The India

For me it was not a new question, why The United States of America and not The India. This is what Sashi asks David Sir in the delightful movie English Vinglish by Gauri Shinde. This does not necessarily stump David but there is no answer forthcoming as David Sir says the issue is beyond the scope of the lessons for the class (not in so many words as he might not have been able to explain “scope” to the students without getting a barrage of questions in return).

I know the answer (at least I think I do) but I am not in the mood to share my knowledge with you. But to justify why I said that I faced this question earlier, I admit that it was yours truly who posed this question to yours truly many years ago when he noticed that it was always The Netherlands.

Sridevi has been de-glammed, the reviewers are unanimous on this. I think they are wrong. A housewife, a laddu maker for God sake, how glamorous would you want her to be? Should she be wearing minis, sport Big hair, garish eyeliners? What, for God sake tell me, is glamour. To my eyes and mind she has retained her charm and glamour too, and added to that, she oozes context. There is a grace to her and that is glamorous enough. The reviewers have to get out of their straitjackets.

But this post is not about movie reviewers and I am definitely not going to ask, at the end of the post as I did with my immediately preceding post, whether the movie deserves tax-free status. But there will be a question, though not directed at you, the reader. My question will definitely go unread and therefore unanswered.

I am not, though I have the opportunity to be, too pedantic in my daily interactions with my colleagues. Yet, I have made it clear to many that no one returns anything back. This is because no one can return anything front! Guess what! David Sir, while evaluating the speech by Sashi, given at the reception of a wedding, points out this gaffe just before he hands over her certificate. That made me feel good; trivial thing, yet very pleasurable. I was grinning ear to ear.

Earlier to that, when Sashi tries to enter the classroom late she hesitantly asks whether she can come in. The sensitive teacher that he is, David merely points out in a roundabout way (he says that the doorway is wide enough!) that the question should be phrased as "May I come in?" This again is something I had told many of my colleagues and others too, even if not in such sensitive manner. I am at heart a pedant, after all. Again, an ear to ear grin!

I truly liked the character of Radha, Sashi’s niece, because it is so out of character of the stereotypical young adult, immersed in self-importance and trivial things. She is very sensitive and seems to be able to contextualize her aunt’s adventures. In that strange land, becoming less and less strange day by day, Sashi needs someone to confide in and it is her niece who is her soul mate. Excellent.

The above cannot be said of Sashi’s husband. He is just a successful professional who happens to be a husband and father too. He is all polite and all that, but on sensitivity he scores much below me. Amitabh Bachchan, in a cameo role, anchors Sridevi’s transformation. This is implicitly acknowledged at best. It is he who tries to remove the anxieties of the first time visitor to the US. One cannot but recall Nehru’s jocular and not yet avuncular observation that no one should visit the US for the first time!

That gets me to the last observation of mine, the way David Sir speaks. I have gone through that experience, of listening, as anyone going to the International Student Office of a university in the late 1970s must have (I do not know how it is now).

The Dean of International Students, I do not recall his name, addressed all those who had come in from various countries (included Taiwan, Poland, Malaysia, Lebanon and of course, India), before registration began. The dean’s diction was precisely what you hear from David in the movie. It was OK for me, for the first few times, particularly as I came in to Lexington, KY via JFK and the only stranger I approached spoke in Yankee language which was beyond my comprehension, even after scoring in the high 90 percentile on TOEFL. The ear takes time to adjust as Hollywood movies and TV soaps and sitcoms were not quite so easily accessible in those times.

Later though the slow diction combined with the exaggerated lip movements started grating on me. (But, I believe the director missed bringing in the difference between ‘W’ and ‘V’). I thought that Sashi, had she stayed back in that country, would also have felt likewise over time. (Note that I did not write, “over a period of time”, as though there is a period of space, in how many ever dimensions!)

To end this post, I want to ask David Sir a related question. Why is it the United States of America and not the United States of Vespucci? This is the question Dennis the menace asked his father many years ago. If you had answered that correctly (I am no one to judge as I do not know the answer), my next question: why is it the United States of America and not the United States of Amerigo?

Raghuram Ekambaram