READ AT THE CHICAGO
LITERARY CLUB NOVEMBER 22, 2010 LEARNING ENGLISH V. AMOD SAXENA
LEARNING ENGLISH
V Amod Saxena
Ability to speak a language separates us from non-human
animals. A language gives us an ability to talk and express our thoughts,
emotions and ideas. I grew up in a land of many languages. English was one of
them. It is my story of an unfinished
journey to understand, speak and write a language called English.
My brother, several years older than I, had coached me
to answer simple questions in English.
For example;
“What is your name, How old
are you? What did you eat this morning?”
On and on. The purpose of this exercise was my
admission to an elementary school. An
interview with a teacher was the first step in the process. Knowledge of
English was essential in colonial India.
On the day of my interview, we arrived
early at the school. Soon, a rather tall man with a dark black beard appeared
and asked us to follow him to his office. He gently took my hands, pulled me
towards himself, and sat me down on a wooden chair. He looked at me with a
gentle smile.
“You seem a nice young man,” he said.
I smiled back, shyly and looked at my brother standing
next to me.
“What is your name?”
I uttered my name in a voice even I could not hear. I was
blanking out my prepared lines in English.
“Can you speak English?” he asked. I looked at him,
tongue-tied. I forgot my brother’s coaching.
“Where do you live?” I knew the answer but forgot the
line.
“There”. I pointed my finger towards the door. He laughed and patted my shoulder.
“Has someone been coaching you?” he asked looking at
my brother.
Without waiting for a response, he said,
“You are a fine young man. We would love to have you
in our school. Good luck”.
I felt relieved. English was an elite language in
India of my childhood. It was important for educated Indians to learn it well.
It increased one’s prospects for a good job. My father encouraged me to learn it
well.
In the evening, after his work he would lounge on his
favorite recliner and make me read the day’s newspaper. It was an English
newspaper. I hated it because it was a boring exercise. Just think of it. The newspaper was six pages
long; the font size was small. I was not to skip any part of it. I was to read
it slowly, loudly and clearly.
“You speak fast and eat up words. Slow down, so that
others can understand you,” he would say.
One evening, the front page read,
“Man rapes woman at the railway station”.
The incident was about a middle-aged man in his
fifties. He was a prominent attorney in the city. The police had accused him of
raping a woman at a railway station. It seemed that my father knew about details
of the incident. He also knew the man. He wanted me to skip this item and move on to
next page. He appeared embarrassed. To
my great relief, this was the last time he would ask me to read a newspaper.
The news of the incident appeared daily in the paper. I looked up meaning of unfamiliar words in our
home dictionary, thanks to my brother. He taught me to consult a dictionary in
our home. It was a Chambers Twentieth
Century English Dictionary. The dictionary was unique because it had interesting
tongue-in-cheek meaning of words. For example, the word “middle aged” was
defined as 'between
youth and old age, variously reckoned to suit the reckoner’.
For the word ‘sex’, it said “that by which an animal or plant is male or
female…” I also looked up the word
‘rape’. The Chambers also mentioned that word meant ‘rapine, plunder, seizure,
carnal knowledge of a woman without her knowledge or consent.” It was also “a
plant Brassica napus” akin
to a turnip”.
The Chambers showed me the origin, pronunciation and history
of a word. Thus, reading the dictionary increased my vocabulary. The
pronunciation of English words was a problem. I tried speaking English whenever
I got a chance. It was difficult with my young friends. They spoke Hindi and
were amused by my conversations. They teased me often and called me a nakali-angrez, a pseudo-Englishman.
At home, we had the “Book of fables by Aesop”. I loved reading it. Aesop in my imagination was
an old man, chained by his feet, wearing a long dunce cap over his head, and
sitting in a corner of a dungeon. Several children surrounded him and listened
to his tales. At the end of each story was its moral which sometimes made no
sense to me. The stories were short and written in simple English.
To improve our English my parents hired
a tutor for us. He was fat and short. He usually wore black long coat over
tight white trousers. And, he chewed on beetle nut and tobacco. He also suffered
from narcolepsy. In middle of tutorials he would doze off with loud snore. He
taught us about simple, compound and complex sentences; about verbs, subjects
and predicates. None of these words meant much to us then, but with time, we
soon began to read and write English prose.
