After an hour of unsuccessful search for some way to write the title of this post in Devnagri script, I had to revert back to plain old English alphabet. Perhaps that script would have captured instantly and exactly, the essence of what it means to me...the words more familiar and the feel more homely. But I will try my best with this post to do the same.
Browsing on YouTube at lunch and dinner times has become a hobby of sorts with me these days (owing to lack of TV here). So tonight on my routine browsing, I came across this video. Watching it made me realize the extent to which I had taken my Marathi existence for granted. I never really thought, till I came to US and even till I watched this video today, that one day I would miss those Marathi songs that Dad played on CDs at home or watched on TV.
My Marathi connection is not restricted to calling it my 'mother tongue'...the language Mom taught me to express myself in. It expands to many other small incidents and happenings such as the plays of Shivaji that Ms. Hyacinth had us acting in every week, to those times when I opened my tiffin to find "poli-sakhar", to Ranjit Desai's book Shreeman Yogi - the first Marathi book I read on my own not because I had to but because I wanted to.
This same connection stretches on to the times in school when a request to "organize a marathi dance" instinctively manifested itself into a koli dance or a lavani, to a class in 10th where a copper wire was "tambyachi taar" and gravity was "gurutvakarshan" and even to panicky times before exams when quick revisions for "how to convert decimal to binary?" resulted in "tyala don ne divide kar remainder ek yeyi paryant".
This may not be the language I think in, but it is the language I react in...when burnt, when hurt, when happy, when angry, when panicky...and so on. Even more than connecting to the language, I connect to the essence of what it is to be Marathi and the connection is evident in my nostalgia in remembering visits to watch "jaadugar aani chetkin" at Maratha Mandir and in my laughter while watching "rashi chakra" at Prabhodankar. Perhaps staying in Mumbai all my life has strengthened this connection or perhaps the fact that my most toured region of India is Maharashtra has done the same...whatever it is, I enjoyed watching the video and smiling to myself.
I will end my post with yet another video. Something for all my friends who at some time or the other have stayed in Maharashtra. Take a look at
this video and then come back to the video I posted at the beginning. If you have ever stayed in Maharashtra for long enough, I'm sure u'll want to say the same thing that I said throughout my post..."Mi Marathi"!
