The mother tongue challenge

Even before Bobo was in the realm of possibility, I knew that I would like a child of mine to be able to speak my mother tongue. I am no Tamil scholar. I can barely read the language. I can’t write in it. My spoken Tamil is quite colloquial. My school education had favoured Hindi thanks to parents with foresight. 

Yet having rediscovered my roots in my twenties, I could not help but appreciate that I had inherited a wonderful language with a rich heritage. Not to mention, despite my English August-ness, I still loved the fact that I could get inside jokes in Tamil and could see movies in the language and somehow, subconsciously the language had become a part of me. 

D was not interested particularly about his progeny learning his mother tongue (we don’t share a mother tongue). So when Bobo was born, D was in charge of Bobo’s English education and I was going to be responsible for his Sangam (or not) Tamil.

In the beginning, it seemed a bit odd cooing to Bobo in Tamil. For one, D and I spoke to each other only in English. For another, I spoke to my immediate family in a combination of Tamil and English, switching to the latter when I got excited or irritated or happy or sad. English, infact, was virtually my mother tongue. However, I knew that if I did not get into the practice immediately, it would never happen. This was also borne out by research I did later which told me that babies can start distinguishing languages based on common sounds they heard, as early as ten months.

With the hours I worked, I had only a couple of hours every day of the working week with Bobo. This meant that was all the time I had to pour Tamil into his ears. I would speak to him in Tamil. I would read to him in Tamil (English books that were translated in my mind before the Tamil words came out). I would read him Tamil books, something I had not done since primary school, my lack of fluency evident from the very long pauses between words or even mid-word.

The rest of the day was with our Filipino helper and D, both of whom spoke English. Not to mention, everyone in Singapore speaks English so that is the sound you are exposed to the most. When my parents visited, Bobo got a lot more Tamil but only for a few weeks at a time. I tried speaking to D in Tamil (luckily he can understand the language quite well) but it was odd to have a conversation in two different languages and mostly I stuck to English.

When Bobo started to say words, and then speak, it was no surprise that he chose English. After all, here was a toddler trying to communicate for the first time, and naturally he would choose a language he was most familiar with and in which he had a very good chance of success. This was not to say that I wasn’t deeply disappointed. I had been going on for over eighteen months. All I had to show was a few words when I pointed at things and asked Bobo to say their names.

I had to be patient. I continued speaking in Tamil. Bobo began his pre-school and his English got better and better. He was also exposed to Mandarin at school, adding to the confounding mix. At two, there were still no visible results. It seemed like a futile exercise but now more out of habit, I continued to speak in Tamil. All his queries in English were met with a translation of his query into Tamil and then a response in Tamil.

He was also now allowed to watch TV in the weekends and his limited TV time was filled with DVD episodes of his favourite Dora, dubbed into Tamil. He watched the episodes quietly, not responding to the queries that Dora or Boots threw at him in Tamil.

In the meantime, I found to my pleasant surprise that speaking entire sentences in Tamil without using the simpler and easier English words, began to come naturally to me. Still better, my Tamil reading improved considerably. I, of course, was a long way away from reading a classic but I could get by when it came to short stories for toddlers. Even if Bobo did not learn anything, atleast I would.

Then around the time Bobo turned three, both of us were watching a video of his from when he was two. He seemed to know a lot more Tamil words a year earlier than he did at three. I was shocked by how little progress he had made and came up with a rule – Speak to mummy in Tamil or there is going to be no speaking to mummy at all.

The implementation of this rule was helped enormously by the fact that D was based in another city on account of work and had become a weekend visitor. The only person available to talk to Bobo was me and I would not respond to English.

The first couple of days were tough on Bobo. I figured that the pain was temporary. I had seen enough NRI kids whose parents claimed that they understood their mother tongues perfectly well but were too shy to speak in it. If I did not force Bobo to speak in Tamil now, he would never get the confidence to do so in the future.

On the third day, Bobo said something in English and as usual I asked in Tamil ‘I did not understand. Mummy can only speak Tamil’. Bobo turned away saying ‘I did not say anything’. I was tempted to just give him. After all, one of his parents was missing from the scene and he could not talk to the other parent. Then a few minutes later, Bobo’s love for talking overpowered his shyness and he asked me whatever he wanted to in broken Tamil.

Voila! The breakthrough that I had been waiting for had occurred.

Bobo began to form broken sentences in Tamil. I would wait for him to finish and then repeat the correct version of the sentence again in Tamil for his benefit. With practice, he got better and better.

Then my parents arrived. My dad immediately caught onto the fact that Bobo was good at speaking in English and he could optimise the limited time he would get with his grandson by speaking in English. My entreaties that he was supposed to set an example for Bobo by speaking in Tamil fell on contrite but forgetful ears. My mom made a more conscience effort to speak in Tamil but the fact was it was my dad who spoke the most to Bobo and had his ear.

