopkeeper didn’t even look at me and was busy with other customers. Shortly, asingapatan autokaran.

After facing all these, we try to make ourselves calm. As days pass, some of our friends will call and ask us about how things are going. We will talk to him as though we have got a Phd in Hindi. Machi, meh now ke busy hae tum apram call karo hae. He/She will think, overa scene podrane and will ask us. “Hey I don’t understand anything, please tell in tamizh”. (Mind voice: Enaku matum puriyutha, nanae adichu vidraen).Our turn, “Oh sorry yaar (this yaar is one thing you will earn for sure) I got used talking Hindi here”. We will know, only if we ask his/her Hindi classmates about his/her knowledge.

 (Caution: Don’t ask my classmates about mine).

And of course, by very rare case, we would have seen few Hindi movies or at least heard songs. We will hum those songs while walking, showing that we are quite familiar with the language. Just think the songs we know, kuch kuch hota hai, lagaan. Then we have a very famous dialogue of ours in Hindi which till date many don’t know the meaning. Ek gowme ek kisan rahathatha….. podangooth**  nu poitae irupanunga. Also one incident I should tell. I knew it before coming here but I believe few wouldn’t know. We would have heard a song, Choli ke peeche…. Heaven sake don’t sing it here. My friend recently, without knowing(I assume) the meaning, was singing it before girls.

(Stop Stop, after reading fully you can google what the meaning is)

Telling all these, I should also tell you the positives of not knowing Hindi. Primary is, whoever scolds you, you will be the happiest person ever coz you don’t understand a crap out of it except one word, behanch***, which I see everyone using so commonly here. Even if they ask you a question, you will keep on nodding your head J (personal experience)

But friends, I should also admit that people here, at least in my college are really good. You can make friends very easily be it a North Indian or South Indian. I have friends here who are from North too. They treat you very well, at least in front you (just kidding). We can very well come here and do our studies without hesitation coz, yaam petra inbam/thunbam peruga iv vaiyagam, J. We can enjoy hell lot just like our native place and friends. You won’t feel nostalgic that much but of course food sick (thoku, oorka, podi elam eduthutu vanga da L).

Whatsoever, on my part, I’m enjoying to the core here. Language is never a barrier. Everytime, everysec I’m surrounded by friends. I hope this will be the same till I finish my course. I also take this as a chance to thank my friends here, hindiwalas, for making me and all other people from South as “feel at home”. We are not strangers to them neither they are to us. We are IITians

P.S.: Evlavo panitom itha panamatoma!!