I have been meaning to do this a long time. Been thinking of a subtle way to say this without hurting the feelings of any body and realized there is no subtler way of doing this than saying it straight up. And here it is..
My dear fellow Indians, why do you assume that every Indian knows Hindi!?
You guys go to such lengths as to start conversing in Hindi the first time we talk with each other, even though you know we are from Tamil Nadu or any other state for that matter. We respond in English and is it not indicative enough for you guys to understand that we do not speak Hindi. Are you that oblivious or just assume that we talk Hindi just because we have Hindi speaking friends or is it just plain difficult to accept that we NEED NOT know Hindi?!
And Yes! Even Mumbai is North India to us, just like every state in the south of India is the same to you! When your Bengali or a Punjabi friend talks to you in Hindi, why cant you speak to us in a language that we understand!! I recently had one of my friends say that they (not saying he or she!) were surprised to come to know that there are states in India that do not speak Hindi!! Wait, what???!! Where in the world were you living your life, dear friend 🙂 Sorry to burst your bubble, but we do exist and will continue to. And Hindi is just one of the official languages in India and not our national language!
I have some amazing friends who speak Hindi who respect our language and the cultural differences. I had an awesome four years of under graduate studies amongst people from various places in India and I have never had to make myself clear that do not speak Hindi. They did not look down upon people who did not speak their tongue. It did bother me to not hear people talking in Tamil much around in college. But not for long!
Now here I am miles away from home and my country, where my own people are making that assumption. Whether or not I understand Hindi is immaterial. Why does anybody have to jump to a conclusion that I would do! It would not be just me thinking this way.. Every Indian who does not know Hindi would share my thought!
Dear Hindi speaking Indians.. Please understand.. I do NOT need to speak Hindi. I do NOT need to understand Hindi. And I am not against Hindi. In my defense, I have completed the exams conducted by Dakshina Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha, which as Wiki says, is an organization whose main goal is to improve Hindi literacy among the non-Hindi speaking people of South India and so I can safely say I have a fair knowledge on the language. Mind you.. I understand what you are talking about 🙂 Thanks to my Mom, my sister and I did finish these exams. May be my Mom envisioned we would need it sometime in life, like now, though my sister still feels that it does not serve any particular purpose. Thanks Mom 🙂
And my dear friends who do not speak or understand Tamil, you know who you all are, and I love you guys. Always <3
P.S.:
1. What triggered this post now?
My sister received a message from somebody in Hindi to which she very much wanted to respond in pure Tamil, which she did not do, as it would have been rude to do so! Yes, we do not want to be rude and hence we respond in English 🙂
2. I am not fanatic about my mother-tongue but I do appreciate it. I am still the person who contemplates that I could have chosen French as my second language instead of Tamil in my Senior Secondary Education, so that I could have boosted my marks by a bit in my class 12 😉