Hinglish Lessons

My second full day in India and I'm on my way to begin work as a volunteer teacher, not because I'm especially talented or experienced, but because education seems to be my most obvious marketable skill. Pratima's compact car is operated by a hired driver and she seats herself in the back with me, as she usually does. Its as if the trip is some sort of absurd role-playing game; I feel as though we are two little girls pretending to be princesses being driven around by our chauffeur (read: big brother). In this way, we're off to Sector 36D, where the heavily gated office of the Bharat Prakarsh Foundation awaits.

This Foundation is part of the Educate India Initiative, and describes itself as “empowering under-privileged children, especially girls, through education.” By way of donating books and opening teaching centres for children of all ages, the Foundation prepares disadvantaged children for a return to mainstream classes. It's organized by a friendly Sikh couple, former bankers, and today I'll be meeting Neena, the wife. Neena is quite kind and takes an enthusiastic interest in my religious studies; she seems quite pleased when I begin to join in to the Buddhist melody she's singing. The interview lasts approximately four minutes, and I am officially a volunteer teacher in the Indian Government's education system.

Most of our time in Neena's office is taken up by tea-table talk, something that I'm coming to learn is an utter necessity in just about any Chandigarh social encounter. The American intolerance for dawdling has trained me to keep my professional interactions as concise as possible, that “brevity is the soul of wit.” To live in Chandigarh, however, I must be prepared to chit-chat my little heart out.

And chit-chat I did. It became quite a little game, dodging in and out of the Hinglish dialog. The dance of the Hinglish is something I'm getting a bit used to; most people I've met here zig-zag between Hindi and English throughout the entire conversation. Sometimes the weaving of the two is so tight that I may hear only two or three English words in a Hindi sentence, or simply a new language every other thought. For me, it's like a game of find the familiar, and it's quite difficult. Sometimes I'll perk up a bit upon hearing a homonym, and then spend a moment trying to discern why they're talking about poultry in a conversation about the health of the family.

I follow the trail of Hinglish into a car and finally through the doors of Sector 37's Government Senior Secondary School. It continues as we relax in the Principal's office, a rather lovely set-up filled with several chatting administrators.

And once again, I'm being served. I can't seem to go anywhere in this city without someone asking or insisting on serving me. This time it's samosas; thank you, but I'm not hungry. The heavy-set woman with the tray looks at me with a smile and simply continues to say “Take, take, take.” After several wave-offs and a couple of dozen “take”s, I save us both the trouble and just take the damn samosa (yes, it was quite good). “We must feed our guests,” Pratima tells me, a gentle warning never to turn down food. So I don't hesitate when she returns and offers me a cup of coffee and an Indian sweet made from boiled-down milk. The serving lady seems pleased.

It's about 1pm, so school is almost over for the day. I'll be teaching sixty students 9^th grade English during the day and at the Initiative Centre in the afternoon. Next thing I know, Pratima and Neena are gone and I'm in the hands of the school staff.

So far I haven't had too much trouble getting people to speak English to me; most people speak enough so that I can get my point across and those I interact with regularly are perfectly fluent. It's not until I'm stuck in the middle of a Government Educational Facility that I'm nearly completely surrounded by Hindi. I'm now in the care of Urmil Deri, an old woman with one of those wrinkled faces you see in National Geographic. While we're waiting for class to start, two other faculty members join us. Only one speaks any English; she describes their jobs as “helpers.” The other, Parveen, simply keeps talking to me in Hindi. When it looks like she wants a response, I simply flash a large smile and shake my head. She seems to like this, because her face lights up when I do it and she grabs my cheek or strokes my hair. I have no idea what's going on, but I like her enthusiasm, so I just keep on smilin'.

Before class

After about twenty minutes, Urmil and I are alone, and children are filtering in. It seems like Urmil's English ability ends at “bathroom,” but at least that's going for me. At first, there are only these terribly small, terribly adorable under sixes; they're learning to write the alphabet, and write the letters so that they may copy them. Older kids shuffle in, learning animals and family members, and a few pre-teens learning things like writing the months of the year in cursive. The children come up with their notebooks, I give them words to copy or math problems to do. Every so often they say something in squeaky Hindi and I smilingly point at the other teacher.