One day the teacher asked us to build simple sentences on
our own. He tapped the tabletop with back of his right middle finger;
“What is this table made of?”, as he dozed off.
We looked at him and began to sing in unison;
“What is this table made
of?
He quickly shook his head and opened his eyes.
“What is this table made of?” He repeated in a terse voice.
“This table is made of wood. This table is made of wood. ”
We started to sing in harmony. We looked up at our teacher’s face. He was
asleep again.
We started a chant.
“This table is made of wood. This child is made of wood;
this man is made of wood on and on…..” We increased volume of our voice as we
repeated the sentence. Suddenly, our teacher woke up. He was quite upset and soon
gave up on us.
There was a thin book in English kept away from us kids
because it was considered unsuitable for us. I found it hidden in a file
cabinet. The title of the book was ‘Canterbury Tales” by Geoffrey Chaucer. The author lived in middle ages. The book is a
collection of short stories told by thirty people travelling to Canterbury for
pilgrimage. Each pilgrim told four stories each to pass time during the
pilgrimage. The story had to be interesting
for fun and killing travel time. The original writings have been lost. Later writers had copied them and handed them
down to us. I could not understand why the tales were forbidden for us to read.
It could be that some of the tales for example “The wife of Bath” probably was
considered amoral in those days. The story was told by a woman pilgrim who
lived in Bath and had married several men. She describes her sexual experiences
with each one of them. The stories just went over my head. Our mother found the book in my possession.
She quietly took it away from my room but said nothing. I thought that the
tales were boring.
In my early teen years, I moved in with my brother in
another city. He was unmarried then and lived with three other young men in a
house. There, I found the freedom of a bachelor’s life It was good and
refreshing and certainly different than at my parents home. There were always
young college students discussing politics, history, languages and yes,
mathematics and physics. Arguments were lively. They spoke English and Hindi and sometimes Hinglish, a combination of English and Hindi, used as a informal
language. I too was getting lessons in English and History.
It was during this time that I began to read English literature.
On my birthday, my brother gifted me a book “Carry on Jeeves” by P.G.
Wodehouse. I took the book to my bedroom that night. It was published by
Penguin. It had a soft white cover with a medium orange color spine. On the top of the front cover was the title of
the novel “Carry on, Jeeves” with large lettered name of the author. The
cartoon on the cover was of a living room with the front door open. In middle
of the room was drawing of a man with eye glasses. He wore a yellow-checkered
trousers and a vest. He held a book in his hand. In front and in the doorway, there
was a cartoon of a tall man wearing a dark jacket and a vest with a tie on a
stiff upward collar. He was standing in attention and was saluting the other
man. The man saluting was, of course, Jeeves and the man with glasses who
appeared confused and lost was his master Bertie Wooster.
I opened the first page titled “Jeeves takes charge” and began
to read:
“Now touching this business of old Jeeves-my man, you know-
how do we stand? Lots of people think I’m much too dependent on him. My Aunt
Agatha, in fact, has even gone so far as to call him my keeper. Well, what I
say is: Why not? The man’s a genius. From the collar upward he stands alone. I
gave up trying to run my own affairs within a week of his coming to me. That
was about half a dozen years ago, directly after the rather rummy business of
Florence Craye, my Uncle Willoughby’s book, and
Edwin, the Boy Scout.”
Believe me; I did not put the book down. I laughed and
laughed as I read on. In fact, the loud laugh woke my brother up. He came to my
room and took the book away from me. If he had not done so, I would have
finished the book by morning. He was worried that I might not be able to go to
school next morning.
In reading Wodehouse I discovered a casual and a humorous
way of telling a story. Before this, I knew only formal English. It was like stiff
and casual walk. The latter is more enjoyable. The Jeeves character was just
brilliant. Having grown up in colonial India, I sympathized with servants and
despised the rich masters. A smart and
witty manservant and an awkward and fickle master tickled me. Wodehouse broke rules of grammar and sentence-building.
His punch lines were masterful and perfectly conveyed their meaning. Yet, his
writing was readable. I felt that the narrator of the story was talking to me personally.
His used everyday English to entertain me.
