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My cousin gave me a Hindi novel to read and I thought okay let’s read some Hindi for a change. But after fifteen pages I felt that it was not only taxing on my eyes but also on my nerves. Don’t get me wrong, I am not one of those snooty types who look down upon Hindi in fact, ,my formative years of reading have been grounded in Hindi magazines and books so there is no question of unfamiliarity with the Devnagri script in which Hindi is written, but the matter goes somewhat deeper than that.

For quite some time in my early years, I would avoid having anything to do with English, it would seem too formidable a language to gain any control over as far as I was concerned. I would always look at easy way out and go into the comforting embrace of Hindi. As I came of age both literally and figuratively, the world was changing around me real fast and there was a great danger of being left behind more so in my case because I was never a part of a formal education system. The moment of epiphany struck when I was about to turn nineteen and it was kind of embarrassing to have such a poor grasp of the language; I thought it was time I did something about it. I ditched Hindi reading and adopted English mind body and soul. I read, I watched and I observed how truly educated people communicate. Not only I embraced the language, I also internalized a whole new value system and cultural mores. As the years went by, my connections with Hindi became more transactional, in other words what would I gain if I stick with Hindi and my conclusion was, nothing much. So I pursued English with missionary zeal and without sounding immodest, I can justifiably take pride in my accomplishments, whatever little they are. Coming back to the point I made at the beginning, as I tried to peruse the text of that Hindi book, I felt dyslexic. It was like my eyes were a kind of vehicle that is on a jerky ride on a damaged road. Whereas when I read in English, it is like my eyes are gliding on a smooth surface registering both text and context. On balance, I would say that I have gained more by my association with English than would have been possible had I stuck only with Hindi. Now I completely identify with the observation of our first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru ‘’I have become a curious mixture of east and west, out of place everywhere, at home nowhere’’.