So far, I'm pretty impressed that I'm able to do anything considering that I'm speaking pig-latin in a room full of confused shorties. I have no problem teaching English as a second language, I have strategies for that, knowledge and experience. However, a child's first introduction to ESL cannot be done through a massive game of charades. Give me some supplies, picture charts and chalk for the blackboard, the ability to talk to the teacher in order to know when it's appropriate for me to start a lesson. But this? How can I help these kids?

Any teaching strategies I had went right out the window when any communication with anyone, including the teacher, became impossible. If I want to teach them counting or ABC's, am I just supposed to stand up and start singing? How can I explain to them how to do a math problem or what the word they're writing means? Meanwhile, Urmil hasn't given up. I think she's convinced that if she uses simple enough Hindi, speaks slowly enough, that I might catch something. Sorry.

"Snap."

At about 3pm two buckets appear at the door, and the kids excitedly head outside. Urmil makes the scoop-to-mouth gesture, the way that Indians eat with their hands, and I'm following her outside. We stop in the dusty field outside of the school, a few boys carry over a bench and gesture for me to sit. Two scoops of rice, one scoop of vivid yellow goo, and everyone is eating. Thank god, I'm able to forgo this one; I don't think my sensitive American belly could handle bucket food. Meanwhile, Urmil keeps saying “snap,” until I finally determine that she wants me to take a picture of the children.

Chandigarh is the richest city in India, and these are some of the poorest kids in Chandigarh. However you work the math on that one, they're still hungry. Very, very hungry. I watched some of these scrawny forty-pound kids put back three or four cups of rice, two cups of the saucy dish. One of the littlest ones kept coming back for more, and for some unknown reason Urmil kept pushing him away. He eventually got a second (or was it his third?) serving after patience I've never seen from a kid before.

I'm Not in Brooklyn Anymore.

When I was a freshman at NYU, I was hired by America Reads to perform a very similar job in a Brooklyn, New York Public School. On my first day in the school, about five minutes after I entered the remedial first-grade class, I was approached by a small girl holding a wooden stake with a nail through it. “There's no white people here,” she told me. I stared at her for a moment, and I think size won out, because she didn't fight too much when I grabbed the stake and took it away.

After a school year with them, I loved the kids in that class and was sorry to go. However, most of them were a bit nutters. I think that to some degree we expect this from American kids when they're young enough; they get distracted and won't sit still, or go and play, or start fights with each other, or (occasionally) decide to see what you taste like. While I was in the Principal's office, I was told that Indian children were very well behaved, very well controlled, that I would have no problem with them. I honestly didn't believe it until I saw it.

I'm not saying they were perfect, but they were angels compared to much of the Brooklyn class. They were unbelievably respectful, bringing me pens and chairs and waiting to do what they were told. After the meal was done, the children all went to a spiket and cleaned up after themselves. Without question, and often without being told to, they did any errands that need to be done. Hell, during the outdoor time students continued to come up to me asking for more words to copy. I thought this was something we only made kids do to punish them.

So, apparently the last two hours are outside time. Normally, I'd be teaching them a game or singing a song, but at this point it seems that Urmil has completely given up on English and is only speaking Hindi to me. She looks completely baffled when I say something to her, even though I'm only trying one or two words in a shot. Eventually, she starts bringing the little ones up to me to sing songs and recite poems, and I feel like a guest at the Von Trapp household. She somehow gets me to take a video of the older boys singing the national anthem, but waves off my camera when the most adorable little pig-tailed girl is singing something dailysquee.com worthy.

So Urmil just lets the kids be kids, and I don't have much of a choice, so I just keep shaking my head as she speaks to me in English. The kids are running, jumping, using an honest-to-god slingshot, climbing trees, exhibiting that enthusiasm for life that is limited to the young but that the rest of us spend our time longing for.

Confusion, confusion, confusion. Class ends and I'm trying to get home. It appears that Urmil told the tuk-tuk driver that I want his services for a month, but just won't leave when I say “tonight only.” Now there are two men, Urmil, a tuk-tuk, and I, and everyone's just standing there confused and silent. A young sikh man finally saves me when the driver steps in front of his car and asks him to translate. I'd like a ride home, please.

I think I'm going to walk tomorrow.

I call Pratima when I get home, and she tells me Urmil is a substitute teacher and will only be working until Monday. The regular teacher, she assured me, speaks English. Just one more four-hour game of charades.

Off to yoga. It's getting more advanced, but its still not a close resemblance to the types I've seen in America, which seems to be mostly form without soul.

Home. Rest in Shavasana. Dead man's pose for the next eight hours.