Brothertongue

Break from the Subway
It began with the hypothalamus sending hunger signals. And I sprang into
action. Normally, it is the subway sandwich. Fast easy and healthy! Its
very much like speed dating! Meet a girl, sweet talk her, take her to
bed and finish the job in 2 min (Stop frowning please!) and find a
reason to make her leave. But thats being an asshole right? So
analogically,I though eating subway must be lowly as well.

Some Smoke to Die and Others Eat Indian Food
With the record highest density of oil, sugar and spices, Indian diet is
less harmful only to Cigarettes, Dope and Casual Sex. Anyhow, I
always had this slow death wish. So, I picked up my phone book and
ordered the healthiest possible Indian food from an (Indian) mess

Here Come Your Order Sir!
And he came with the packet. He was from the same country where I was born.
A little south to the exact location. But we didn't speak the same
language at home. The tongues of our mothers were of different spicy
flavours. My mother spoke Telugu, a language in Andhra Pradesh and his
mother Tamil, the one in Tamil Nadu. This gentleman never finished his
school and didnt speak much English. He did but not really
conversational. He was a cook cum delivery boy and for that he didnt
need to speak Victorian English. And he didnt speak Hindi or Marathi or
Bengali (the other Indian languages which I happen to know)

Putonghua Comes to Rescue
So the brothers from different mothers from the same mother land but
remember with different mothertongues would not have expected to find a
brothertongue in Mandarin. Yes we spoke quite brotherly in great
philosophical detail for full 15 min in our very own 普通话。Something I
will tell my grandchildren for sure. That would be few decades in
future. BS is a good platform to share it as of now.

Tags: Asshole, Samba

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Comment by Samba Patnaik on September 13, 2010 at 11:23am: @ Aadi

The delivery boy was from a neighboring state, not the same city.

Comment by Samba Patnaik on September 13, 2010 at 11:22am: @大老虎

Dude, people in India are spoilt. Govt cant enforce a national language on the regions. English is the de-facto national language but its penetration is restricted to the educated people only. So far it hasnt proven to be a big problem. The labour has a local supervisor who can speak the language and English as well and above him a person from anywhere in India can operate.

Comment by Big Tiger on September 10, 2010 at 10:48pm: Hooray for India!
But not only India has such a broad spectrum of linguistic dynamics. If it wasn't for Mandarin, most Chinese would need to learn several dialects to get along. I'm surprised Indians haven't developed a national language.

And Yes, I do believe Chinese will be the next international language.
Cheers

Comment by Samba Patnaik on September 9, 2010 at 3:37pm: @ Sunny

Well, thanks for understanding the literary dramatics which Aadi didnt understand it seems :-) Anyhow, I am also proud of India's multiculturalism and this article was infact a tribute to it.

Comment by Salil on September 9, 2010 at 9:34am: Very interesting read. You write well dude. Nicely constructed. Of course I completely disagree on likening Indian food to Ciggarettes, Dope and Casual Sex. But taken with a pinch of literary dramatics, it can be termed passable.

Muhammad's description of this as appalling is a testament to his peripheral knowledge about India or what you wrote. India is such a smorgasbord of different languages that even though an average Indian can speak at least three different languages, there will still be times when you run into someone who speaks none of the languages you know. This is something I believe that is very unique about India. In fact it does not surprise me.
Indian languages are not just different in how they are spoken they look very different written as well. I mean compare Hindi to Malayalam.

Comment by Owain Lloyd-Williams on September 9, 2010 at 12:46am: great story. Have that have had that happen to me a few times when meeting other foreigners who didn't know too much English, but never with a fellow countryman. Mandarin - the next international language for sure!