VOICES
BEYOND BEYOND TRANSLATION BEYONDTRANSLATION TRANSLATION By Rohith Raman
I
have always been pretty mediocre at speaking Tamil. Although I am South Indian and Tamil is central to my family’s cultural heritage, I have never been as fluent as I would have liked. Our family’s annual trips to Mumbai only exposed the limits of my knowledge from a young age. Comprehension was never my struggle; I understood the sweet compliments and questions relatives greeted me with, but the words to respond with floated around in my head like alphabet soup. Growing up, my family spent many evenings at a nearby Indian movie theater. Each week, they sold tickets for only a dollar, which was a deal that we couldn’t pass up on. The theater almost exclusively played Bollywood (Hindi Cinema), and the films I watched while munching on chaat and vegetable pakora bought from the concession stand became my initial exposure to Indian cinema. Tamil and South Indian films were often perceived as “less mainstream” and given less visibility. As a result, I was rarely given the chance to watch them. However, at home, Tamil shows were frequently heard coming from my grandmother Pati’s room at maximum volume, and their tunes filled every crevice of our house. I would sometimes accompany Pati on her cinematic ventures after school, where we would delve into juicy family dramas, gory murder mysteries, or fantasy stories imbued with religious and cultural symbolism. She had to stand close to the TV because she couldn’t hear the dialogue from her rocking chair, and I would perch next to her, frantically trying to pick up every word or squinting at the screen if subtitles were graciously provided. (My dad
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eventually got her headphones so she could remain seated, which she loved.) To be fair, neither of my parents are fully fluent in Tamil, which didn’t really help. They spoke Tamil at home, but at school or with friends it was a mix of Tamil with other languages like Marathi, Gujarati, and Hindi, despite Tamil’s status as their “official mothertongue.” My grandparents were born and brought up in regions that predominantly speak Tamil; for Pati, this was in Gobichettipalayam, a small province in Tamil Nadu. However, this wasn’t the case for my parents, whose Tamil was more informal and diluted. My dad was born in Chennai but moved to Rajasthan at a young age. He spent his adolescent years at school in Delhi, which forced him to brush up on his Hindi. Although his childhood was founded on speaking and reading Tamil, Hindi became a more comfortable medium of conversation for him as he moved throughout India. My mom was born in Kolkata, which gave her basic exposure to Bengali, but her family quickly moved to Mumbai, a city with large numbers of Marathi, Hindi, and English speakers; at markets or restaurants, Hindi and Marathi were more commonly spoken, and the Catholic school that she was forced to attend prioritized English proficiency. While my parents are exponentially better at Tamil than I am, Pati was always treated as the “Tamil authority” in our house. She was my dictionary for random words and phrases that didn’t make sense to me and eventually became my true connection to the language. In many ways, she motivated me to continue learning Tamil
and speaking it at home. When I called Pati for dinner as a kid, checked up on her after walking home from school, or asked her what she wanted from Chipotle, a favorite of hers, I would often unintentionally refer to her informally or fumble over the pronunciation of certain words. Despite the annoyance I must have been, she would sit patiently and listen eagerly to my broken Tamil, filling in the gaps in my sentences with the little English she knew and complimenting my progress every time. Her love was unconditional; even amid the messy patchwork of Tamil and English that our conversations consisted of, her heart remained open. Even as she had to deal with a stubborn grandchild who constantly teased his older sister and never listened to his mother, she continued to love. Every morning, Pati would promptly wake up and make a pot of chai for herself and my dad. Chai was central to her morning routine, and I always arose to its rich, spiced aroma. Pati had her own designated cup; it was orange and ceramic, reading “World’s Greatest Grandmother.” I never had an affinity for drinking coffee or tea, and my mom felt that I was too young to
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