NEW new project: Tamil

Now that I'm in Tamil Nadu, everyone here speaks Tamil. This language is quite different from Hindi and Telegu, because it is a Dravidian language. Unlike the previous Indian languages I studied, which are derived from Sanskrit, Telegu has very few consonant variations; that is, it only strictly has 20 consonants, and in the current day and age people have colloquially added 5 more borrowed from Sanksrit (these 5 extra consonants are also taught in school, so they are not solely used in colloquial speech). That all being said, different groups or castes of people pronounce Tamil in different ways - higher castes, according to my uncle, tend to speak with a more Sanskritized pronunciation, adding variations to the consonants where there would be none. I can only liken it to American English versus British English: they are the same language, but pronounced differently, and the varying pronunciations indicate where one comes from and where/how one learned the language (however, that may not be a good analogy, that is just what it seems to remind me of).

In terms of the script itself, Tamil seems to have "letters" that mostly look different from one another, or at least moreso than Hindi and Telugu (especially Telugu. It's quite difficult to tell those letters apart from each other). There are groups of consonants that look alike, such as ka, ca, and ta, but ka looks very different from pa, which looks very different from na (due to the spotty wifi here, I can't type in Tamil script, so refer to the picture below).

The Tamil "alphabet"

This difference in the overall look of consonants could be because Tamil is a very, very old language, of a similar age as Sanskrit, so over the years, the script itself has evolved quite a bit. 

A history of the Tamil script shown in an exhibit at Dakshin Chitra, here in Chennai

I've been searching for a "Teach Yourself Tamil!" book since I got to Chennai, but didn't find any of the type until today. So, when I found a section of dictionaries, I picked up an English-Hindi/Hindi-English dictionary, a Tamil-English dictionary, and a comic book about Ganesha in Tamil. I even found Harry Potter in Tamil!! That was definitely the most exciting find. (I also picked up a book which I mistakenly understood to be a Tamil-teaching book for English-speakers, but turned out to be the other way around. Now I'd really better learn Tamil, so that I can learn to speak English.)

Sarees

My aunt taught us how to fold a saree! Here's our learning process and attempt........

Link to YouTube video

"Go With the Flow" and Team Oscar

I decided to submit a short film (and by short, I mean literally 60 seconds) for the Team Oscars competition, an annual event where 6 aspiring filmmakers are chosen, from submissions, to present awards at the Oscars in February. Since I'm in India, and I have a filmmaker's dream location at my fingertips, I figured I should make the most of it and created a film about "going with the flow." My submission had to be based on the best piece of advice I had ever received, and that one seemed to fit the best with the feeling I got from Hyderabad. So I set to work, and here is what I came up with! I don't have high expectations, but this would be literally a dream come true, so we'll see! 

Link to video

Picture?

Traveling through Golconda Fort today, and waiting outside the Salar Jung museum yesterday, Nora and I had our pictures taken by at least ten people. Families came up to us and asked us to pose for a photo with them, because we looked different, Western. We found it hilarious; why would anyone want to take a photo with two random American girls? I had heard of this type of thing happening to my friends, but in India, I had never encountered more than a curious stare. Nora was more popular than I for these pictures, which is understandable since she looks more Western. The families would ask to pose with her, and each member of the family would get a photo for himself (and it was mostly a him). She was even given a baby to pose with at the museum. 

Several people asked to take our picture at the museum yesterday, so today, when we went to Golconda fort, a popular tourist destination, I was prepared. When people asked to take a photo with us, I kept my own camera on, and tried to capture the funny moments as discreetly as possible. One man tried to explain, "I am India man." The final time, we asked the group to take a photo with our camera, which is what you see below. Our faces are going to be floating around on someone's Tinder profiles soon, so we figured we should get one to keep for ourselves. We considered charging money.

I enjoyed it. The people were more endearing than threatening, and they seemed to be genuinely excited to take a picture with us. There were also quite a few people trying to take subtle photos of us, but their discreetness was not to be applauded. The paparazzi these days is losing its subtlety, I suppose....

