Most of the Indians are like me. Well, you may blame me for being a stereo type but I believe it’s true. We all think that we speak English. Well, while it’s true that we speak English but the English we speak and the English that’s spoken in the US is quite different. Firstly, there are slangs, then there is accent, if that’s not sufficient there is a whole new vocabulary that’s utterly confusing and lastly the spellings. Moreover, if you have migrated here and most likely you speak Queen’s English. It doesn’t matter if you came here 2 years ago or 20 years ago. Some things never change, I guess.
Just to give you an example, imagine you are in Fargo, ND and you are looking for a pair of jeans of a specific brand. (I have never understood why one pant is called a pair of pants but a shirt is not called pair of shirts) You walk in to a store and ask a sales person what you are looking for. Now at this time, assuming he/she understands what you are looking for, you are expecting a “yes” or a “no” or a “may be” as an answer. But what you actually hear in response is “You Betcha!” Now how in the world would you know that this means “YES”. (The capitalization & bold face is to show the utmost confidence in the answer).
So Indian English, as one of my ex-colleagues used to say, is Queen’s English. Obviously, we learned it from British and kept the same as our identity. English speaking skills of an Indian are known by the speed of the delivery and number of un-understandable(?) words he/she uses. Irrespective of whether we are communicating or not, the aim is to prove how good our English is, especially when you are in meetings or discussing worldly matters over scotch. With beer you typically don’t go beyond the neighborhood you live in.
Especially the nouns we use in India and the nouns we use here in America are very different. For example, when I bought my first car in US, I had to unlearn and relearn names of several parts again. When I started driving and getting directions from my friends (American friends), I did have to learn a new Geo-Dictionary as well. What we call stop-light here in US is called a “Signal” in India. I had a tough time understanding the concept of “yield”. In a city in India that I came from, Pune, there is no such concept of yield. Normally it takes an hour for six miles there (depending on time of the day), so if we keep “yielding”, we may never reach the destination. There will actually be a traffic jam… sorry traffic clog… like a drain clog. Traffic jam in Pune means traffic is flowing at an average speed. Everyone will only be “yielding” everyone.
I really like British accent but it’s hard to understand, at least for me. I had no problem understanding most of the American accent but that was while watching movies so you could always turn to someone to verify what’s going on if you couldn’t follow. But the problem starts at cash registers. Cash registers in department stores are not movies. I invariably had trouble there. Say you are at the cash register in a grocery store and the lady is scanning each item and passing it on to a bagger. The bagger asks you something. All you understand in that sentence is “OK?” So you are naturally going to say “Okay”! Onetime I forgot I was in the US and nodded and the bagger looked confused he asked me again. Indians (especially new comers) are the creatures with extremely flexible necks. Any ways, you say okay and the life is good. But what happens when you have a “go-green” freak with you?
Well what happens is that you look like an idiot. Well, I had a friend from Chicago visiting the great prairie in Fargo and we went grocery shopping. The bagger, as usual, asked me “something ok?” And the “go-green” freak with me said not-ok. Huh! What’s wrong with him? I told the bagger that he is visiting here for the first time and he is okay. But the freak opens his mouth again and says “paper”. The bagger says “you betcha!” What in the world was that? On that day I leaned what I had missed out for last several months. As it turned out that the bagger used to ask me “Is plastic okay?” As they say learning has no age limit, I will say it has no place restriction either. By the way when I told this to my wife that this is what we were missing out, she promptly said (and in front of the freak) that it was not “we”. She had become American within a week or two of her arrival while I was only physically here even after several months.
The vocabulary creates tremendous funny situations.
I was trying to teach my son how a light-bulb works and so I wanted to build a small battery-operated device with a switch. We wanted to buy a light-bulb, batteries, wire and a switch.
We went to Menards. (Later on, I discovered RadioShack. My joy that time could only be compared to Columbus’s when he found America) Not knowing where to find these components, we decided to ask a sales person. Here is how it went –
I: “Excuse me!”
He: “Howdy? What can I do for you?”
I: “(Howdy?). Umm… I am looking for a bulb.” That’s what we call a light-bulb as In India.
He: “Ah! You need go through the double door on the east. That’s where we carry them.”
He told me as if I was asking for directions to Washington Monument. We went through the double door and garden supplies. (I didn’t know what a double door was but we found a door that was twice the size of normal door). I promptly asked for a bulb. And I was directed to an onion or beat root looking thing. I wasn’t sure how would I connect a battery to it. I asked another sales person that I was looking for a “bulb” and not a root. She was confused and said that’s all they had.
We marched back to the earlier sales person. Again we start….
Me: “Excuse me!”
Him: “Yup!” Came out a very crisp sound.
Me: “I couldn’t find bulb.”
I could see he was clueless. Within few minutes, he had forgotten that he had told me to go to garden supplies for bulb. After I explained to him, he remembered.
Him: “Didn’t they have bulbs there?”
Me: “Yes, yes, …But no!” (A typical rest less puzzled Indian) “I am looking for different bulbs. The one we get light from.”
Him: “Ooooooohhhh! You need a light bulb. Well go to electrical section.”
That “Ooohhh” was lot better sounding than his crisp yup was. On we went again. Now to electrical section. We found it and found several light-bulbs too. But I was looking for a small battery operated one so I found another sales person.
Me: “Excuse me!”
Her: “Uh huh!” She said without even looking at me.
Me: “I am looking for a light-bulb.” I improvised.
Her: “Yep! Here they are!” Signing me to follow her and bring me to the stack of light-bulbs we had already seen.
Me: “No madam, I am looking for a small one.”
She showed me a small one.
Me: “I need smaller”. I could have easily said I need a 3V light-bulb. As I said I knew how to speak English and not necessarily know how to communicate with it.
Her: “That’s all we got.”
Thinking that they might be getting smaller light-bulbs soon, I asked.
Me: “So, when are you getting smaller?” Meant to ask when is the store going to get next shipment of smaller light-bulbs.Her: “Sorry?” a
Lucky for me that she didn’t understand the question. As what was asked about light bulb could easily have been considered as a personal question about her size.
At this point I gave up. But fortunately, another sales person came to her rescue and she asked if he could help me and she excused herself.
I repeated the whole story to this guy and he realized my “communication” problem and asked me to describe it.
Me: “It’s a small one typically they use it in torches.” Now that’s what we call a flashlight in India.
Her: “Ah there you are! You need a torch”.
She said joyously. I said to myself, what difference does it make? I will buy the torch and remove the bulb for the demo to my son and put it back again. I needed to buy a torch anyway so let’s do it today.
We went to a section where there was oil and long sticks and lighter fluid. He took out a stick with a wick on it and said “Here you go. That’s a torch you are looking for!”.
Well, I didn’t know what to say so my wife came to my help. She asked the sales girl that we are looking for a battery. In India a battery is also a flash-light.
Now this girl too was confused but she brought us to yet another section and showed us batteries. Now in India we called them cells, so I told her, I was not looking for cells. She told me they don’t carry cells and these are batteries. It was a situation for yet another Britain-America war but luckily was defused quickly by my son saying he was hungry and he needed to go to McDonalds.
Well so we ended up buying nothing and I wasn’t able to teach him the battery-operated light-bulb device. Lucky for him as my efforts to turn on his Engineering gene failed by not being able to describe a light-bulb. Later on, he went on to study medicine and becoming a doctor.
I still wonder what would have happened to him if we had found a right light-bulb then.
(Pictures’ Credit: newvitruvian.com)