‘…the bonds that define us and shape our lives, and how the choices we make resonate through history’

“Will you learn to speak my language? My ‘mother tongue’?”, I ask Mint, every now and then. He has answered that question numerous times, so I don’t quite know why I keep presenting him with the same query. His response is simple – He will learn if I truly want him to, though he sees no sense in learning it, because we hardly speak the language amongst ourselves. Heck, my own sister cannot speak what we call our ‘mother tongue’. So what utility value does it have, he asks me. I cannot really answer that question.

Growing up, two questions always made me feel very unsure and to be honest, embarrassed. The first being – “What is your mother tongue?”, the second, “What is the name of your native village? Where do you come from?”. How I would struggle to answer those. Growing up in India, most of my friends either spoke Hindi, Marathi, Gujrati, Sindhi, Katchi, Punjabi, Urdu, Tamil, Telugu, Malyalam, Kannada, Tulu, Konkani or Bengali. I spoke none of those. The language we spoke was not recognised, or even heard of. And this made me feel like a misfit, more than once. When it came to linguistic or regional bonding, there was no one particular group I belonged to.

When I do peep into history though, I see a heritage so rich, it makes me proud. My community hailed from two districts close to Balochistan in Pakistan, I am not going to name the districts, because together they constitute the name of the language we speak. The language is exclusive to our community. And considering how very small my community is, any mention on the web will mean a guaranteed end to my anonymity. The language is a mix of Hindi, Sindhi, Punjabi, Urdu with a uniqueness of its own. It also has a Multani dialect.

Some say an earthquake caused my whole community to migrate from their current location close to Balochistan to Karachi. Karachi, is where my whole community thrived and flourished. My grandparents from both sides were born there. Some of my mom’s elder siblings too, were born in Karachi. People from my community set up businesses of their own, did well, earned riches and established a name for themselves.

My childhood is full of real life stories set in Karachi. My grandparents would tell me with pride, about the huge mansions they owned there, the streets on which they played, their education and growing up years and all of that. But the best story was that of my great grandfather. I could see the pride with which my grandmother spoke about her father, how he studied and went on to become a reputed judge in that area. How famous he was! I would hear this story almost every afternoon.

They have terrifying memories of the partition. How they left behind their land, their mansions, their riches, and how they were forced to flee. Imagine leaving behind all that you owned, being forced to move to an unknown land and start afresh. My grandparents told me stories of the horror they faced when men chased them with shining swords in their hands. How they tried locking their gates so that angry mobs could not enter, how they hid behind doors with chili powder in their fists, how they sought refuge in their Muslim neighbours’ homes. I am unable to imagine the terror my grandparents underwent.

And then, people from my community, including my grandparents, moved to Mumbai. Some made it via sea, some covered the journey sitting on the roof of the train – owing to lack of space and availability of tickets. But yes, they came to Bombay. My whole community moved here. They started afresh – with no belongings.  It is because of this move that I have all my relatives in this city. I had my grandparents here, my uncles, aunts, grand aunts, and my parents’ siblings and cousins, everybody is here. Not only me, but my parents too were born in this city. This has been our home. So when kids in school asked me the name of my native village, I didn’t know what to say. Bombay, apparently was never an acceptable response. Everybody had to originate from some other place. Calling Karachi our ‘native place’ would never have worked either, because my classmates would then be aghast by me not being an ‘Indian’. Ofcourse, I know better now.

Like I said earlier, we are small in number. The older generation that actually lived in Karachi is dying. There are very few surviving aunts of mine who have actually witnessed the partition. Those stories are dying. My language is dying. A lot of people have married out of the community. We’re a liberal lot, but at the end of the day, it makes me sad to note that my people and the language will become extinct. And this is more because the language has not been passed on from one generation to another. People in my community choose to speak to their kids in Hindi and English, instead of teaching them the beautiful language that we can actually call ‘our own’. My parents are guilty of the same. I have always been spoken to in Hindi and English..that is just sad. When I question my parents now – they don’t even know why they did it.

I did manage to learn the language though. Just because I grew up hearing my parents conversing with my grandparents. I am not very fluent, but I can manage to speak. The sister on the other hand, can only understand. She fumbles too much while trying to speak.

We have a rare and precious possession in my ancestral home. A picture of my great, great grandfather!

I’ve wiped out his name. The text at the bottom says, ‘Died on Monday, the 6th October, 1919’. Many times, I’ve looked into this picture. He represents my past. You can see my image in this picture – quite symbolic, isn’t it?. I wonder who he was, what his life was like, and how he were to feel looking down at his great, great grand daughter. How very different our lives are.

And this is my favourite evidence of the honourable man that my great grandfather was. This book belongs to the British era. A rusty copy is owned by my community.

It takes me back in time, to an era that was so different from the one I live in. This is my history. I am proud to have inherited those genes, and definitely proud to be the great grand daughter of this man.

The title of this post has been taken from the snippet of  Khaled Hosseini’s book ‘And the Mountains Echoed’. Because what they say is true. The bonds of the past shape us and define our lives, and the choices we make do resonate through history. So when I ask Mint if he will learn my language, I can’t deny the fact that it has no utility value. It really doesn’t. But perhaps I want him to learn it just to preserve that culture, that connection, those memories, those people and my history. He is the only person I can hope to acquaint. Because at the back of my mind, I do know that my future children will not have an opportunity to learn the language. They have English, Tamil and Hindi to learn. Forcing another language on them does not seem right. Beside, they will have almost no exposure to the language. It is a choice I made by marrying somebody who comes from such a different culture, caste, region and background. I don’t regret the choice. But sometimes, when I do think of my past, the realisation that it may not be passed on makes me feel a pang. A strange pang.