LESSON IN LOCAL CULTURE I

In Tamil Nadu, the southern Indian state of which Chennai is the capital the majority of the population speaks the official language of the state, Tamil, which sounds a bit like possessed mumbling. Apparently past Tara interns have attempted to learn Tamil, but for me there is no hope. I might try to learn Spanish instead. There are kids however who grow up in this state of 65 million+ speaking only English—weird proper Indianized British-English don’t forget. Now I speak English, and let me tell you it’s not so easy to interact with your typical Tamilian Naduian using only my native tongue. So these kids, primarily and maybe exclusively of the upper-middle class, basically speak a different language than the rest of the country. They go to English schools and have enough support that they never need to learn the language of the streets. Of course six hours away in Bangalore they speak Telugi and another few hours in the other direction they speak Keralian or something, and in the north it’s Hindi or Bengali amongst others, so blanketing the different cultures under the quilt of English begins to gain some credibility. So all those in favor of globalization give the British some credit.