Hindi lessons!

As a kid I found it very very difficult to understand, speak and write Hindi. We were taught Hindi from Class I and when everyone else our age in other schools were learning to read and write words, we were expected to read and write small stories! I cannot exactly remember the reason for the difficulty, but it made me miserable. I do not remember such difficulty for English or Kannada. We had a good Hindi teacher who had a good Hindi accent. I used to adore her. There are some distinct things I remember about my adventures to learn Hindi in the primary school:

1. Once we were asked to listen to the Hindi news on TV(there was only DD then) and list out some five difficult words as an assignment(We got innovative assignments!). Hindi news was telecast at 9pm if I remember, which was very late at the time for me(must have been in Class IV or V). So I had listed five words seeing a serial at 3pm(when I came home from school!). My first word was the name of the serial(ya, that was really stupid of me!). It was called "Junoon". My teacher knew instantly my source the next day when I read my list of words!

2. A Kannada actor Shankar Nag recreated R K Narayan's "Malgudi days" on the small screen with many kannada actors from the small and big screen. My dad insisted that I watch it. It was amusing to see Kannada actors speak a language I felt was very difficult, so effortlessly(Many years later I felt their Hindi was not exactly effortless, it had south Indian accent cropping up, but suited the story well - as in, the setting was in a village down south- it was fine). I did not understand much but liked watching Master Manjunath and pestering dad to tell me what was happening!
I also remember watching "Osheen", the story of a Japanese peasant girl who strives hard to become a beautician(not sure of the title or the storyline- but it was japanese for sure!)

3. At a little later point of time, in the afternoon(may be 3.30 pm) a new comedy serial started. Many of my friends came home after school as it was at a stone's throw and when we switched on the TV there was only one channel then and we happened to come across this serial called "Dekh bhai dekh". We were not a TV watching bunch but I remember clearly we loved watching this one! I must have realised it was a comedy because of the background laughing for every joke! It had Shekhar Suman, Farida Jalal and a bunch of other good actors. And I enjoyed watching this show for sure..

4. There were these Hindi exams that were popular in my school days. Mysore Hindi prachar samithi and Madras Hindi prachar samithi used to conduct exams and certify one's Hindi prowess. I happened to take(had no option, it was from school!) the first exam called "Prathama" in Class III. Given the fact that I went to school that did not have exams, exams never scared me! It did not make me anxious. I loathed the last few days when my Hindi teacher made us read and write a lot of stuff! I managed to scrape through the exam! My mom said I should be serious the next time around. My dad told me I had done a good job, as I had got more marks than him for the same exam!

I started speaking Hindi in high school - this was not due to any books, it was mostly because of TV! My Hindi even today is clichéd. Have a feeling native speakers of Hindi dont use the flamboyant phrases and words that Hindi cinema employs. I can say things like "Kaafi nek khayal he". I cannot think of another usage of the word "nek", since the TV/ films did not popularise other usages and my Hindi is not sourced from reading Hindi literature. It all seems funny. A south Indian feels I have a decently good Hindi accent, but the truth is my Hindi is very filmy and mostly grammatically incorrect. Like many things I do, I speak Hindi quite confidently and that seems to make up for the grammar (or the lack of it)! I did make some effort to read some literature in school but it seemed a lot of effort.