If you don’t know Hindi, you are a beggar in Delhi

During my studies, I had spent a significant part of my time dreaming of getting a job opening in New Delhi. There were many reasons that lured me to the national capital including the city’s towering political importance, unlimited media opportunities, and a high status bestowed by society upon a person working or studying in that city, irrespective of whether he or she is worth it or not.

Now, three years after my studies came to a full stop, I got a chance to visit my dream city in June. And that visit has forced me to change my perception about the city, though for personal reasons.

It was an official trip along with two of my colleagues – Abhinav Sahai and Akanksha Prasad.

Though I rarely travel by train, I always loved long journeys with friends, for it can temporarily cut me off from the rest of the world - work targets, KRAs, meetings, appointments and all other catastrophes.

We enjoyed like anything. The world seemed to be non-existent at that night. We spent time playing cards till almost 4am. As we hit the territories of each state, we were notified by welcome SMSs on our mobiles, but there were no goodbyes when we passed those states.

As we were heading closer to Delhi, the atmosphere was getting hotter and hotter. The moment I stepped out of the train, I realized a bigger challenge which was going to haunt me as long as I would stay in Delhi - the language. If somebody heard me speaking Hindi, they would sue me for humiliating the whole nation.

Coupled with that, was 42 degree Celsius temperature level, which had already started working inside my throat. I was like a thirsty cock, my Adam's apple swiftly moving up and down.

I ran to a roadside vendor, who was selling lime juice. Believe me, he did not seem to understand when I asked for lime juice in English. I realized that if things go this way, my stay in Delhi could be worse. After brainstorming for a few minutes, that Neembu pani ad flashed across my head, and I spelt out, ‘Neembu Ka Pani Chahiye’.

Awestruck at my own Hindi, I watched him prepare lime juice, my chest expanding three more inches with pride. It was for the first time in my life that I spoke an actionable sentence in Hindi.

For all my love for the language, Hindi remained Greek to me even from my schooling days. In one way I was better in Hindi compared to some of my school classmates, who, whenever I suggested a combined study of the language, backed off in fear, saying that its letters looked to them like ‘hanging bats’.

However, I can read Hindi, though a bit slowly, at times letter by letter.

The big danger in reading a language letter by letter is that, you don’t know what you are reading until you have finished it. Sitting in a city bus, I was reading all hoardings and advertising boards planted along the roadside, most of them shop names and merchandise lists – English words written in Hindi script. At a brainless moment, I read something on a board, “Co...tto...n...br...” Oops! I realized those words only after I clearly spelt them out aloud. That was a ladies wear shop. I managed to sneak a look-around in the bus to see if anybody heard me. The guy sitting near me was stifling a laughter. I went not just crimson but the whole VIBGYOR.

Our accommodation was arranged in the company guest house located in Vasant Kunj area. The air-conditioned rooms in the house were the only respites from the scorching hot day. However, as my colleagues had some appointments with their friends and relatives in Delhi, I decided to venture out alone for sightseeing in the city, despite many warned me of a possible collapse from dehydration due to the hot climate.

I did not pay heed to the warning because of two reasons. Firstly, I was not sure if would visit this place again in my life, and secondly, I may not get a second chance to collapse in Delhi.

Though I had no particular destination in mind as my main purpose was to while away the time, somehow I reached Chandni Chowk and visited Red Fort, Juma Masjid, Raj Ghat, etc by taking telephonic clues from my friends back in Kerala, and speaking to people I met on the road in Delhi.

When I reached Red Fort, the time was around 1pm, with the sun burning just above my head. The ground where people queued up to enter the fort was felt, under my feet, like a frying pan. I thanked god that I didn’t use coconut oil while taking bath in that morning. Had I applied oil on my head, I would by then have metamorphosed into a delicious food item – And you may call it Saheer Fry or something.

Tired, I drank neembu ka pani, cup by cup, from wherever I found a juice shop. When I started back to the guest house, the day was drawing to a close. Streetlights had started slowly supplanting the sunlight. The quaint roads of Chandni Chowk suddenly turned out to be busy thoroughfares with full of activities. Hitting the road in that twilight were shoppers, globetrotters, wanderers, lovers, beggars and perhaps sex workers.

The youth in the city looked highly fashionable, brightly colorful, and expressively defiant. They dressed (or not dressed) whichever way they pleased.

Suddenly a chirpy crowd caught my attention. They looked like a group of college girls, but sure, they were highly fashionable by the way they dressed. If you ask whether these girls have worn any dress at all. The answer would range from ‘Yes’, ‘Not Really’ to ‘No’, depending upon the way you look at them.

I thought these girls might be the characters in the article I read the night before. The article was about the fate of some girls in Delhi who are deeply in love with the new found freedom in the city but, at the same time, have not yet escaped the moral policing enforced upon them by people back their home. Many of such girls were reportedly hailing from some backward villages in the neighboring states like Haryana, UP, Rajasthan, etc. So, it looked to me, these chirpy girls epitomize a large number of freedom-loving Indian women who wanted to live the way they pleased and love the ones they chose.

The stories of mushrooming Khap Panchayats in the North have to be read in the background of this context.

Let’s leave politics there. I was really hungry by then. I started pacing the road up and down in search of a hotel. I kept on asking people for a hotel, but due to my timing, everybody thought I was looking for accommodation, and directed me accordingly.

So it was imperative upon me that I communicate my need to eat, in Hindi.

My eyes had turned red out of tiredness, and hair yellow with dust. I was in a Kurta, which was a bit too big for my body size - a lost look altogether!

Seeing an old man standing on the footpath, I went to him and asked if there was any hotel nearby. He looked perplexed. I thought he might have got only the word ‘hotel’ and I have to quickly add in Hindi that it is for food, and not accommodation. So I said, “Khane-ke-liye bhayya.”

His eyes went from my head down to feet, a scornful grimace on his face. Without replying to my query, he turned back in a strange aversion and walked away swiftly.

The message was clear to me, though he didn’t say it aloud: “Go work and find your meals. Begging does not suit your age.”

A late realization fell on my head. That the old man did not hear the word ‘hotel’ properly, but heard the sentence followed: “Khane-ke-liye bhayya.”