English Conversation

In the cycle of life some pleasant surprises await you. Since the cartilage tear in my right knee, I have stopped running and taken to cycling the ups and downs of life both literally and figuratively. It is usually in the evenings I go around cycling exploring the neighbourhood. Cycling is like surviving in an urban jungle. One has to stay alert. There are predators especially those in two wheels waiting to crush you. It would be better if one has a 360-degree view of the road as dangers are lurking all around and one needs to anticipate them and catch them before they over power you. It has been some six months and one has survived so far having learnt the art of survival and one is negotiating one’s way in the jungle.

We have this entity called the municipality which adds to the bungle in the jungle. One has never seen a phenomenon called the ‘white topping of roads’ like in Bangalore city happening in other cities. It is literally a white elephant and as a result the municipality ends up doing work in patches. At one stretch one is driving through the white patch and then you hit the black patch. It is one neighbourhood I had heard the municipality had completed one patch of white topping and I decided to explore it. It would be a bump free driving for a change and a spine chilling too.

Not only the stretch of the road, the pavements too got some good treatment with interlocking tiles and the area looked quite European as a distant friend would often say. Soon enough the area became Indianized with vendors encroaching the foot path. On one side a new vegetable market had sprung up on a stretch of about 100 meters. It is quite a sight. This is clear evidence of parallel economy. I wonder who these vendors are? How they come to know of the availability of space? Is there some allotment that goes on for a rent in black and who gets greased in their palm? How far deep does the grease gets in the 40% commission state? Anyways one does believe in right to livelihood and one learns to turn a blind eye to all such phenomenon. Jio as one top honcho would say and jeenedo! In all this, pedestrians continue to walk on the road and become a statistic in the annals of road accidents.

On one evening during my cycling round, I too got attracted by the freshness of vegetables on display and decided to shop at one of the vendors. As I was asking for vegetable prices and quite un-decided if I should talk in Tamil or Kannada a voice in English surprised me. A teen-age girl sitting on a wooden carton turned upside down to be used as a stool and with an open book was the one who asked me what vegetables I was looking for?

I could see bright eyes and eager to converse with me and so I replied I was looking to buy a few vegetables and asked for the rate. The conversation went for a few minutes before who seemed to be her mother intervened and told me with pride in her voice “my daughter is studying in English medium. We never went to school after we reached fifth standard. But I have decided that my daughter wouldn’t earn her livelihood on the pavement under the vagaries of weather. She would go to college and get a degree and work in a company.”

I did an appreciative nod and then looked at the girl and asked for her name. she said “Saraswathi. I said “very apt name.”

Saraswathi immediately asked me “what is apt?”

I said “it meant suitable and added a name after the goddess of education and knowledge for some-one who is aspiring to study well.” Saraswathi nodded in understanding.

Then Saraswathi told me about her school and the English teacher. She was fond of the English teacher as she found her very encouraging. The teacher had told her English writing is good but her spoken knowledge of English needs improvement. She doesn’t have anyone to converse with in English and when she finds a suitable customer, she tries to converse with them. But she also added not all customers are willing to have any conversation with her.

So, our conversation continued for some half hour. In the process she had learnt some ten new words. It was getting dark and I said I needed to leave. It was then Saraswathi asked me if I would come again. Her eyes were pleading with me and I said I would come tomorrow. She gave a smile and her mother offered me a bunch of free coriander. I took it gladly and told her it would be the only time I would take anything free.

Next day I could not wait for evening to come. I googled for English lessons and found something apt for a tenth-standard student which was the class Saraswathi was studying. I prepared for half an hour tutorial. My wife wondered what I was up to and I told her the story of my previous day conversation. She nodded in appreciation.

And so, the English tutorial continued. They made a stool out of another wooden carton and there we were a sweet sixteen and a sweaty sixty humans having conversations. A week later Saraswathi told me about her class test and this time in English they would be oral tests too. I had coached her for that too. In the following week Saraswathi gave me some sweets for she had done very well in the English test to the surprise of her teacher to whom Saraswathi had told about our conversations.

I had found a new meaning to my mundane life and Saraswathi her English mentor. It is now two years since I met Saraswathi and she had passed her twelfth and has joined a graduation course in English literature. Her own teacher was her role model for her and she wanted to become a teacher and a writer too in English language. Our tutorials have stopped but Saraswathi continues her conversation with me through her newly acquired mobile which I had gifted her for her successfully passing her twelfth with good grades. Through a family trust I belong to named after my great grandfather I had managed to get her a scholarship too.

One day she would become a pole star shining bright and leading the way for many such Saraswathis. India has no dearth of such people. At the least she would not end up selling pakoras the GOAT (greatest of all time) leader would suggest.