After “Carry On, Jeeves”, I read “Code of Woosters; The Inimitable
Jeeves; Right Ho, Jeeves; Very Good, Jeeves and many others.”
Once, my older sister visited us, she brought a book with
her, which she declined to share with me. She said that I was too young to read
it. She also said that the government had banned it and if someone found out
that I was reading it, the police would catch me. I became nosey. It did not take me long to find the book under
her pillow. I quickly read it. The book
was “Lady Chatterley’s lover” by D.H Lawrence. It is true that the government
had banned it. However, the pirated copies of the book were available all over the
city. At the time, I did not find anything unusual in the book. It was, no
doubt, about a passionate love between Lady Chatterley and her gardener. So
what? Sisters! I said to myself.
Much later, I read D.H. Lawrence extensively. He was a great
natural writer. He wrote “Lady Chatterley Lover” three times. After completing the
first version, he moved on to his next project.
He never reviewed his novels including this one. Much later, when he
returned to it, he just rewrote the whole story from scratch. Thus he did so three times. That is why there are
three versions of the novel. I think, my
sister was reading the third version, because, it was the one, which was
pirated by many publishers. Lawrence had not cared to copyright it. No
publisher would accept the book for publication. The plot of the story was too
erotic. Finally, Lawrence decided to publish it with his own money. The book did
become popular but by then the publishers had already printed it without any
legal liability.
Lawrence wrote simply, emotionally and powerfully.
The description of Connie and Parker being in his cottage and he is decorating
her body with flowers before making love is simple and direct. He wrote a
complex subject of a sexual encounter in a simple and straight manner. Then, there is the relationship between Mrs.
Bolton, the nurse and Clifford. He describes a sense of reliance in a very dejected,
paralyzed man in Clifford. He feels helpless and angry at everything around
him. He acts like a spoiled child. The nurse has a way to calm his nerves. The
emotions are affecting. I must say though, when Connie goes abroad, gamekeeper
Mellor’s wife returns and makes a scene. I thought that it was a distraction.
Then, I did not write the story.
Just for an added interest, Penguin Books was
prosecuted for publishing an obscene book like “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”.
Actually in one of the publications, the publisher wrote on the back of the front
page;
"For having published this book, Penguin Books
were prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act, 1959 at the Old Bailey in London from 20 October to 2 November 1960. This
edition is therefore dedicated to the twelve jurors, three women and nine men,
who returned a verdict of 'Not Guilty' and thus made D. H. Lawrence's last
novel available for the first time to the public in the United Kingdom."
In 1996, I came across a book “The
selected letters of D.H. Lawrence” edited by Diane Trilling. Here is a short
quote in a letter he wrote to Lady Cynthia Asquith on January 30, 1915. It is
not important who she is but the words are powerful. He writes, “…I wanted to
send you a copy of my stories at Christmas, then I didn’t know how the war had
affected you-I knew Herbert Asquith was joined and I thought you’d rather be
left alone, perhaps.
“We have no history, since we saw you last. I feel as if I
had less than no history-as if I had spent those five months in the tomb. And
now, I feel very sick and corpse-cold, too newly risen to share yet with
anybody, having the smell of the grave in my nostrils, and a feel of grave
clothes about me.”
He was writing to a friend from abroad,
probably during or just after the WWI. He is unhappy and sad and his writing of
self-lamenting is clearly touching.
I had worked hard to get into a medical
school. Once in, I found it hard to continue. The anatomy and physiology
classes were difficult. Most anatomical words and definitions had Greek or
Latin origin. I had difficulty recalling them. I was depressed and miserable. I
wanted to quit medicine.
I confided my dilemma to a cousin of mine who lived in the
city. He was a Botany professor at a local university. He was a few years older
than I was. I enjoyed his company and visited him often. Once on a Friday evening, I had gone to eat dinner
with his family. After dinner, he took me to his library and showed me a few of
his recent paintings. He painted as a hobby. I saw a great satisfaction and joy
in him when he talked about his hobby. He was smoking a tobacco pipe. He
listened to me about my difficulties at school. He drew on his pipe gently and
let the smoke out slowly. After a few
moments of silence he said;
“You have been at the school only a couple of months. It is
common to feel a little lost. Hang in there and you will be fine.”