Link to YouTube video

New Project: తెలుగు

After seeing the Telugu script all over Hyderabad, I've decided that I want to try and learn it, at least in a basic way. I love learning languages, and they tell so much about the culture of a country or region, and bring you closer to its people. Telugu is the second most-spoken language in India, after Hindi, and is apparently referred to as the "Italian of the East" because every word ends in a vowel (okay, I found that on Wikipedia, but I'm sure people call it that. Maybe some more esoteric groups of linguists. Either way, I like the concept). It's spoken in the state of Andra Pradesh, in which Hyderabad is situated.

I've been taking Hindi at Wellesley, so I immediately found similarities between the two languages, especially in the script; they're both phonetic languages, so the way the word is written is exactly how it is pronounced (very unlike English). Telugu has a different script system to Hindi, but has almost the same sounds (variations of long and short vowels, both retroflex and dental consonants, consonant conjuncts, and vowels diacritics), except for the addition of a long e and long o that are not present in Hindi. This relationship comes from their similar linguistic roots. I found the greetings in both languages interesting: in Hindi, the greeting is namaste, and in Telugu, namaskaaramu. They both start with a similar root, and thereby convey a similar meaning (a much deeper and more spiritual one than just a simple "hello").

Of course, despite their cultural and regional proximities, the two languages certainly have differences. For a grammatical example, Telugu has seven different grammatical cases (more similar to Latin, which has six), whereas Hindi only has two. Because of this, Telugu is a "pro-drop" language, meaning that when speaking or writing, one can drop the subject of the sentence because the verb is attached to an ending that implies the person and number. This was the case in Latin, and remains to be the case in Spanish today--Hindi is not a pro-drop language (more similar to English in that way).

The Telugu word for "thank you" also stood out to me: dhanyavaadamulu. It's quite long, six syllables, which seemed oddly tedious for a word that is so common. I mentioned this Nora, who said jokingly, "I suppose that means you really have to mean it." I think maybe there's a little bit of truth to that; in English we throw the words "thank you" around without really thinking about what we're saying--we've even come so far as to abbreviate it to just one syllable, "thanks." Having such a long word might force the speaker to consider the significance of the gesture, instead of gratitude being a perfunctory response.

I know I can't teach myself a language completely. It takes immersion in the culture to really understand the relevance and colloquialness of the language. Mostly I want to be able to become familiar with the script so I can read it on billboards and signs. I also love writing in a different script. This little insight into the culture of Hyderabad will be a fun project for me, and will hopefully enrich my experience here.

Writing out the alphabet and some common words...in hindsight, I should have used pencil. 

Kolam

As I mentioned in the previous post, I caught sight of a woman decorating the doorstep in front of her house with white chalk. She was drawing a Kolam, a common sight here; when we arrived on New Year's, many doorsteps had been decorated with bright colors and well-wishes. As I watched this woman create a new Kolam, a few doors down, another woman swept away the one that had been on her doorstep the day before. I loved how this beautiful artistic expression was so temporary; it allows for a continual renewal, and doesn't let you get too attached to just one expression.

Kolam

(Video in YouTube link)

The Kolam on the doorstep of our apartment on New Year's Day

First Morning

The sun rose early, and Hyderabad rose with it. At 6 in the morning, life had already started. The light bathed the buildings in a pink, hazy light, a blanket of fog covering the colorful buildings. I could hear the bustle of the residents' morning routines more than I could see them: women sweeping the floors, babies crying, the radio playing, all set to the background of birds announcing the start of a new day. It was a chorus of human life paired with a symphony of nature. The smell of haze and fire filled the thick air. One woman swept away her doorstep Kolam, as another decorated her own.

India: Morning Routine

(Follow YouTube link - video was too large to upload here)

Graffiti

A we drove into Hyderabad, we passed some graffiti on the walls of the ring road, as you would in any city. But this writing stood out to me; the Telegu script was so beautiful, and it was written in bright colors—it looked more like art than vandalism.