Then a strange thing happened. Bobo’s Tamil began to improve. It turned out that my mom and dad spoke to each other in Tamil and Bobo had started to soak in the language. Also now that Bobo’s English was quite ok and it had become a subconscious part of him, he could move onto other challenges like mastering Tamil. By the time my parents left, Bobo could have a conversation with me in Tamil (albeit with very basic words and expressing very basic sentiments) without feeling self-conscious and dare I say, some enthusiasm. 

I am feeling terribly proud of both him and myself. It was a tough project to undertake and while I had never thought about the effort, I realise now that it would have just been so much easier on me and him to stick to English.

I am told that I still have a long way to go before Bobo remembers the language well into his adulthood. Constant practice will be needed. I am also not sure how I am going to teach him to read or write in Tamil, especially given that I cannot do the latter well myself. But having come this far, I think with a bit of effort, I might just make it work. 

How to feed a giraffe

“Where are you guys?” I asked D over the phone.

“In the Wild Africa section”. D replied

Bobo, his grandparents and we were on a jaunt to the zoo. Post-lunch Bobo had shown no signs of being tired and insisted on seeing a few more animals. The rest had dragged their weary feet to Wild Africa while I had made a stop at the ladies.

“Where exactly?” I queried

“Hmm. We are at the Hippo section but we will head over to the Giraffe section soon. There is a feeding session at 1.50 p.m. We just missed the Hippo feeding by two people” D caught me up on the latest on-goings in the zoo.

I had not known about the existence of feeding sessions in zoos till Bobo was born but now they seemed to be important events around which our schedules were planned.

I agreed to meet them at the Giraffe feeding, checked that I still had fifteen minutes to find my way and set off. Except, I got lost and by the time I reached Wild Africa, it was already 1.45 p.m. 

There was a long line outside the Giraffe enclosure and I could only see the tail end. I raced to the head of the line to catch up with D and Bobo, casting a glance at the people at the end of the queue. “Poor blokes” I told myself “these guys are bound to miss the giraffe feeding. I wonder why they even bother to wait”.

Suddenly from behind I heard D yelling “Mummy is here! She will stand in the queue”.

What??!!

It turned out that D and Bobo had just finished watching the lions being fed and were not in the queue at all, head or tail.

A thousand questions ran through my head begging to be answered, the most pertinent of which seemed to be “why did you guys stand in the line sooner knowing how you missed the Hippo feeding already?”

There was no time to waste however, and I meekly took my line at the end of queue. The line snaked so much that I could not even see the giraffes and had to merely take D’s words that I was in the right queue.

“Wow! That is a long queue”, D remarked “Hang in there Mummy. We will walk around a bit and come back”. Before I could begin the third-degree interrogation on poor-planning, D and Bobo were off.

Time passed really slowly. I could only watch with satisfaction as more people joined behind me. D and Bobo visited me occasionally in between their visits to the animals and gave me news snippets. I found out the grandparents had plonked themselves somewhere, being too tired to move. The giraffe feeding had apparently started but that did not result in any progress in my position in the line.

Suddenly there seemed to be some movement and I could glimpse the head of the line. D came by to tell me that it was touch-and-go and I should hang in there. I felt like smacking him but let it go.

Finally I was just two people behind and I could see that there were enough food trays still left for us to have a turn at the feeding-session.  We organised ourselves in preparation. D, Bobo and I would do the actual feeding while the granddad took the photo. Grandma stayed put in her place, looking tired.

Excitement mounted as our turn came. We were handed a small tray with a few pieces of potatoes and carrots.

D handled the part of making a token donation for the food tray.

I held Bobo on one hand and a food tray in the other hand.

Grand-dad positioned himself for the best photo angle.

The two giraffes stood eagerly with their mouths open and licked their lips with their giant tongues.

Giant giant tongues. Huge and long tongues with tons of drool coming out. I was going to have to feed this creature with its huge tongue…

In a moment of panic, I held out the tray to one of the giraffes. Partly I did not want the tongue to touch my hand. Partly I was being a lovely hostess, holding up the food tray rather than doling out food in portions.

Unfortunately the giraffe was not a perfect guest and in one quick motion, gulped down almost all the food on the food tray.

At this point, D appeared and pulled me back. One carrot remained. I meekly gave it to Bobo, who bravely held it out to the giraffe. The greedy giraffe smirked at me and then gently took the carrot from Bobo. The other giraffe merely nodded its disappointed head at having gotten no food.

It was D’s turn now to be annoyed. Instead of holding out one vegetable at a time and stretching out the experience for Bobo, we were done in less than five seconds.

