Telugu to Gujarati via Hindi

My parents hail from Coastal Andhra, I was brought up in Warangal in Telangana. My in-laws family too belongs to Coastal Andhra. Both the states divided from united Andhra Pradesh like quarreling siblings in recent years. My story goes further dividing my belonging. After my marriage I lived in Mathura [UP], Delhi and presently in Baroda [Gujarat]. I am afraid, if I have to mention my place of belonging…….??

After I reached Baroda I pursued my passion for art once again. This is almost 2 decades back. Accidentally I reached JTV Gujarati electronic media channel and I was offered to conduct artist’ interview based video programs for art lovers. They provided technical assistance including cameraman and a video editor. I made my first documentary video on senior artist of Baroda Sri.Jyoti Bhatt. I can speak Hindi. I cannot speak Gujarati. My understanding of Gujarati language was very poor to begin with. Jyoti Bhatt spoke in Hindi to answer my queries for video interview. He probably must have felt there would not be any dialogue otherwise. JTV was a popular channel in Gujarat for Gujarati audience. I completed the video and it was put for approval of the JTV organizers. I realized that a Telugu speaking person, speaking in Hindi for Gujarati audience. I was more than sure that it’s going to fail leg before wicket. Surprisingly they approved me to continue and make video interviews. Have they thought art loving audience of Gujarat would not mind to pardon Hindi pronunciation of a Telugu speaking person?

One day I approached Bhupen Khakkar, well known artist. After the discussion of what I am going to video shoot and interview him he said he would speak in Gujarati, but I can converse in Hindi. He beautifully narrated his short story too in Gujarati during the interview. He was a writer in Gujarati. Those were the days I was trying hard to understand little Gujarati. That beautiful interview 17 years back was heard by Gujarati viewership via my spoken Hindi. Gujarati people are very friendly. Hospitality is the core of their community living and wonderful sharing.

Today I remember and recollect those of my interviews I conducted for JTV. Artists who belong to Gujarati community used to speak either in Hindi or English except Bhupen who insisted on speaking in Gujarati. To bring out the information I was twisting my hands and facial expressions and try to invent a language of common communication. Courtesy British, India adapted and there are ‘Indianized’ words, chair, table, train, etc,. There are certain easily understood words in Indian languages like Kurchi [Telugu] and Kursi [Hindi, Gujarati], because of the pronunciation commonality. We have already invented a language of mixed basket like, Tinglish, Hinglish, Minglish, etc, i.e, a mix of Telugu and English as Tinglish. In this century of migrations new language inventions like Thindi etc, also happened. That has a different flavor to savor. If different languages speaking people come together to communicate, necessarily a new expression takes birth.