I was not sure of it and said so. He got up, went to a
bookcase on the wall, and pulled out two books.
“Read these books. You may like them”. Both books were paper
back and a little frayed. The thin book was “Citadel” by A.J.Cronin
and the thick one was “Of human bondage, by W, Somerset Maugham.
I realized immediately that I missed reading books for fun.
For almost a year, my energies were completely taken up by my attempt to get into
a medical school. Now that I was in, I felt a void. I was mentally tired. I had
not even noticed it but now, I knew.
I read Maugham’s “Of human bondage“with great interest. I myself
had begun to notice human frailty. I had a smooth and protected life. The students
in medical school came from all walks of life and social echelon. They had differing
views on life. The student who lived next to my room in our dorm had a
club-foot. When I first met him, I felt pity for him. Soon, I realized that in
many ways he was better than I was. He was smart, hard working and mentally
stable. He was also a great cricket batsman, although could not runs fast.
The main character of Maugham’s novel is Philip Carey. He
too is clubfooted. He lost his father at an early age and when his mother too dies soon
after, he becomes an orphan. His parents had left him a little inheritance,
which would remain in his uncle’s control until he attained adulthood. He goes
to live with his uncle and aunt who were childless. The uncle was a vicar in
East Anglia. He also had a large
collection of books on various subjects. Little Phillip spent much of his time
reading books. Although, his aunt treated him as best as she could, the uncle was
cold to him. Overall, it was not a pleasant experience for a child.
A year later, the vicar thought it better for him to
go to a boarding school and then to Oxford to become a clergy. Phillip was shy
and being clubfooted, did not fit in with the boys at the school. Philip goes
through a lot of emotional experiences. He had difficulty relating to men and women.
In the end, he gives them both up. He just could not connect.
The story evoked great interest and a curiosity in me
about relationships between sexes. Although, the reading of Maugham was not as
easy or smooth as Lawrence’s was, I was sympathetic towards Phillip and
identified with his emotions. I was unsure about his coping mechanism. I tried
to compare him with my friend next door.
Resolving these conflicts was hard for me.
Maugham’s own life was similar to that of Philip. He
had a stammer and was shy. He was also a loner. English was not his mother
tongue, French was. He fought many shortcomings to become a writer. He
graduated from medical school but never practiced medicine. His first novel
“Liza of Lambeth” was a best seller in England which allowed him to lead a life
without a formal job or need to earn his living. This book is about a young 18 year old woman
Liza Kemp. She is a factory worker and suffers from hardship of a hard worker.
She dies young. By this time, I had gained
sufficient insight about English writings that I could tell; Maugham’s first
novel was hesitant and clumsy. I could not help comparing Maugham with
Lawrence. I had no doubt that both were great writers who earned their living by
writing. Yet, I thought that in comparison, Maugham was a deliberate writer and
Lawrence wrote naturally. Each used the language to evoke a range of emotions
but with differing choice of words. Yet, I like reading Maugham. He is great
story teller and uses language precisely and efficiently.
Recently, I came across a book by Maugham called “A
writer’s notebook.” Between 1892 and 1949, Maugham had recorded his thoughts
and observations of his travels around the world. He gives us a peep into his
writing technique. He writes notes of events, his observations and thoughts
during his travels. He would then weave story plots based on these notes. He is
methodical and careful in his notes. They confirm power of his observation, his
creativity and a strong self-discipline. It is clear from these notes that he taught
himself to write well. Such an appreciation of a writer’s method was a new
experience for me. I was a science student and had limited exposure to
literature and language. Here is an example of what I mean. He wrote it in
1937.
“He had had so
little love when he was small that later it embarrassed him to be loved. It
made him feel shy and awkward when someone told him that his nose was good and
eyes mysterious. He did not know what to say when someone paid him compliment,
and a manifestation of affection made him feel a fool”.
Maugham, I think, is writing about himself. He too was
shy and a loner. He felt uncomfortable in showing appreciation and felt
embarrassed when complimented.
The other book my cousin gave me to read was by A.J.
