Inflight translations

I claim to understand Hindi. Claim, as in, I too wrote Praathmic, Madhyama once, Madhyama twice, Rashtrabasha, Praveshika. I hated those dreadful Hindi classes that my parents made me attend after school. After Praveshika, I had enough! I staged a full scale domestic disobedience movement, like not bathing, not brushing teeth, wearing stinky socks, cleaning nose goop in front of guests, wearing the same school uniform for the whole week etc. By the end of the week parents caved and I got my independence. During my mid-teens, I had some motivation to pick-up Hindi. Like, Rangeela, Khalnayak and that stunning looking new girl from Ludhiana in my class. She later turned out be a Tamil speaking Iyengar kutti with Iranian skin tone. And I ended up helping her learn madras Tamil -

"Hey DNA, in Hindi, rumal is kerchief, but you were saying something at the computer teacher like 'Omma'..."

And I jumped at the opportunity and closed her mouth (with my hands, of course!). I looked straight into her eyes (okay, may be not her eyes), and said -

"You shouldn't say that word. I don't want to hear it from you"

Ah! The age of innocence. Those were the days.

Anyway, the point here is that my Hindi speaking abilities went nowhere. During one of my flight trips, on my way to Dulles, I happened to have 2 very old Punjabi couple as my co-passengers. I had the aisle seat and the elders took the inside seats. They looked like pleasant couple and after initial exchange of friendly head nods, I went back to Jayamohan.

When the flight left the gate, we exchanged a few stuttered conversation. It didn't take me long to realize that their English was worser than my Hindi. The old lady smiled and asked, "Kya aap bhi Washington jaa rahen hai?" (Bear with me, I'm trying really hard to re-collect, so I may be off a little here and there). I could have answered "No, I'm going to Vegas, where do you think this flight is going?". But she looked like a nice old naive lady, so instead said,

"Yeah.......haan.....ji"

I was taught to show respect to elders. "In Hindi you show respect by saying 'ji'", said my hindi teacher Ms. Padmavathi.

"Washington pe/me koyi rishtedar hai aap ke liye"

The problem for me when trying to converse in Hindi is that I think either in English or Tamil and then I do a word for word translation. Like this -

*I'm going there for work* - "Mein kaam ke liye jaa raha hoon..........ji"

"Acha...."

*Head nod* Whenever I feel uncomfortable with a conversation, I nod my head a lot, like a gyroscope.

"Aap zara air hostess ko bulayiye, mujhe yek blanket chahiye". I know she asked for blanket because she pointed at mine, but I forgot the word she used.

"Aap mujhe use kardo". For some reason, I saw her husband pull his kadai up his forearm and upped his moustache with his right index finger.

*Shit* - "Aap mera blanket use kardo.....ji"

The old lady thanked me and her husband did not let her talk to me for some time. After a few more minutes, the flight attendant came with snacks and soda and pulled-up across from my aisle. Since I was between her and the Punjabi couple, I became the middle man for translations.

FA: "Anything for you to drink sir" *@ the old man*
Me: "Peene ke liye kuch chahiye....ji"
Old man: "Coke"

*I didn't have to say anything because Coke is a universal word, like hello. So I took the opportunity to look at the FA and smile*

FA: "Is Pepsi okay?"
Me:"Yeah......I mean he should be fine with Pepsi"
FA:"You want some ice with it?"

This is where my Hindi translator mal-functioned. I know 'Baraf' is Hindi for ice. But for some reason, I mis-spoke - "Kya aap ko baarish chahiye?" And for some reason, I pointed my index finger in upward direction, towards the standing FA. The facial reaction of the old couple was priceless. I could say a million things went through their mind. They vehemently said, in unison, "Nahin..."

And the old lady politely added, "lekin, hum ice lenge"

It took me more than fifteen minutes to realize my goof-up and I started laughing hard covering my head with the book. I was reminded of the Bhagyaraj movie where his friend, trying to woo Radhika, learns Hindi from her father,

"Ek gaon mein ek kissan rehathatha"

"Ek gaon mein ek kissan ragu thatha"