Walking down busy streets in countries outside of India, I have been questioned by strangers as to whether I knew Urdu, and by unknown persons asking me, "Dada! Aapni ki Bangla bojhen?" Such individuals might have guessed from which part of the world I hailed. That is an identity that will forever be associated with me: that of being a Southasian.
I have never faced such questions in India, where I could be Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Maharashtrian or a Hindi-walla. I could be Hindu, Muslim, a Buddhist or Christian, and nobody bothers much about my identity. Language, on the other hand, remains a great source of curiosity among strangers. I was in my teens when I developed a fascination with Urdu, a tongue in which even abuse sounds sweet. During one summer vacation, I asked my father whether he could help me to learn Urdu, as he was equally skilled in both it and Sanskrit. Instead, he took me to our neighbour, whom we all called Hafij Ji, who agreed to teach me after he closed his grocery shop. He told my father that he would sit with me for an hour every evening. I told my newfound guru that I was particularly keen on reading and appreciating the delicacy of Urdu.
There were several open spaces around our house in the village, and in one such space, under a neem tree, Hafij Ji began to tutor me by the light of a lantern. As it happened, this was also the backyard where the elderly male members of our family would sleep during the summertime, where the land sloped slightly towards the neem tree. Hafij Ji would give me lessons, and I would repeat after him, at first struggling with the exact pronunciations. While being tutored, I could see the elders roaming around restlessly, fanning themselves with palm-leaf fans.
On the third evening, my father asked me to sit on the verandah in the front of our house. I pleaded that the breeze in the backyard was soothing, and that it would be very warm on the front verandah. I asked what the problem was with Hafij Ji and I sitting under the neem tree. The mystery was resolved when my father told me that he and the rest of the elders were unable to lie down on their cots, because if they did so their feet would be pointing towards Hafij Ji. This would be disrespectful and could not be allowed. So long as Hafij Ji was teaching me, nobody could sleep. We moved, of course, and thereafter it was I who had to use a palm-leaf fan.