Cronin called “Citadel”. He wrote it in 1937. The story of this novel centers
on a young doctor, Andrew Manson. He had just arrived in a small and poor Welsh
village. Here, he struggles to improve the healthcare of the poor. In the
process, he gets in trouble with the “Harley Street” mentality of the
established doctors. The story is about sense of simplicity, pride, commitment
and loneliness. It also brings out egoistical and false pride of an older
doctor who took the same oath to serve his patients as Andrew did. And yet, his practice habits are so different
than those of Andrew. I believe that Andrew’s sense of commitment to medicine
is as important today as it was then.
It was a time of war, poverty, a rigid class system
and a wretched life of labor class. Most English writers responded to political
and social environment of the day.
My cousin was right. Reading books sharpened my goals
and changed my attitude towards my studies. I never thought again of quitting
medicine. In a way my cousin helped to fill an emptiness and confusion. Reading for pleasure helped me to survive the
loneliness of medicine and to commit myself fully to serve my patients. Language
can be a strong motivating force.
On my twentieth birthday, my brother gave me a book
called “The hound of Baskerville” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Doyle too was a
physician who graduated from the Royal Edinburgh Infirmary. I became an instant
fan of Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes after reading this novel. I read as many of his books as I could lay my
hands on. I even visited the 221B Baker Street in NW part of London in 1961. Today
it has a Sherlock Holms museum.
Doyle used writing as a therapy for his boredom while
he waited for patients. He was not a popular physician and his office was
mostly empty. Rose Roberto writes,
“Like all writers, Conan Doyle couldn’t help himself.
Writing wasn’t just a profession, it was a spiritual calling. Once the muse
took hold of him, he became her vessel for channeling inspired prose.”
According to Roberto, “the four main
strengths of his writing are: firstly, it is vigorous, clear and readable;
secondly, it is full of concise, sensuous description that genuinely evokes a
sense of place; thirdly, the characters in the story are memorable with
striking personalities; and finally, he is a masterful storyteller.”
I often copied his language in my daily speech. It
helped improve my English. His characters are still alive and memorable even to
this day. Doyle’s attention to minute
details is typical of his writings. In his own words he once said
”…I cultivate a simple style and avoid long word as
far as possible…,”
When I arrived in England, I had
developed enough knowledge of English language and felt at ease about it. Yet,
I found out, to my surprise that the people in England spoke differently. The gestures,
choice of words and the accents completely surprised me. My first patient in
England was from Cornwall, a small Southwest part of the country. I tried to
take his medical history. To my dismay, I could not understand him. I asked a nurse for help. I quickly learned that
his English was different. He spoke a regional dialect that originated from Old
English and German languages. I discovered that the modern English was really a
corrupted version derived from West Country English.
In 1971 Lt-Col J.A. Garton said the
dialect of my patient
“…is not, as some people suppose,
English spoken in a slovenly and ignorant way. It is the remains of a
language—the court language of King Alfred. Many words, thought to be wrongly
pronounced by countryman, are actually correct, and it is the accepted pronunciation
which is wrong…”
According to Garton, the language spoken in Cornwall
in the sixties was not modern English. I discovered that the language changes
over time. If the change is too stressful it will kill a language. I learned many
Cornish words, not spoken in modern English.
After this, I enjoyed my contact with local patients. Sadly, I have forgotten
those words now.
In England, I became busy with my training in
oncology. I had no time to read anything other than daily newspapers. I gave up reading for pleasure. If I lost in
reading for fun, I gained in speaking English without hesitation. Once, the doctors at my hospital asked me to give
an after-dinner speech during Christmas holidays. This was a unique honor for
me. I had never spoken for more than a
few minutes in English to any group. I was nervous. The Christmas dinner in England
was usually a formal affair with black tie for men and long dress for women.
On this occasion, the dinner activities started sharply
at six in the evening. We were formally dressed. Smartly clad waiters poured sherry
in a delicate long crystal glass for each guest. Exactly at six thirty, the
head waiter entered the room with a gong striking it in a slow and deliberate
manner. The dinner was being served. We lined up, I in the lead and slowly entered
the dining room. It had a large crystal chandelier and a long dining table
decorated properly for Christmas. Being the chief guest I stood at the head of
the table. Others took their places around the table. We remained standing
until we toasted the Queen by raising our wine glasses.
