Yesterday morning, as I was waiting in a conference room for a meeting with a different group from my company, two guys entered the room chatting in Hindi(an Indian language). After saying their hellos and introducing themselves to me, they continued with their Hindi conversation while we waited for the others to show up. The conversation was just a casual chit chat. No biggie. What irritated me was the language of the conversation. I do speak Hindi, but they did not know that. One of my pet peeves is that I cannot stand people talking to each other in an different language when there are people around who do not understand that language. I do not appreciate that even in a personal setting, but I think it is a big 'no no' especially in a professional environment
My company outsources a lot of its IT work to reputed Indian companies. As a result we constantly have a lot of young Indians coming to our office for short term as well as long term projects. In addition to that we have several employees of Indian origin like myself. As a result one gets to hear a lot different languages being spoken around the office. I have to say though that its not just us Indians who are guilty of this practice. At my work place I do get to hear Spanish, Mandarin(I'm guessing!) and a bunch of other languages that I don’t recognize. While I understand that it is natural to want to speak in your own mother tongue, I think people should realize that it makes other people uncomfortable. It makes them wonder if you are talking about them or about something that you don’t want them to know.
At my previous company, there were a bunch of Desi(Indian) guys who used to sit in a training room along with some American employees. They would speak in an Indian language all the time. One day, one of the American ladies asked me if they were talking about her. I told her that I din’t think they were talking about anything related to the work place. The truth was that I myself did not really understand their language. I doubt that the lady really thought they were talking about her. I think it was just her way of showing her disapproval.
When I first joined my current company there was an Indian girl who used to sit across from me. Like me, she was from Bombay. She would always come up to me and start a conversation in Hindi. Instead of telling her directly that I did not want to carry on a conversation in Hindi, I started replying in English, hoping that she’d get the message. The message was apparently lost on her because one day she came up to me and asked me why I wasn't comfortable with Hindi in spite of being from Bombay. I told her that I was comfortable with Hindi and then went on to explain my reasons for not carrying out a conversation in Hindi. She thought for a minute and said “ I agree with what you are saying, but you know, if we speak in English people around us will know what we are talking about! “ Answer that! It sure did leave me speechless!
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Friday, March 16, 2007
I Hope You Dance...
I have been wanting to start posting for quite some time, but I neither had the time nor the right topic to start my blog. Today I finally found both. On Sanjay’s blog(I have stumbled upon Sai’s blog and her fellow bloggers’ blogs recently) I found the Friday word ‘Dance’. Dance is something that I truly love so I thought that it would be a perfect topic to begin my blog with.
I have always loved dance of any kind. Be it Indian folk dance, bollywood music dance or ballet, dance has always fascinated me. As a child my secret ambition was to become a dancer. Now this was not based on any intrinsic abilities or training . In fact I never got a chance to actually train in any kind of dance form. As a child I used to bug my parents to allow me to learn bharatnatyam (a traditional Indian dance form) but they never encouraged me since they thought that it would affect my studies. They did allow me to join a bharatnatyam class for a year when I around 10, but the following year I was sent to live with my grandparents and that ended my dance education.
My sister who also shared my love for dance had her own share of bad luck when it came to learning dance. When she was about 10, a new kathak (another Indian dance form)dance class opened near our home. Since it was a stone’ s throw away from our house, my parents allowed her to enroll. She really enjoyed her classes, especially since her teacher was a young enthusiastic lady. But within 6 months the teacher got married and moved to another suburb closing down the classes. Later, an older gentleman started teaching kathak in the same premises. Though my sister did not like this teacher as much as she liked the previous one, she learnt diligently for about 6 months. Then one evening as she showed up for the class and waited for her teacher along with her fellow students, a grim faced peon came there to tell them that the teacher had had a heart attack and had passed away. Talk about being jinxed! We often teased my sister about being jinxed as far as dance was concerned.
Even though we never really learnt to dance, my sister and I would often stand in front of the TV and copy the steps of the likes of Madhuri Dixit(a famous Indian actress and dancer). We may have been terrible at it but we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Be it daandiya, New Year’s party or any other party, whenever we had a choice to sit it out or dance…we danced. Which brings me to one of my favorite songs by Lee Ann Womack, called ‘I hope you dance’. For those of you who are not familiar with the song, here are a few lines of the beautiful lyrics…
I hope you never lose your sense of wonder
You get your fill to eat but always keep that hunger
May you never take one single breath for granted
God forbid love ever leave you empty-handed
Hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean
Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens
Promise me that you’ll give faith a fighting chance
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance
I hope you dance…… I hope you dance
I love this song for its inspirational message. The things mentioned in the above lyrics are the kind of things that I’d want to teach my daughter. She’s only two now but hopefully someday she’ll understand and appreciate these words. Today she shares my love of dance. Whenever we turn on the music, she shakes her body. My hope is that she continues to love dance so that we can learn it together. But even if she doesn’t, I’d still say to her …“I Hope You Dance….” … metaphorically speaking!
I have always loved dance of any kind. Be it Indian folk dance, bollywood music dance or ballet, dance has always fascinated me. As a child my secret ambition was to become a dancer. Now this was not based on any intrinsic abilities or training . In fact I never got a chance to actually train in any kind of dance form. As a child I used to bug my parents to allow me to learn bharatnatyam (a traditional Indian dance form) but they never encouraged me since they thought that it would affect my studies. They did allow me to join a bharatnatyam class for a year when I around 10, but the following year I was sent to live with my grandparents and that ended my dance education.
My sister who also shared my love for dance had her own share of bad luck when it came to learning dance. When she was about 10, a new kathak (another Indian dance form)dance class opened near our home. Since it was a stone’ s throw away from our house, my parents allowed her to enroll. She really enjoyed her classes, especially since her teacher was a young enthusiastic lady. But within 6 months the teacher got married and moved to another suburb closing down the classes. Later, an older gentleman started teaching kathak in the same premises. Though my sister did not like this teacher as much as she liked the previous one, she learnt diligently for about 6 months. Then one evening as she showed up for the class and waited for her teacher along with her fellow students, a grim faced peon came there to tell them that the teacher had had a heart attack and had passed away. Talk about being jinxed! We often teased my sister about being jinxed as far as dance was concerned.
Even though we never really learnt to dance, my sister and I would often stand in front of the TV and copy the steps of the likes of Madhuri Dixit(a famous Indian actress and dancer). We may have been terrible at it but we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Be it daandiya, New Year’s party or any other party, whenever we had a choice to sit it out or dance…we danced. Which brings me to one of my favorite songs by Lee Ann Womack, called ‘I hope you dance’. For those of you who are not familiar with the song, here are a few lines of the beautiful lyrics…
I hope you never lose your sense of wonder
You get your fill to eat but always keep that hunger
May you never take one single breath for granted
God forbid love ever leave you empty-handed
Hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean
Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens
Promise me that you’ll give faith a fighting chance
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance
I hope you dance…… I hope you dance
I love this song for its inspirational message. The things mentioned in the above lyrics are the kind of things that I’d want to teach my daughter. She’s only two now but hopefully someday she’ll understand and appreciate these words. Today she shares my love of dance. Whenever we turn on the music, she shakes her body. My hope is that she continues to love dance so that we can learn it together. But even if she doesn’t, I’d still say to her …“I Hope You Dance….” … metaphorically speaking!
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