Yeh hai filmy chakkar

Once upon a time Hindi was at the most the third language for most kids who attended schools with state syllabus here in Bangalore. Kannada was either the first language or second depending on the medium of the school. But these days even the neighbourhood school that runs in the 2-storey crumbling building with 5 teachers for a student population of 300 has Hindi as the second language! No I am not about rake up the issue of Hindi vs Kannada here. Not yet anyways :P I have been wondering why it feels so bizarre to be surrounded by Hindi speaking population in Bangalore. 8 out of 10 of my neighbours speak Hindi. I am surprised to hear children scream at each other Hindi. Of course the obvious reason is the migratory population from up north. But I thought I should've got used to it by now. But no.

Everytime I hear a child scream "tum apne aapko bahut smart samajhte ho" or an adult say "breakfast mein alu ke paranthe tho bahut healthy hote hai ji" I am a bit taken aback. And here's my theory on why that happens. For me Hindi was always the language of television and movies. All through 80s and a large part of 90s Hindi was the language of what was not real (I am resisting the temptation to say "fantasy language") One romanced in Hindi or one cracked surd jokes (now considered politically incorrect of course) one even made up silly poetry or rattled dialogues from Ramayan and Mahabharath of DD fame to entertain one another (Oh c'mon I know you loved speaking words like "vats" and "hey nath") At the most one had to struggle to get some decent marks by byhearting answers worth 50 marks for the final exams. But never had to speak or heard someone speak. It seriously sounds all too filmy to me! Come ot think of it that is probably why I took to speak the language in the first place :D