A short while ago, as I alighted at the New York City’s Herald Square subway station, I was approached by a Chinese gentleman seeking directions to Penn Station; he needed to catch a New Jersey Transit train to, well, New Jersey. I was already ‘late’ for my weekly Tuesday stint at the library, but IContinue reading “The Pleasures Of Providing Directions To The Lost”
Tag Archives: Punjabi
Punjab, Palestine, Israel: Refugee Resonances
The way I first heard the story of the Jews from my mother it was about refugees, endlessly wandering from expulsion to expulsion, who had finally found a home. The first history of the creation of Israel I read introduced me to the Palestinians; they were refugees too. And I had learned, long before, thatContinue reading “Punjab, Palestine, Israel: Refugee Resonances”
On Male Brazilians And Revealing Ethnic Origins Through Cussing
Today was a painful day; twice, I encountered good old-fashioned physical pain. None of that fancy, dark night of the soul, melancholic stuff. You needed topical balms for this, not therapy. (Though I suppose opiates would help both varietals.) Incident Numero Uno (in which I inadvertently receive a varietal of a Male Brazilian): Shortly after IContinue reading “On Male Brazilians And Revealing Ethnic Origins Through Cussing”
Passing For Pakistani And The Two-Nation Theory
I often pass for Pakistani. In my zipcode, 11218, once supposedly the most ethnically diverse in the US, it isn’t too hard. I speak Urdu, but perhaps more importantly, given Pakistan’s linguistic and ethnic demography, Punjabi; I am brown-skinned (but not all brown folk are alike for I, given my linguistic capacities, cannot pass forContinue reading “Passing For Pakistani And The Two-Nation Theory”
On First And Second Languages V – Nabokov’s Lament
In his famous Afterword to Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov closed with: My private tragedy, which cannot, and indeed should not, be anybody’s concern, is that I had to abandon my natural idiom, my untrammelled, rich, and infinitely docile Russian tongue for a second-rate brand of English, devoid of any of those apparatuses–the baffling mirror, the black velvetContinue reading “On First And Second Languages V – Nabokov’s Lament”
Language and Identity: The Case of Punjabi
My last name is a giveaway: I’m a Punjabi. But I’ve never lived in the Punjab and I have yet to master its language. The story of my attempts to do so reveals familiar struggles—by people like you and me—to fashion an identity, no matter where we live, whether in India or elsewhere. As aContinue reading “Language and Identity: The Case of Punjabi”
On First and Second Languages – III
In this ongoing series of posts on partially mastered languages and my frustrating relationships with them, I’ve written about German and Spanish. Today, I come to the most vexed alliance of all, the one with Punjabi. My last name is a giveaway: I’m a Punjabi. But I’ve never lived in the Punjab. I did, however,Continue reading “On First and Second Languages – III”
On First and Second Languages – II
In my first post in this series, I wrote of my relationship with English and Hindi/Urdu/Hindustani – my first and second languages. I claimed partial fluency in three other languages: German, Spanish and Punjabi. I aspire to mastery of all three and have varying levels of optimism about the plausibility of my success in thisContinue reading “On First and Second Languages – II”
Of First and Second Languages – I
Costica Bradatan‘s essay ‘Born Again in a Second Language‘ made me think my own homes in the two languages I speak: English and Hindi/Urdu/Hindustani. Because I grew up in India, English is often termed my ‘second language.’ I, however, describe English as my ‘first language’ because it is the language in which I posses the greatestContinue reading “Of First and Second Languages – I”
Samir Chopra 