I tried telling D that I had moral superiority here, having done all the waiting. Besides, Bobo did get a turn and most importantly, we had it on record.

At which point I heard the granddad say “Ok the camera is ready. Go for it!”

He had missed the entire action while trying to figure out the buttons on the camera.

All of us walked quietly to the next enclosure, when Bobo broke the silence

‘I want to feed the giraffe some more’

Farm Animals

D said, reading Bobo’s school diary ‘Bobo has to take pictures of some farm animals to school. They are making a collage in his class’

D sounded grave and serious.

‘Uh huh’, I acknowledged without paying much attention. Bobo’s playgroup had been doing farm animals all month. Bobo had taken a toy horse to school earlier. Bobo had also been repeating ‘rooster’ endlessly for a while. It was hardly a topic for grave and serious conversation.

D continued ‘I am going to write a note saying we don’t have pictures of farm animals’

I looked up shocked ‘Wait a minute. We have plenty of pictures of farm animals. My mom used to cut pictures out of Span magazine all the time when we were kids. Of course he is going to take pictures of farm animals’

I was not going to let my son fail at homework this early on.

D continued, still despondent ‘We don’t subscribe to Span. We subscribe to the Economist. They don’t have pictures of farm animals’

D had a point. The previous week I had foolishly attempted to read the magazine with Bobo on my lap. Trying to surreptitiously censor the pictures, I had noticed the astounding number of guns that had been pictured in the issue. Certainly no farm animals. But I was not going to lose an argument.

‘Of course they have pictures of farm animals. They had pictures of cows all the time during the Mad Cow disease’

D did not bother responding.

Suddenly something struck me ‘I will google the pictures and take printouts at work?’

D did not respond this time either but that was because he had the look of ‘my wife is such a genius on his face’

‘Gosh you are so brilliant’ he finally spluttered.

We agreed on that point.

---

Post-lunch, when the office is usually quite empty, I began to google for ‘rooster’. I was quite sure I did not want to get cutesy cartoons of farm animals. I wanted the real thing just so Bobo could see what the animals looked like.

I stuck gold in the first hit. I printed a glossy colour picture of a handsome and proud-looking rooster on an A4 sheet.

Then it was onto ‘cow’. This did not look so good. She was massive, almost like a black and white brick wall. The problem was that she looked a bit disgruntled. The cow was from an article on the mad cow disease (Ha. Take that D) and maybe that is how mad cows look…? Still, I was not going to spend lunchtime looking for cows with mellow expressions. Bobo could take what I found.

Another glossy colour A4 printout.

Then it was the picture of a horse. I picked the first one I spotted - an insipid looking light brown mare. Bobo could do well with learning that not all animals are handsome or majestic creatures.

At this point I began to wonder how big was the collage that the school intended to do. Surely the kids would not be able to work on such large-sized pictures. And surely the school should not think I was some sort of non-tree hugger who took such large and wasteful colour prinouts for a pre-schooler?

I considered reprinting everything on a smaller scale but figured out that that would infact make me a non-tree hugger.

I assuaged my conscience by finishing off with a small picture of a pig.

---

In the evening, I told Bobo that I had got the pictures of farm animals.

He obviously had no clue that he was supposed to take some to school. Still, he was excited by the envelope (Used one. Note - Environmentally conscious)  that I waved at him.

We went through the pictures one by one.

‘Rooster’, Bobo cried looking at the first. I gave him a big appreciative hug.

‘Penguin’ he cried next.

What!

I flipped the paper to see if I had printed the wrong picture by mistake. But no. he was looking at the massive, disgruntled cow in black and white. The only animal he had seen in real life that was black and white was the penguin. And he had last seen a real cow in India during his infancy, the memory of which he clearly did not retain.

It looked like my choice of getting pictures of the animals instead of cartoons was already providing an education.

Still considering he got the horse, rooster and pig right, I began to wonder if the picture of the cow had been a good choice.

---

I showed the pictures to D, obviously waiting to hear more praise.

‘What huge pictures!’ D exclaimed ‘how big do you think the collage is going to be?’

‘Aha’ I replied ‘that is why I also got this small picture of a pig’

D said ‘This pig looks like it is quarter the size of a rooster. How do you explain to kids who have never seen farm animals which animal is larger?’

I protested ‘Hey. The teacher should think of that. That is why we send Bobo to school’

D continued ‘God, why does this cow look so weird?’

I was beginning to feel like the massive, disgruntled cow myself. I think D picked up the mood since there were no more comments.

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The next morning I handed the envelope with the pictures to the teacher at school, cow included.

I am yet to hear how the collage is turning out.

I hope I get atleast one star for my effort.