I grew up as an only child, with no one my age in a few kilometers radius. I did not go out a lot and did not have much company. The only source of entertainment I had was reading books. I consider myself lucky to have come from a family that enjoys reading because it helped me find joy in between the pages. I could go to places I have never thought of, and meet people I had never heard of, and discover magic all from the comfort of a toasty room with warm lights.
I soon became a very intense sort of reader. I was willing to drop anyone and anything to be able to transport myself into another universe. It was my only constant at the age of 10 when I began changing schools every two years. My mother saw how much it consumed me and suggested that I start a blog. So, I inhaled books and exhaled my thoughts on them on a website that I still update. I had pride in my language skills, and this was constantly reinforced by adults telling me how important it is to be good in English. Since it came easy to me, I never stopped to wonder why everyone and everything revolved around this strange language with its strange rules. I was told that it is the language of the world, and people who can express their thoughts in words are highly valuable.
I have realised that proficiency in English as one of the most significant defining characteristics starts at a young age. I saw friends face panic attacks before barely hitting puberty because they were underconfident in their English skills. They were constantly conscious of it, developed a stutter, and had severe social anxiety. It seems ridiculous to think of now. Is something so essential supposed to make you feel this way?
Every school I went to, I experienced a different social, cultural, and economic environment. There was one with wealthy, completely Amercianised Indians who believed in the supremacy of the West. Another with students born in low-income families who were unable to afford quality, standard education. Yet another with primarily Telugu-speaking students, and one filled with children of businesspeople. I noticed that my peers who were fluent in English were arrogant and had a sense of superiority. They carried themselves in this manner only when placed amongst peers who were not as fluent in the language. While I did not think too much about the constant change, I am now grateful for the experiences. It opened my eyes to the different lives people live and how that impacts their perceptions and opinions. I saw how they treated each other, but most importantly, I saw how they treated themselves.
For a language that is pitched as a unifier, English has more divisions than I can count. The fundamentals of English grammar and spellings were taught to me in ‘British English.’ But this posed a problem when I switched to a school with an American learning system. Suddenly commas were different, and I was being penalised for using unnecessary o’s in the middle of words and s’s instead of z’s (do you say zed or zee?) Then I discovered Indian English, but that posed more problems because then I wondered what happened to being a citizen of the world.
When I think about my relationship with the language, I seem to experience a surreal reality. I find myself unable to separate myself from the hold it has on me. It feels like a giant octopus stuck to my body that lays a tentacle over each of my limbs. These tentacles wrap around my limbs, suffocate me and restrict my movement. I depend on it, and I fear that I consume it more than it consumes me. The texts I read, music I listened to, and shows I watched, I had a clear preference for those in English. Why? Was it because it was given to me? Was it perhaps sold to me not by its merits but by the demerits of anything that was not English? Do I genuinely enjoy media in regional languages, or do I convince myself to because of the guilt? Is it really that bad? Is it perhaps some form of a necessary evil? Because sometimes, I believe that the language is my biggest booster in the game of life. It has given me protection, strength, opportunities, and an extra life more times than I can count. The tentacles caress me, guide me, and allow me to trust them with myself. I feel akin to existential dread because it is an argument I cannot win against myself, which cruelly seems to take place only in English. So if I had to define my relationship with English, I imagine that I would stay silent for a moment before sighing and fondly doodling an octopus.