Humour: December 2005 Archives

When my brother in law (BIL) (now in Belgium), started his career in the IT field, he had to move to Mumbai. The only languages he knew were Tamizh and English and he was completely unaware about Hindi and Marathi – the two basic languages spoken in Mumbai. He had made a compartment friend - Mohan, who thankfully was a Tamilian born and brought up in Mumbai. They would speak in English and Tamil, and Mohan would teach him a bit of Hindi once in a while.

India is a vast country, and I always admired its unity in diversity. Apart from the 15 important languages that are put on any Indian currency note, there should be few hundred different languages in India, and few thousand different dialects of the same. I read somewhere that in Madhya Pradesh alone - some 300 different dialects are spoken, and that the dialect changes every 10-13 kilo metres you travel! In this situation, it is really hard to miss few hilarious moments that different languages could create.