I am not talking about the metros where speaking English is a way of life. No sir.
I am referring to the places which have a rising middle class, yet are stuck in a limbo between a humble town and a sassy city. They generally have innocuous names like 'Shahpur' or maybe 'Almora'. They also have a unique mix of culture which is trying to get into a cosmopolitan mould, yet stubbornly remains 'small town' at heart.
So what do you get as result? You get 'Subhash Mall-Ladies and Gents Castume' and 'Anand Fasin House'.
You also find that English is still a novelty and those who speak it well are looked upon with a reverence bordering on worship. This lays down a fertile ground for seedy English classes that claim a 100% success rate of making you fluent in just 24 hours. People here, like anywhere else, have big dreams of going to 'Umricca' (America, for the uninitiated) and to do so they would have to clear the seemingly insurmountable obstacle -GRE.
GRE or Graduate Record Examination is the test any individual wishing to study in any country other than UK must clear. It is basically a test consisting of 7th standard Math and some really mind-boggling English.
So, a flourishing market of GRE COACHING -FAST AND SUPERB crops up everywhere having thousands of hopeful enrolling in them. Some students claim that coaching helped them get a decent score while others state vehemently that coaching is waste of money better employed elsewhere.
On closer look, amidst the chaotic whirl of conflicting views, one finds that the problem really is the language itself.
Every major language in the world like French, German, Russian operates within a set of rules. If you get such and such combination of letters, then you only pronounce it in a such and such manner. But this isn't so with English. It works on the rule that you make up your own rules as you go about speaking, reading or writing it. Over centuries, this language has developed so many convoluted logic and intricate
rules of appropriation that it is indeed, utterly baffling for those unfamiliar with it.
I rather pride myself in having a fairly good command over the language; but the English sections in the GRE test had even me reeling in confusion with its long, jargon filled passages, never-before used vocabulary and complex sentences. So, as I did the classic 'inky-pinky-ponky' with multiple choice vocab questions, I wondered what the less fortunate's were doing about that? I have no idea. Maybe they mug up the 3500 odd words in the flash cards, or maybe they just guess. Whatever works man, whatever works. Having lived in many small towns, I have experienced first hand, the wonder and sheer desire to speak fluent English. The ability is a milestone of sorts, sometimes doubling as a redeeming point of an otherwise worthless groom ("kaam nahi karta toh kya hua, humara beta bahut achhi angrezi bolta hai! Beta...Angrezi bol ke dikhao zara!!), it will also help you bargain in shops, help you make the local hooligans cower, get a job and so on and so forth. From your neighbourhood Khanna, patel, and Arora aunties to the Thelewala outside the colony gates, everyone finds their own way to learn this language. Some watch popular Hollywood movies and speak in annoying fake accents, some go the 'Rapidex' way. (The holy grail of English to Hindi translations and vice versa) but the heart warming thing is how sincerely they try. So, I suppose, English indeed, is a superpower. And with great power, comes the great responsibility of using the keyboard for writing coherent, articulate, grammatically correct sentences and not using your butt '2 typ lyk dis'.
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