Undergraduate /
Concealing my culture essay [6]
Please help! I will edit yours back!
By the age of two, I was fluent in both Tamil and Kannada.
Now, I can barely sputter out a few sentences.
My family comes from a part of India where the community speaks Kannada, but business is conducted in Tamil. I can understand both fluently, but am able to communicate in neither.
When I immigrated to America, I found my peers conversed in exclusively English. I was intimidated by this detail, but tried to ignore it. However, one day, I took my favorite lunch to school, my mother's spicy Chicken Biryani. I was relishing my meal, until a boy pointed at a piece of chicken and screamed, "Ew, that looks like poop!" Ashamed, I hid my lunch away, discreetly dumping it in the trash before returning to class. The isolation continued as children ridiculed my braids and asked me why I wore my sacred black thread around my wrist. I wanted to suppress my Indian heritage and be American, like everyone else. To the disappointment of my parents, I refused to speak my native languages and eventually forgot their tastes on my tongue.
In middle school, I moved to a new neighborhood-one that ebbed with diversity. Suddenly, I heard a variety of languages ringing through the hallways. I had friends who woke up at eight a.m. on Saturdays to attend Chinese school. One of them taught me how to count to ten in Mandarin, and I excitedly spent the day repeating what I had learned. Only later did I realize I could count in English, French, Spanish and Mandarin, but not Tamil. Uneasy, I started watching some Tamil television. However, I wasn't deeply troubled by my cultural disconnection until I visited India the summer after the eighth grade.
After a long trip, my family arrived at a small white house. My parents rushed forward to greet my grandparents, and I followed a step behind. Bright-eyed and smiling, my grandma kissed me and asked me a string of questions. I could not respond. My grandma didn't understand English.
I felt weak. I rummaged my mind for the appropriate words to answer her questions, but found it was empty. My grandma's smile slowly shrank.
Why couldn't I think of what to say?"You should teach your children their mother tongue," she advised my mother.
Nungi... Nungi vanum. Is that Kannada or Tamil? Remember, Grandma never went to school. She only understands Kannada."I've tried, Mom," my mother wistfully responded. "I even speak in it at home."
"She used to speak so well," my grandma replied softly.
I thought back to when I last visited. The memory was blurry, but I remember sitting on the floor, laughing about something that happened at the temple. I would never feel that connection again. Scared, I asked my mother to teach me Kannada. She told me to learn from my grandma.
Over the course of the summer I taught my grandma the English alphabet, smiling that she pronounced the letter "Z" like "G". In turn, she taught me simple phrases in Kannada, helping me mentally differentiate it from Tamil. I enrolled in a Carnatic singing class and acquainted myself with the pentatonic scale. When I returned to America, I continued learning the languages and took up the traditional Indian dance of Bharatnatyam. By coordinating bold expressions and gestures with rhythmic footwork, I discovered the ancient stories of my people. I was fascinated by the culture I had concealed, and regretful that I had concealed it so long.
Sometimes I sit down at the table with a cup of chai and my Kannada reader. I trace the curvy letters with my finger, dreaming of the day when I can carry out a full conversation with my grandma.
