Of languages and learnings

Junior somehow has a repulsion for writing any other language than English. And the sad part is, he doesn’t like to read or watch tamil stories. Even he doesn’t understand a bit, he watches stories on every language under the sun but not tamil. To satisfy our cribbing, he will keep them for couple of minutes and the moment we turn our head, it would’ve become either English or hindi or even Russian for that matter. Since his school started with tamil as second language from this year, we wanted him to practice writing tamil alphabets. His mom started with coaxing and finally the she-hulk had to come out to make him sit for the writing practice.

“Naama inniki tamil alphabets practice pananum. Be ready I will come in 2 mins”

Junior dutifully took his slate and chalk out and started writing. I was actually shocked and impressed at the same time, watching this from a distance. Never realized that he already knew how to write in tamil. 

Just to be sure I asked,

“Ennada ezhuthitruka”

“Amma thaana sonna..aana aavana ezhutha..adhaan ezhuthitruken”

“Wow..super…show me”

“Iru..first amma kitta thaan kaaatuven…” and started calling out for her

It looked as if he wrote only for few seconds and I was wondering how come he wrote all the alphabets in short notice. Even for the tried and tested English alphabets, it usually takes about 10 minutes. I was making mental calculation as to how many tamil alphabets he would’ve written in such short span.

“Ammmmaaaa.” Again the bellowing began. 

Finally mommy dearest came from kitchen and threw me an angry look

“ingeye thaana ukkanthitrukeenga..paaka koodatha…”

I was like “un pullayaandanaiye kelu” nu silently looked into phone.

Suddenly she started laughing loudly. 

“Enna panni vachirukaan paarunga”

“En..aana avanna ezhuthaliaya..appovay nenachen..ennada takkunu ezhuthitaanay nu..show me”

I was shocked beyond belief on seeing what was written.

The slate had the words “Ana Awana” written on it in English!!!!