Tejesh Week 1 - More Than Just a Language
One of my biggest fears in life is never being able to sit down and have a deep conversation with my grandparents.
For some context, my parents met and got married in India and moved here to the U.S. in 2000, later giving birth to me and my older brother. Meanwhile, my grandparents decided to stay in India, as the rest of our extended family is still living there.
Growing up in Fremont, I never felt a dire need for me to learn my native language, Telugu, as both of my parents were well versed in English. In kindergarten, though, my parents enrolled me in a Telugu class for the first time, and I hated it. Almost everyone else in that class was easily able to learn the concepts and perform well on the tests. I, on the other hand, barely understood anything. I often cried in front of the class when I was put on the spot by my teacher, not because they were being mean to me, but because I felt ashamed of being the only kid who struggled to answer the questions.
At home, my mom dedicated many hours and tried her absolute hardest to teach me and encourage me to keep going. Despite all her efforts, my loathing was too much for her, so she finally let me drop out of the class in the third grade. Shortly after this, the COVID-19 pandemic struck, so returning to the class unfortunately (well, fortunately for younger me) was not an option.
Learning Telugu has been put on hold for me ever since, especially with how busy life has been recently. My mindset, though, has changed since last summer, when my grandparents came to visit my family and me. I have gone to India a few times when I was younger, and every time I wanted to talk to my grandparents, I needed my mom or dad to act as a translator. My younger self always thought, “I’ll just learn Telugu when I get older. There is no rush.”
Now that I am older, I realize that nothing has changed. The same awkwardness filled the room whenever it was just me alone with one of my grandparents. There are so many questions that I would love to ask them. I want to know what kind of people they really are. I regret not trying harder when I was younger to learn Telugu.
Although my grandparents are getting older, I still have time. Every day, I have been trying to learn more Telugu than I did the day before, and I plan to go even deeper into learning it after high school. To anyone reading this who is in the same position as me, I encourage you to do the same. Although it may sometimes feel too late, it never truly is.
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| Image from Amanda Sillars |
This post is extremely relatable to me. Hindi has been a language spoken in my extended family my whole life, and I do not know it that well. If I could go back I would make sure I learned how to read and write Hindi, rather than just be able to speak it. The way you convey your message is clean and concise, making your point easy to understand. The image is also really impactful as it shows your time with those you love is finite. Amazing Blog!
ReplyDeleteHey Tejesh, reading your blog post really dug into my mind as it made me ponder about all the times I told myself, “I'm still young. I have time.” Unfortunately, the truth is that we don’t have time. What felt like yesterday could have been that first day of high school as you walked onto campus feeling like you just landed on another planet. Your touching story really has inspired me to value my time more and, like Nike says, “Just Do It.” I hope that we both can continue growing and regain the time that our younger selves took for granted.
ReplyDeleteHi Tejesh, your blog was super relatable (unfortunately). For me, Malayalam was actually my first language, but I forgot it all when I started school. 11 years later, including 5 years of Malayalam class for an hour and a half every week, I still can’t hold a good conversation with someone.
ReplyDeleteWhen I went to India this summer, I tried my best to speak Malayalam as much as I could, even if it was really bad. I think sometimes it can be embarrassing and scary to get something wrong. Sometimes people might even laugh. But it’s important to try as much as possible. I did notice an improvement over the two weeks I was there.
I recommend watching movies in Telugu if you haven’t already! I think it really helps (and subtitles aren’t cheating). Sometimes I rewatch movies, and I end up understanding the story much better. They also use more colloquial language compared to language used in a classroom or textbook.
Your response was really well-written, and I enjoyed reading it. It’s commendable that you keep learning Telugu everyday! I know it can be difficult, but one day you’ll be able to hold a full conversation in Telugu that’s on the same level as the ones you have in English.
Hi Tejesh, your post captured the guilt and friction around heritage language barriers much more accurately than I could ever convey. The section where you described feeling overwhelmed in you childhood Telugu class hit deep, and it takes a lot of vulnerability to write candidly about childhood insecurity, and that honesty makes that recent shift in mindset even more powerful. The realization that “its truly never too late” serves as a a really comforting takeaway for anyone feeling disconnected from their roots.
ReplyDeleteTo make the post even more actionable for readers in the same boat, like me, you could briefly mention what your daily practice looks like now. I would love to see if you have conversations with your parents, listen to music, or watch media, to give an audience a concrete idea how to start.