“Long lives the Queen”.
I took a sip and sat down first, followed by the rest.
After several courses of meal and coffee, it was my
time now to stand up and introduce myself and each guest around the table. The introductions
had to be funny without being rude.
Initially I had decided to write down my speech on a
piece of paper. I was nervous. How would I come up with a funny story about
each guest? What if I forget name of a
guest? In the end I decided to go for it
without written notes.
I decided skip alcohol before my speech. I needed to do
a good job. I thought that I could be funny without telling jokes. I decided to
just introduce each person in a manner which would sound funny. I could be
humorous without a joke.
Thus, when I stood up to speak, I made fun of my name,
my English and myself. Then, I introduced
each guest about his common habits at work.
The guests laughed and applauded merrily. A little wine during the helped
the jolliness too. In the process, I
gained a new confidence in public speaking and learned that I did not need a
help from wine to make a public speech.
In early sixties I moved to Canada. I sensed that my
patients, colleagues and others had difficulty understanding me. This
frustrated me.
One day, I saw a classified ad in a local newspaper
about “learning to speak like a Canadian”. I went to this place and met a young
woman teacher. I told her of my difficulty with speaking English. She smiled
and said,
“Has any one told you that you speak fast and to eat
your words?” That sounded familiar. My father had told me that. He would make
me read newspaper. At the time, I was convinced that my dad was getting old and
could not hear me well. When I told her about this, she laughed loudly. I also told her that I spoke better in
England.
She said, “That
may be so. There, they speak fast and eat up words. Here, we speak slowly and
open our mouths and move our tongues to pronounce words clearly.” I thought she was being funny, but she was
serious. She told me to look at people when they talk and listen to the tone of
voice and other gestures. Speaking a language is a combination of
pronunciation, gestures and oral movements. Also, tone of voice is very
important. North American pronunciation is ‘rhotic’; British pronunciation is
non-rhotic. We pronounce the letter ‘R’
in a word but the English keep it silent unless ‘R’ is followed by a vowel. Britain also has many accents; here we speak
with a common accent. You will find it easy to copy our accent.
For four weeks she helped me with my speech. I
followed her advice and watched people talking and listened to tone of their speech.
I tried to copy them in my own talks.
One day, I was sitting with my chief resident reviewing
our duty assignments. I suspected that he took advantage of my placidness and
was unfair in assigning me night calls.
I was frustrated but was unable to verbalize my anger.
I tried to reason with him. He would not take “no” for an answer. That day, I
stood up, looked him in his eyes and said in a strong tone,
“Fuck off, and go to hell. Go tell the chief. I am done with you and your fucking
schedule.” I walked off.
To my great relief and great surprise, the Chief Resident
took my name off the list and replaced it with his own name. His tone also changed
for better. After that, he never took advantage of me again.
Learning any language is a challenge in itself.
Learning it in a way that helps one negotiate his way in his life can be difficult
and difficult. In my experience, people succeed in life because they speak well
and are articulate. Others, and I know a few, have problem expressing their opinions
and beliefs. They get frustrated and angry which makes it worse for them. The
English language has molded my personality, shaped my behavior and taught me
how to argue my points of view.
Today, in English, I dream, in English I think, in
English, I show my emotions, and in English I speak. Regardless of my unique accent,
if English is not my language, what is?.
Bibliography:
1.
http://www.librarius.com/canttran/wftltrfs.htm
2.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._G._Wodehouse
3.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeeves
4.
Carry on, Jeeves by P.G.Wodehouse, published by Penguin Books Ltd., Middlesex,
U.K.
5.
http://www.mantex.co.uk/2010/03/26/lady-chatterleys-lover-a-study-guide/
6.
Selected Letters of D.H.Lawrence edited by Dians
Trilling Published by Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, Inc and Viking Press New York
1957.
7.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Human_Bondage
8.
A writer’s notebook by W.
Somerset Maugham: Penguin Books1949.
9.
http://www.enotes.com/citadel-salem/citadel
10.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liza_of_Lambeth
11. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groombridge_Place
12. www.westminsteronline.org/conandoyle/Fiction.html
Copyright©
V. Amod
Saxena
November 22,
2010