As I was receiving his symptoms, he said that I spoke good Hindi. Hearing his comment made me laugh deep down in my heart.
Setting up my practice after graduation, I had a lot of immigrant labourers as patients; poor them were finding it hard to meet a doctor with whom they could communicate their symptoms effectively. They were so happy seeing a doctor who could "fluently" speak with them in Hindi.
At school, I never understood a single word of what my Hindi teacher taught. It wasn't her fault at all. I was a hundred percent dyslexic when it came to Hindi. Not a single word entered my head nor, would anything come out from my mouth. She used to cane and coax me a lot with total futile results. I barfed out what I had somehow pushed into my grey matter on to the answer sheets and barely managed to pass.
Later, my graduation days in English literature was where I met Bollywood through DDLJ and Rangeela, and lo, I was learning Hindi through the language of love in the films. Moving on to Thiruvananthapuram for graduating in Homeopathy opened up a vista of cinema halls, where again, Bollywood helped me gain immense knowledge in the language.
It is delightful to see how the fear gene got transmitted from father to daughter. My elder kid, whenever she takes a Hindi exam, is sure to run a fever. It is a perfect diagnosis of exam funk. I laugh loudly in my mind. But there is a marked difference in the marks she scores and what I scored. She tops while I graced through the fence.
Whenever she comes up with the fear of Hindi, a chuckle ignites deep down in me. I convince her that this dread of hers is just a future laugh.
😀
ReplyDeleteKya baat hai !
ReplyDeleteReally.....Most dreads are future laughs👌👌
ReplyDeleteAny how the feelings are Frank: but am amazingly happy to say that my 6yr child is much better in Hindi,only by watching Cartoon Network in this Lockdown season.....
ReplyDeleteThank you Sir for Writing free and Frank