The Accent

Though the medium in middle school was English, all the teachers who taught us were Marathis. So much was the influence that our English teacher, though he taught English excellently, [grammatically], made us go through it like reciting the hymns in Sanskrit. The rhythm still reverberates in my ears. The entire class used to repeat after him, 'I, Me, My, Mine’, a gap then ‘He, She, It’, again a bit longer gap and then with stress on every word, ‘They, Them, Their, Theirs!’ Why did it come to the mind? Remembered after years as if it was deeply buried somewhere in the abyss but surfaced, just on little fingering!

It so happened that 2 girls in their mid-twenties had come to stay with us on some exchange program, One American, total Yankee and the other very docile Chinese from Taiwan. I prided in speaking good English, , grammatically, so the verbal exchanges with American were quite lurid, lucid, enchanting and revealing. On the other hand, when I tried to have conversations with Taiwanese using even the simplest English, she used to stare blankly in my face! It was perplexing. I used to feel very awkward, at times taking that the poor one is poor in English! She then used to stare at American in askance with big question mark writ large on her face. And in a jiffy, they used to exchange a few fast sentences which used to go over my head! The reaction of the Taiwanese then used to be like’ ‘Oh Ho’’ as if, getting solved the most intriguing mysteries of the universe!  The duel thus used to go on painstakingly. Delving deeper I found to my amazement that Taiwanese was taught English by American 'English' professor in “THE” American accent with that so obvious Texan Drawl that she used to be at large with, though tried hard, but unable to wash off my ‘Marathi English’ accent!

That was not the only instance when I fell flat on the face due to this ‘Accent’ thing!

We were in Switzerland where they speak four languages, Italian, German, French and Romansh, a local Swiss one, effortlessly while shifting from one to another. English is spoken like icing on the cake, mostly for the tourists. Here too the accent changes, especially if you are speaking English, with every native speaker. After the conductor of the train to Jungfraujoch explained along with the information, itinerary and all, without break in languages, one after the other I just was totally confused about what exactly was happening. I was just going to ask him to explain everything in English, when my children started pulling me back and said, ‘Baba Don’t Baba please Don’t!’ Not knowing their intention I went ahead and asked him politely to explain in ‘English’

With a cool face and like a teacher of KG, he said almost icily but with mock politeness, ‘Sir I WAS speaking in English, Ask your children they will explain to you!’

In India, the scenario is beyond weird! Everybody from every state has such an accent, it’s difficult to fathom that it’s English. Especially the South Indian states! I don’t know what animosity they have with the alphabet ‘H’! They will put it when it’s not required and omit when it’s absolutely necessary. When somebody spells my name as ‘Sashikanth’ I really lose my marbles! In Roman English  ‘TH’ is pronounced in varied ways, like in This, That, Thug, Thief but never like soft ‘T’, which is correct for Shashikant, like in French. And when somebody from the south does that it gives me jitters!

Will, anybody tell me, whether it is Sridevi or Shridevi?

And here I come to the point immediately ‘Shridevi’ starrer ‘English Winglish’ was a well-made movie with a purpose and it was a decent commercial success too. But along the way, it lost its soul, the very crux of the entire narrative. English naïve, Shashi Godbole, from Pune learns English from blue-blooded English teacher native of 'THE' America. So with that base, why would Shashi speak in the climax with her staccato Indian English Accent? Contents might be broken but the accent has to be American because American taught her the English and Not any Kulkarni, Aiyyar or Singh from India.

Maybe it’s too late to write about ‘English Wiglish’ but I felt it’s pertinent so……..