In the 21 years and continuing of my existence, language has always been a prickly fruit for me. It’s a part of my identity that fascinates me and makes me feel more than just some random man, and part of a large sense of community. At the same time, it also feels like a piece of identity that grows like a plant. Needless to say, many people meeting me become surprised, or often scratch their heads when I tell them I can’t speak my mother tongue, Tamil, despite my coming from a Tamil household.Â
Some people, family and friends alike, justifiably and often metaphorically may compare me to bland unseasoned soup, or a date who forgot to bring flowers, in the topic of language. But that’s another story worth telling. But apart from the awkward to often self-humorous scenarios, I always imagined myself suddenly learning Tamil with a snap of a finger and talking to my family, or even talking bilingually in a mix of Tamil and English alike.Â
During the many years I’ve spent with my family, my mother tongue has always been in the air, yet I didn’t really pick the language up. Outside of conversation, I remember being in bilingual Skype calls with relatives when I was a child. I remember watching endless reruns of Tamil films and comedy since the eighties with eccentric comedians and actors like Vadivelu and Thalapathy on television. To put a cherry on top, I still remember hearing late-night stories of the endless books, shops, and adventures my parents and family had before I was born. It fascinated me hearing about a completely different approach to life with language, almost envisioning a conversation between the current me speaking English, and a version of me well-versed and attached to both the Tamil language and fully understanding pop culture references.Â
Visualising this in the scenario of a group chat makes me think about language more personally. Would I think of love differently? What about procrastination, or even the admiration of a friend or a favourite video game? For this, I imagine that within a group chat, the English side of me would use a reference or a meme I’ve seen on social media, while the Tamil side would use an old yet timeless reference. When responding to a meme or even a joke, I usually do so with a satirical reaction image. A crisp reaction image to me is something that is to the point yet comedically exaggerated—I also imagine they exist in Tamil memes and humour as well. In reference to my own family experiences, I imagine responding to a joke with something poetic or often rhythmic. Maybe it’s something worth thinking about in the future, rather than an already existent Bollywood-esque pop culture reference.Â
What about favourite subjects? Would I love literature even more compared to my current interests in the social sciences, for instance? Although I love the social sciences, with my familial experiences of adventure and culture, could I be a literature buff who memorises texts like Ponniyin Selvan, for instance, cover to cover, or even more dramatically, would those interests enter a cat-fight online with cheap cliches and airhorns? Probably not. Yet it’s this hypothetical fascination that makes me think and envision different familial settings and scenarios. Language, after all, is what carries someone’s identity if not their entire personality—from the stories we share, to the communities we bond with.Â
Through imaginations of being bilingual, and remembering fond memories of family and friends, it gives people like me not just fascination with our mother tongues, but even a hope to eventually learn and embrace them as well. I, for one, hope there will be a day when I learn my mother tongue and confidently speak it during breakfast table conversation with family, like it’s a regular Sunday.