Padho magar pyaar se...

Despite said claims being made of English, Hindi is an equally ph-unny language. Especially if the following conditions hold true:

1. Mr. Srivastava teaches it to you
2. You are in Kolkata, and
3. The mix of your class is fashioned after the national anthem.

A rough pie-chart showing point of origin of Don Bosco's 1987 ISC class that underwent Hindi instruction would go somewhat as follows:
1. In green, the 20% certified and sealed gentlemen who hailed from the South of India due to no fault of their own. If they got this far, one had to give them a hat tip for effort.
2. In blue, the 20% pure sons of the heartland soil, yours truly included, who heard the Chalisa at home, and later in life wondered if Jenny Craig was around when Hanuman was doing his thing. This group was also characterized by infrequent trips to what was then Uttar Pradesh, in the process imbibing several character building experiences they never forgot. Or bizarre ones they couldnt.
3. The rest, best visualized in hot pink, was a mish-mash of smart young men who spoke a variety of languages at home, none of which could be expected to prepare then for Premchand or Tulsi and such. RD Burman they could be expected to get especially if Helen was dancing to him, maybe even SD on a good day. Certainly they could understand what Gambhir and Afridi were talking about. But no, not Tulsi.

Unfortunately the choice all three groups above had was binary - Hindi was, well, for this lot anyway, easier to grasp than Bangla. Then of course this same crew took Bangla as their third language, tales of which are also full of joy and merriment but which we shall leave for another day.

Now before I get too far, and somebody gets hurt, let me be clear. I am not a proponent of having a national language, or of Hindi instruction in school, or of the use of torture when interrogating foreign nationals believed to be operating against America's national interests. I think they should shut Gitmo down and stop teaching Hindi to people who don't want to learn it. Of course those that chose not to learn the language should do so with full knowledge that they may be depriving themselves of the full appreciation of mortal pleasures, which are heightened by a Gambhir-esque grasp of the language. However, the purpose of this particular chronicle is to play scribe on events as they transpired and not to question their existence per se.

So onto Mr. Srivastava.

You folks have been introduced to Rosie, right?. Remember him? Close your eyes and think of him for a minute. Now open your eyes and think of the anti-Rosie. There you have it. I present to you Mr. Srivastava, ladies and gentlemen.

To illustrate the point, here is a sample tete-a-tete between Mr. S and a member of the green segment above. We'll call our hero Kamalahasan (KH) for now to protect the innocent. So KH has just written an essay for his Hindi homework and proudly brought it with him. The subject is "Mera Paaltu Kutta" or "My pet dog". Most likely, this is based on a fictitious creature since most people in school didn't have pets but then that's neither here nor there.

So KH starts reading his essay per Mr. S's instruction. Here goes:

"Mera ek kutta hai". (I have a dog). Mr. Srivastava looks up at KH and nods, the simple beginning fluent, no errors so far. Clearly establishing the baseline as to the presence of said pet upon which the rest of KH's treatise is built no doubt. Strong, solid foundation.

"Uska naam Ram hai". (His name is Ram). Ok, so at this point from a purely stylistic perspective, two short sentences to kickoff your essay is like a back pass all the way to the goalie when starting a game of soccer. From a more contentful perspective, however, KH had just said that his dog was named Ram, a Hindu god of some import. The poor fellow clearly meant no disrespect and when writing a Hindi essay could hardly be blamed for not naming his dog "Earl". Ram is an innocuous enough name, and perhaps as a member of the green team one that was among a subset of 2 he considered worthy of using in a Hindi essay - the other of course being "Krishna".

To Mr. S though this was sacrilege. Not so much for religious reasons but for the same instructional purposes someone may think it inappropriate to name one's cat Jesus. Such nuance is a delicate matter though and from both sides' perspective, the use of the name can be argued as being more or less appropriate.

This is however where the anti-Roise streak enters the equation. Where a simple chuckle or a stern rebuke would have been adequate enough, the response from Mr. S describes best the certain acerbic undertone that pervaded Hindi class, with just enough humor to make the sharpest remarks unforgettable.

"Accha? To Tumhari ma ka naam Sita hoga" (Really? Your mother must be named Sita). So on the face of it, this is unbelievable. In effect, being called a son of a bitch without so much as an apology. To a hapless, unsuspecting soul. Attacking an unarmed enemy with a Bazooka.

"Nahi sir. My mom's named Savitri". The sarcasm totally, completely lost.

Now I don't know if you are laughing or crying, I'll tell you one thing for sure. No one in the graduating class of 1987 who has ever owned a pet dog has likely called the dog "Ram". Similar to not having mis-spelled "athlete".

This was the sort of treatment we all got - politically incorrect, harshly direct and always tinged with dark humor. I remember not remembering that "income tax" was "aay kar" and being told "Aapke baap dada Angerzon kee dukan chalate honge jo income tax dete the" (Your forefathers probably worked for the British and paid income tax. The implication being that if they had been less treasouness in their affiliations, they would have paid "aay kar" Which was odd since both would have gone to the Brits anyway. Oh well.) Or when not being able to report that transport was "parivahan", being told off as someone who had never ridden a public bus in his life. Of course there were the distinctly memorable times when he would facilitate Hindi learning for an Anglophilic set of kids by inserting absurdity like "Red Butter with 4 altars" as a way to remember "Makhan Lal Chaturvedi".

No matter which color team we were on however, some of the side-effects this treatment had were hilarious. Take this for example: A good portion of the green team decided that the only safe way to navigate through Hindi class was to memorize one particular essay from a book of Hindi Essays - "Nibandh Bharti". I believe the most popular one was "Varsha Ritu" (The Rainy Season or The Monsoons) that started like this "Aaj Greeshm ka avsaan hua, Dharti ne Varsha Ritu kaa aagman kiya" (The summer ended, the earth welcomed the rains)

The idea was that no matter what the topic presented, three of the six-ish paragraphs required to complete an essay would be verbatim about Varsha Ritu. Whether the subject be "My Pet Dog", "A trip I took to the Arctic", or "My family and friends", the only issue was how many sentences needed to be written before the fateful words would be penned accompanied by a massive sigh of relief: "Aaj Greeshm ka avsaan hua, Dharti ne Varsha Ritu kaa aagman kiya". And after that, the remainder of the essay would be like a Photoshopped version of the 2 pages from Nibandh Bharti about the rains. Need one say more?