I almost threw up

Surfing through a maze of blogs I hit a link to Shobha De’s interview by Karan Thapar’s on the Devil’s Advocate.

Shobhaa De: Well, if you go to West Bengal, Karan, do you hear anything but Bengali being spoken? Does anyone mind? You go to Karnataka, do you hear anything but Kannada being spoken? If you go to Tamil Nadu, do you hear anything but Tamil being spoken? So in that sense, may be a disconnect is happening in Mumbai. People think Mumbai belongs to all of India and therefore not parochially bound.

I was dumbfounded. And then came this

Shobhaa De: In a way, yes. Also, it’s a Maharashtrian city, people who choose to live there should learn and speak Marathi. If I were to make West Bengal my home, I jolly well learn Bengali. If I choose to live in Punjab, I should learn to speak in Punjabi. All the signages, all over India, happen to be in two languages, sometimes in three. You go anywhere in India, the signages are in local script. Why is it that Mumbai is being picked on for insisting on both signages – Devnagiri, which is also Marathi, and English.

I almost threw up!

Lemme get this straight. I was born in Pune. So I should know Marathi. My folks then moved to Meerut. I did learn Hindi. They then went to Jorhat, I should be spouting Ahomi. They then moved to Calcutta (then). I did manage to pick up Bengali. There was some time spent in Bangalore and Guntur – okay so Kannada and Telegu needs to be covered. I’ve done time since then in Leh, Srinagar, Bathinda and Arunanchal and am now in Jodhpur. SO that takes care of Kashmiri, Ladakhi, Punjabi and Marwari. Oh I almost forgot, My old man is a Mallu and mom is a tam-bram.

So I need to speak, read and write eleven , make that thirteen languages. Then and only then will Ms De be happy. KT rarely disappoints when he wields the knife mike.