Kannada maathadi...!

Of late, I have been trying my bestest of my best to speak one line of proper kannada. It was quite embarrassing to admit that three years of staying in Bangalore hasn't brought me any closer to the language and my Kannada vocab was still constant with 1 word - the ubiquitous "maadi".

And to rub salt to the wounds, hubby dear has this penchant for showing off his 3-month-classroom -educated-80%-marks Kannada in front me while he spoke to auto drivers, plumbers and others. And am sure his trademarked "right tagoli" is used on auto drivers ONLY in my presence. And he very well knows, my quirky ears would stand up and my next question would be "Hey...what did you say just now? What does it mean?" followed by a wow-you-are-great exclamations and hushed gasps and widened eyes as he basks in the glory.

So hudugi here decided it was high time she did something about this. And the FM channels here probably felt the same, so they switched to sikkapatte kannada and swalpa-est hindi.


So terribly sikkapatte it was that hudugi here was heard humming only kannada songs for a few months and whenever a familiar kannada song was aired on FM while in car with hubby dear, hudugi would not just increase the volume but also sing aloud until hubby dear cries for mercy!

Soon, the office cab occupants unanimously decided to switch to another FM channel which had kanglish as medium of communication, and hence easier to pick up! So kannada songs got reduced. It was good bye to "Jinka Marina" which used to be recited like a prayer thrice a day.

Now hudugi listens to ads and RJs and picks up few kannada words. SMS sent to hubby dear is mostly in Kannada, and mostly the contents remain unaltered. I ping him every now and then as if he is a BMTC volvo bus with a "yelli idhire" sms, which happens to be the only completely correct kannada sentence I am proud to have mastered.

The learning curve has been pathetic all this while, or at least hubby dear makes me think so, for whichever way I put a sentence, he says those words don't even exist in the language!! And yeah, considering the similarity among South Indian languages, I do sometimes take a slightly greater advantage of it than what is necessary, the reason for all the "non-existent" words.

But nevertheless, the effort continues :) If you try to poke fun at me,nin kudumbana aanandikku aarogyakku, Mane hogu! (My own way of saying "Get lost" or in pure mallu-style "Go to your classes" ;))