To my 10 years to 20 years old self and those who can relate and benefit,
It was the year 2000, when my father’s regiment moved from Gurdaspur, Punjab to a place near Jorhat, Assam. It’s an another story, though just to tell you the crux, this train journey was 10 days long.
I had just graduated to 6th grade in KV ONGC, Jorhat.
This was the moment in my childhood when I came across majority of junta conversed in English language.
This was the time when I could silently observe the fascination around English language, it was mark of respect, education, manners, status, knowledge, understanding etc.
Well, it was the same in Punjab although not many knew English so we usually conversed in Hindi or Punjabi.
I used to be in awe of my English speaking classmates, this awe remained with me till my 3rd year at IIT.
Getting back to year 2000. Level of my English can be estimated from the following incident:
I had an argument with my classmate:
[Me]: ‘Who are you?’ matlab ‘Tum kaise ho?’ aur ‘How are you?’ ka matlab ‘Tum kon ho?’
It dint take much time when I realized, I do not know proper English. Apparently, it made me an ‘introvert’. (Later in my life while reading Carl Jung, I would realize that I had the wrong definition of being an introvert). I spoke less because my English vocabulary was less. Moreover, I was unaware of grammar rules.
In August 2000, I had my unit tests. In science exam, I forgot the spelling of ‘Tree’. It was so funny, there was actually a line in my answer notebook like following:
‘t̶r̶r̶e̶, t̶r̶e̶e, t̶r̶e̶r, t̶e̶er, t̶e̶rr, t̶er̶e̶ tree
I remember looking outside the classroom at a ‘Tree’ and mumbling in my head ‘How are you?’ I hoped, it would spell itself out.
Unknowingly, I was using permutations and a familiar pattern to guess the spelling of ‘tree’.
It took time to get the right spelling and the exam bell went off after a while.
A week later, my Science teacher Mr. Sahu, brought answer notebooks to the class. And as it happens, the distribution of notebooks was monotonous as per roll numbers. Then came my roll number.
Mr. Sahu had smirk on his face as if he had got notes to play a melody in the monotonous afternoon.
And he did!
He announced and sang the line from my answer notebook where I was trying to guess the spelling of ‘Tree’.
It was hilarious, the whole class burst into laughter, and I was embarrassed. I had received 18/40 in my science exam.
Oh you Tree!
In following weeks, I found myself learning English in Science Class, since that’s how it used to happen.
As the luck would have it, there was a Master ji in our cantonment who started tutions on Tenses in English. The Commanding Officer of my dad’s regiment was a nice chap, apparently he understood the value of English in that environment, and ordered a JCO (Master ji) to start tutions on Tenses in English.
I joined those tutions, and bam! I got the mental model to translate from my mother tongue to English.
I remember asking my English speaking classmate:
‘Yaar, woh cricket ground jaa raha hai’, isko kaise bologe English.
He blurted out, “He’s going to the cricket ground.”
I observed the time, he took to translate the sentence I gave him to English. I was unable to calculate, I could only figure out that it was quick, few milli seconds.
Once, I knew tenses, I found myself using the same. “Woh cricket ground Ja raha hai” → ‘Present Continuous Tense.’ → “He’s going to the cricket ground.”
I took 2 seconds to frame the sentence and deliver using the new method I had learned.
While the learning of English was going on in Master ji’s tutions after school. I observed myself losing interest in Science class, because I was honestly trying to make sure I never forget the spelling of something as simple as ‘Tree’.
Fortunately enough, the science teacher Mr. Sahu completed his tenure and left the school. His role was taken up by Mr. S.K. Das.
First class of Mr. S.K. Das, and bam! I could see figures on the black board which I had seen in my home state (Himachal Pradesh). Mr. S.K. Das used (without mentioning) inductive and deductive reasoning while teaching Science while drawing mountains, rivers, plants, windmills, train, torch.
Oh boy, I couldn’t care less about English in Science class since Mr. S.K. Das’s first lecture.
In September 2000, we had our second unit tests. It was the science exam again, whole 1 hour, I spent in drawing figures, writing down steps in sequence, putting down mathematics as per laws of science.
This was the exam, when I could feel someone was discussing science with me in a way I could understand. I enjoyed answering it. The exam bell went off, and I was done putting an ‘Om’ on the top right corner of my notebook and answering all the questions.
A week later, my Science teacher Mr. S.K. Das, brought answer notebooks to the class. Again, as it happens, the distribution of notebooks was monotonous as per roll numbers. Then came my roll number.
Mr. S.K. Das had a smile on his face. I had received 38/40. Whole class got to know about it, and I enjoyed the attention.
Till my 10th standard, I found myself learning Science in Mr. S.K. Das’s class. I was still improving the time I take to translate a sentence to English, I was still an introvert apparently.
This was one of incidents where I could feel the importance of communication in a learning and training environment.
I kept on repeating myself whenever I learned anything new. English is not science, English is not maths, English is not coding etc.
Albeit it definitely helps with understanding, given the supply of resources in English language.
In a specific example of programming internship, I make them translate jargons into hindi (language which they are comfortable with). Whenever they get an error, they translate it to Hindi. It’s funny at times. It saves us time to learn the concept and move ahead.
I’m still learning English. It’s a beautiful language.
Over the years, the translations in my mind started happening sub-consciously, time reduced, and I could understand better.
This story has been written by my friend, Vivek Dogra, whose thoughts are a function of Physics and Psychology. If you liked it, do clap!
