Few days back, a friend and I were chatting about Jhumpa Lahiri's new book, Unaccustomed Earth. I told her I liked the book mainly because I identified with some of the Bong connections in it. Actually, what I identified with the most was one line from the first story, Unaccustomed Earth. 'Bengali had never been a language in which she felt like an adult,' Lahiri writes, describing her protagonist Ruma's dilemma about teaching the language to her three-year-old son.
That's exactly how I feel. Bengali to me is the language of my kiddiehood. Though I speak to both my parents only in Bengali and use a mix of Bengali, Hindi and English with my brother, I don't think in the language. This is despite the fact that I spent the first 16 years of my life at home surrounded by parents and their circle of largely Bengali friends and usually spent every summer holiday in Kolkata, discussing Pintu and sundry things with my cousin, in Bengali of course :)
The common language at P and my home is Hinglish. When A was little I would cuddle and coo to him in Bengali but now that he has grown up and understands/needs instructions, Bengali simply doesn't work. I can't be authoritative in Bong. And what's the point of screaming your head off in Bong asking him not to drop the jug of water if he doesn't understand it!
I'm sure if he were to hear Bengali around him more often, he'd pick up at least a smattering of it but unfortunately he just hears me, usually going ballistic on the phone with my mother. I'm not getting worked up here about him being able to converse in Bengali in future as I'm sure eventually he'll pick up something.
What I'm concerned is whether he would ever be able to read Bangla. No, I don't want him to turn a linguist. I just don't want him to miss out on the literature. I grew up on a steady diet of Bengali literature and in my bookshelf Shirshendu Mukherjee, Sunil Gangopadhdhay and Satyajit Ray shared equal amount of space with the Enid Blytons, Austens, Montgomery, etc.
There's no doubt about it, Bong kid lit is an absolute treasure. You can find everything there. Suave detectives and eccentic scientists, sidekick brats (usually cousins or nephews) and enormously intelligent and brave uncles or brothers. You'll also find imagination that's hard to top. Stolen statues, exotic stones, feuding families, scary sadhubabas...they have it all.
So that's my main worry. That kiddo will grow up to be a reader (have no doubt about it, he reads Pooh on the pot) and will probably read Feluda in translation but not in the language it's meant to be read in.
I guess I will introduce him to the language properly at some point and perhaps even make an effort (ha ha who am I kidding?!) to teach him to read. I don't quite remember how me and my brother learnt it as we lived outside Calcutta all along but according to my mother who has a very glazed over memory of these things, it happened quite naturally.
I hope such natural evolution (unlikely though it seems) happens with A as well and I am spared the task of teaching. Anything to escape being mommylike. Especially Bong-mommylike. A bhery dangerous species as those who know weel tell you.
PS: I know I should link every unfamiliar name (Shirshendu for instance) to a wikipedia type URL that throws some light on it but I'm usually too lazy to do that. Still I tried and came across this fabulous post by Calcutta Chromosome that also has some great comments. If any of you are Bong, have a fond memory of childhood literature or are remotely interested, check it out. It's better than any wikipedia blurb.