6

Learning a new skill is real fun. So is perfecting an old skill. I am indulged in both these activities nowadays. I am learning German (Deutsch) and at the same time perfecting my drawing skills.

When I think about learning to read and write (both my mother tongue which is Malayalam and English) I can’t remember anything clearly. It seems I got initiated to both these languages smoothly. Seamlessly. Coming to Hindi – though I remember first seeing those letters, putting a sound to them and making sense of words and sentences; I do not have any fond memories about it. I hated that language because of more than one reason. Learning that language deprived me of my three summer vacations which would otherwise have been memorable. And those who taught me the language never paid much attention in instilling any kind of love towards Hindi in their pupils. But somehow I managed to learn and pass my exams without much effort – which was the only purpose of learning it. One of the pleasures that came with leaving school was leaving Hindi behind. If I can speak, write and read (in that order) Hindi reasonably well, I owe it to All India Radio and Doordarshan. The cricket commentaries in AIR and the Sunday Hindi Movies in Doordarshan (I am talking about the late 80’s) have helped a lot in making my Hindi better. My five years in Bombay and travels to Hindi speaking states have also been useful. But that ‘learning process’ also happened at a subconscious level. I understand Tamil pretty well and can speak it ‘passably’ (but can’t read or write it yet). Again, I learned Tamil too with out any conscious effort it seems.

Learning a new language is not just about learning to read, write and speak that language. It is also about understanding a new culture. The nuances of a language are a reflection of the culture which developed that language. When you start understanding a new language it broadens your outlook and also gives a lot of ‘options’ to your linguistic abilities. The socio-cultural premises that developed a language influences the way an idea is conceived and expressed in that language. If you are good in more than two languages that gives you an edge. You can conceive and approach an idea you want to express in different ways, from different angles, which gives a fresh flavour to your language style.

But the real fun is in the actual learning process. Words which were just a collection of strange looking alphabets and odd sounds to the ears suddenly exude with meanings. While watching a movie or reading a book, when you suddenly come across a foreign word or phrase (Madagascar, a 2005 computer-animated film produced by DreamWorks Animation when the penguin quartet – Skipper, Rico, Kowalski, and Private – emerge from the tunnel and ask ,,Sprechen Sie Englisch?” or Odessa Files by Frederick Forsyth in which that famous statement by John F Kennedy, ich bin ein Berliner, is just one among many German phrases which appear in it) and the joy you feel when you understand the word and get its meaning is also part of the pleasures of the early days of learning a new language.

Perfecting an old skill is also fun - but more about it in a later blog.

5

It is more than a year since my ‘last post’. I was planning to write about driving. But now I don’t even remember what aspect of driving I wanted to ‘blog about’. In fact in between I was wondering what I should do with this blog. Because of one thing or other I could not do my blogging on a regular basis. But I did not like the idea of ‘quitting’. I knew one of these days I was going to come back. And here I am.

One thing that kept me away from blogging was a question – what should I be doing (writing/ blogging) here? I looked upon blog as an extension of my personal dairy. But that was a misconception. Now I know blog is something different. And I want to explore the possibilities of this new medium seriously (though blogs have somewhat lost its popularity to ‘twitter’. To put it crudely – Blogs are like letters or e-mails while twitter is like SMS. I mean no offence. And I am an ‘active twitter’).

Being a self confessed bibliophile one thing I like talking about (and thinking about) is books.

One of the first books I read was a (Malayalam) translation of Leo Tolstoy’s novella “A Prisoner in Caucasus”.

The story is about two Russian army officers – Zhilin and Kostlin - who get captured by Tartars and their attempt to escape. And then there is Dina, he little Tartar girl who helps the prisoners.

(Incidentally the first three books I read were translations. One was Macbeth. The other was Robin Hood. I still have the Robin Hood with me. But lost the other two.) In those days - I am talking about the 70s – we used to get a lot of translations from Russia. Especially Russian folktales and classics. Those books, neatly produced by Progress Publishers Moscow have elegant typefaces, beautiful illustrations and used a language style which was different in a refreshing way. The translators – Omana and Gopalakrishnan – used Malayalam words effectively to evoke a Russian feel. They simply transcreated the Russia in the readers’ minds. But this particular book I am talking about was not from Progress Publishers. Was it a “Balan Publications”? A publishing company owned by Mathew M. Kuzhiveli? I am not sure. It was a thin volume. It has a maroon colour cover. The name of the translator was not there. Or I have not noticed it. (I was in the second or third year at school then and did not know the importance of the role of a translator)

I would have read that book a number of times and reread certain portions again and again. (After reading a book I still try to reread it soon. And then go back to certain parts which I enjoyed most). But then that book went missing.

A few years ago in an article, MT (Yes… the one and only M T Vasudevan Nair) mentioned about a translation he did during his Victoria College days to get some pocket money. And the book he translated was “A Prisoner in Caucasus”!

I am trying to find out more about it. All about that research – in a later blog.