My Hindi Sucks

Travails of being a southie doesn’t start with a long name or end with an engineering degree. Till I came here my only worry is my long and historical sounding name. Ok, Lets talk about the name first. My name is (provided you dont disclose this valuable information to others),

Duggirala Raja Raja Surya Chandra Parijata Padmaleela Venkata Gayatri Purna Chandra Rao Sharma.

Ok, ok, I am kidding. But the name is long enough to ensure that they actually design the attendance registers and name tags etc keeping it in consideration. It is Duggirala Purna Chandra Rao. Whereever I go I never find a person with the same name. Not in my school. Not during my diploma. Neither during my engg where the college had something like 500 students graduating each year. And I need not talk about my stay in IIM Indore. Anyway lets not diverge into something which can take as long as evolution of monkeys to humans to discuss thoroughly.

So My Hindi sucks. And the story of this amazing suckmanship dates back to my school days. In those days Hindi was my nightmare. So much so that I used to write a sick leave letter in Hindi before sleeping everyday. Despite all this circus I failed in Hindi during my seventh class. That too by one mark. From that moment I am very careful and tried to clear Hindi papers at the cost of neglecting some of my favorite courses. But alas… at the end of schooling my entire Hindi knowledge can be summarized in one line which I knew byheart,

“Aam phalon ka raja hi”

After the school is over I felt mighty relieved because I never have to study Hindi again in my life. With whatever foresight I had at that time I have never seen myself in jungle where the tribal people dont know any other language except Hindi. So I never bothered to even remember the easiest words in Hindi after that like a fresher who upon joining a software company thinks of never having to work overtime.

Life was smooth for eight years. The only Hindi movie I bothered to see and understand during those days was DDLJ. But at the end of 8th year life took a violent turn and I landed up here. Before coming here I thought of finetuning my Hindi or lack of it. But I gave up and tried to reassure myself by saying “people will speak in English, and after all you still know how to ask for water and food in Hindi”

First few days on Hanuman Tekri was fun with my misunderstandings of Katori and Raitha, Chawal and Sabji. Ok, I talk toomuch of food. But thats me.

The most interesting part of my Hindi suckmanship gets displayed during group meetings with most of the group members being studs in Hindi. Sample this,

Some Group Member: Takriban hame lagta hi ki yeh ho jayega. Isliye hum kariban sade teen tak kaam khatam karna hai.
Me to Myself: What is takriban, kariban!!! The only ban in Hindi that I know is taliban.

Another Group Member: Chandoo saale, thu kab thak pahuchega mere room mein?
Me: Sade do thak

Entire group bursts in laughter. Gives me a weird logic on how saade do becomes dhai and saade ek become dahi. Ok, its not dahi, its dhed.

And all the while people mock me for not picking up the language even after spending 6 months with them. How will they know how much I am confused understanding how can rassi be a thread while assi is 80 (or is it 60)?

And yeah, I still dont know how to say My Hindi Sucks in Hindi. Longlive English.

Tada!

Hello Awesome...

My name is Chandoo. Thanks for dropping by. My mission is to make you awesome in Excel & your work. I live in Wellington, New Zealand. When I am not F9ing my formulas, I cycle, cook or play lego with my kids. Know more about me.

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