My mother tongue is Malayalam. I was literally born, and fully brought up in Tamil Nadu, and so in some sense, Thamizh is also my Thai Mozhi. I studied in an English medium school, and the first letters i wrote and learnt were the alphabets of the English language. I now read, speak, write and think best in this language. My second language in school was Hindi, that i studied from class 1 through class 10. The first five years i enjoyed the simple bits of this language, and then during my secondary schooling, i must say i struggled thru’ these languages classes. My parents thought it was important i learn Malayalam too, and arranged for special coaching to read and write. And during school Malayalam was my third language, and so i received three years of formal education too. During schooling, all of these languages were simply a bridge to score marks, report them to parents and pass through to the next grade. I went thru’ school without gaining any attention from teachers for my academic prowess. That, of course, does not apply to my other skills, that helped me in achieving some notoriety.

Love for language bloomed in my late schooling years. Love for poetry and prose, mainly English, given my proficiency here, developed soon enough. I started picking up on beautiful phrases, rhyming lines of poetry, the wistfulness in a poem and never before heard word or usage bewildered me. But without proper tools and techniques to hone this, i had to remain in that state, and not comprehend or advance better. Simple but elegant lines of RK Narayanan, William Wordsworth’s blissful lines Solitary Reaper, Robert Frost’s “miles to go….”, and many many others. I learnt the application of nouns as verbs, that might seem normal today because of corruption of the language, but held a fascination for all back then, when impurities were far less and language largely distilled.

While English was the centre-piece, it was also the same time when my love for Thamizh developed slowly but steadily. Of course at that time, in college, the lingua franca was local Thamizh; and all sentences began that one infamous word ‘O’. I began reading bits of Thamizh words from movie poster and bus signs. But never could develop a full grasp on the vocabulary, there were no avenues to absorb the finer parts of the language. At the same time, i finally was able to speak in Hindi, essentially getting over my fear of making mistakes and losing marks. And so while i am able to speak, my grammar is still very very flawed, specifically in getting the genders right. In Thamizh and Malayalam grammar, the rules for gender are very different. Slowly, the ability to speak, read and sparingly write in these languages became a part of me. Writing, of course, was in the rarest of rare occasions.

Writing became a passion when i started blogging. Blogging for no specific purpose, other than to allow my Stupid Inner Voice to speak up. Rants were the early calling. But somewhere in there, poetry began to sprout. Initial lines began by twisting lyrics from songs in Thamizh, Malayalam or Hindi. Changing the words, to construe a different meaning. But soon enough i was able to express a line or two, that to me sounded profound. But didn’t bother to pen them down. And soon they were lost in the many alleys of my memory. When this fascination bloomed later, it took the form of a full poem, and i chose the language i was most secure in, every which way i saw it; English.

Life to me has presented many blessings, and i am otherwise a happy soul. But there is a yearning for things i haven’t achieved yet or don’t possess, like possibly the whole human race. This is not wealth or fame, gold or guild. One such yearning is to the desire to write in Thamizh or Malayalam, or for that matter in Hindi too. But lately, having rooted myself firm, have this desire to express in Thamizh. I have been spending time reading about the evolution of Thamizh script and language, and that has only increased the cravings. It irks me to think that i wasted time in not learning or spending time with both these languages. I have gained reasonable proficiency in Malayalam, having read over 25 odd books in the past 2-3 years. But it is still not enough to grasp the beauty of the language or to construct a sentence. While my reading ability in Thamizh is a little better than rudimentary, i think i have a better appreciation of words, have heard or listened to beautiful words all around me. Yet, words fail expression, and the lines fall flat; there is a lot to learn and master.

Miles to go, before the music in my heart, can be a thing of beauty! Miles to go…..