My Saga with Konkani

Image by Bishnu Sarangi from Pixabay

My son had a college assignment a few weeks back, to interview his relatives in his Mother tongue, and then write a reflective, informal essay on his experience and connection with it. As someone whose work involves a lot of intensity around culture, appreciation, and cultural appropriation, I was very touched at Ash’s effort to interview me and my mum, submit the recordings and document the below essay. As a keepsake, and as an acknowledgement for our contribution to the community, here is Ash’s essay, in his own words… Published on my blog with his permission.

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My Saga With Konkani
Akshay ‘Ash’ K

I’m from Mangalore, and one of the languages spoken in Mangalore is Konkani. Konkani is the key to unlocking my cultural identity and is the basis for which my family is so closely knit. This essay is about how my mother tongue shapes my family’s identity.

Konkani is a lot more than a means of communication for me. It’s like a time machine that sends me back to the days of Mangalore that my grandparents used to live in. It’s a compilation of all the recipe books, stories and music as a reflection of the language.

Konkani carries the experiences and emotions of all my ancestors, the finger-licking foods we die for, even the songs that somehow bring every single Mangalorean family together.

When we converse in Konkani, there’s a story behind every phrase, let alone a word.

Born and raised in Dubai, I was exposed to several languages, but English has always been my primary and comforting language. I spoke English everywhere and to everyone, even at home with my family. However, Konkani always felt like my true home.

My paternal family is from Bangalore, and they speak Kannada. Whenever I hear someone speaking Kannada, I recognise the language, but don’t really understand the conversation. However, when I hear people speak in Konkani, I am pleasantly surprised and find it easy to connect and build a rapport with them.

I have many memories passed down by my grandparents in Konkani. These stories act as a bridge between me and my roots, even when I believed I had absolutely no connection to them.

Throughout my schooling years, I learned Spanish, French and Arabic but none that I felt more inclined to than Konkani. It’s almost like I feel a sense of belonging to Konkani even though I have never “learned” the language. As a matter of fact, understanding a bit of Konkani actually made it easier for me to grasp bits and pieces of other languages like Kannada.

Imagine wearing your same comfortable clothes at home every day, like my regular T-shirt and shorts, then trying out a completely different style of clothing and actually, surprisingly, liking it.

That’s like English and Konkani for me. That’s the role Konkani plays in my life. When I speak Konkani, or at least try to, I feel accepted into a part of something bigger and welcomed without any shame.

At family events and gatherings, Konkani evokes deep binding. We joke, share and relive memories, sing songs in Konkani, and even play games. Like ice breaking activities, this feels like an ice breaking language of sorts. 

I’ve witnessed Konkani being used as an instrument to reconnect and revive distant and lost connections, be it family or non-family members. This feeling of intimacy that Konkani creates, no matter the distance, allows us to maintain strong bonds, and lay a strong foundation for relationships. It’s like carrying a piece of home with us, wherever we go.

In a world that’s getting more complex by the second, preserving our traditions becomes incredibly important and so for Mangalorean descendants, and especially the diaspora of my generation, Konkani plays an essential role. To reiterate, Konkani is like a hidden room in a house that safeguards our recipes, stories, songs, and books that would otherwise go extinct. 

As I reflect on my experiences with Konkani, from when I did not know a single word of the language beyond ‘Mujhe nav Akshay‘ and ‘Maka vudak zai.’, to the present where I’m still not a fluent speaker but can understand most conversations, I am in awe of how the language mirrors the idea of Mangalore itself. 

The way I see it, Konkani holds a testament to the power of language itself through its words, sounds, dialects, rhythmic lilt, and script that possibly transcends time and space. The language intrinsically carries the intangible essence of my entire community. The spoken and written words invoke the vibrant world of my culture, family and the very essence of who I am.

Konkani is more than just a language passed on. To me, it’s an entity, sound, smell, taste and sight all in one. The language has a life and network of its own. Knowing it, is almost like subscribing to a YouTube channel or following someone on Instagram and finding out you know so many people within the same community. It’s like a thread that not only connects me to my past, but also helps me navigate my future and discover pathways that I never knew existed.

Konkani and I are an ongoing saga – one that I am humbly honored to be a part of. With every spoken word, story shared, and connection made, I’m reminded, with much humility, the immense impact of the language – my mother tongue – on my sense of self.

Bangalore
August 2023

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Akshay is a student at St. Joseph’s University, Bangalore, and can be reached on LinkedIn

Validation – From My Daughter

A few weeks ago, he challenged me – more than challenged, he threatened me via email that in some years, my child – his child, too – would turn into an ‘alcoholic and a drug addict’.

That was a defining moment for me.

I wasn’t as shaken as I was angry – angry because this was a ‘man‘ who was using his own children as a means to harass and hurt me. I took a few days to digest this fresh awareness of another impossible low in a relationship I cannot believe I spent so many years in, then something else happened. I began to wonder what this daily battle was going to look like – what this steep uphill trek of single motherhood, single parenting would open up for me.

The past three months have been hard – very hard. You see, there are moments that are ‘hard’ and then there are moments that go like, ‘She’s-still-standing-&-smiling-&-laughing,-unshaken,-so-let-me-up-the-heat-&-start-burning-her’ hard.

I’ll be honest, I worried.

I worry. Present tense.

I worry how I’m going to make ends meet, how I’ll give my children an education, how I’ll feed, clothe, shelter them… and honestly, how I would do all this single handedly…. I worry about the unwarranted stress the children are very likely going through at the hands of an absent father who wasn’t even paying for their food & education. I worry that this turmoil, at such turning points in the children’s lives could put them on precarious cross roads & I wondered if I was instilling strong enough values in them to help them get through life.

In other words, even though I worry about how I would get all these things done and somehow I still get them done, I had bought in to his horrid threat and allowed it to grip and freeze my heart.

Then, yesterday happened.

I got home after a long Wednesday of meetings and classes to find my youngest sprawled asleep on the couch and my daughter bounding up to me excited to share some of her Halloween candy with me. I was starving and didn’t have an opportunity to have dinner so she got a mooli paratha* (spiced radish flat bread) and shoved it in my mouth while I was grumbling about the mess the dogs had created somewhere in the house… and how I’d have to clean up soon after getting home after such a long day…. at the same time, coordinating with my oldest to book him a cab home from the Halloween party he had attended with his friends.

I looked up to see her sitting in front of me with an excited expression on her face.

‘Ma, I want to tell you something, but I don’t know how you’ll react..”

Now this could go in two directions – either she got her period or it was one of those moments when she forgets that her Insta account is on my phone & I don’t believe in anything called online privacy for a 12-yr-old daughter… Either way, I kinda sensed where it was going… but… it was her moment, not mine…

So as I chewed my paratha, I said, “Well, you’ll never know how I’ll react until you tell me and see my reaction…”

With that goofy smile still plastered on her face she told me, “XYZ asked me out…”

Omg!!! I thought that was the cutest and nicest thing to ever happen – and as she continued to narrate the when and the how and how she played a bit hard-to-get (wtg!! That’s my girl!) and how she didn’t want to really bunk school tomorrow anymore (hello??), I continued to giggle with her and really re-live and re-witness those very feelings of first crushes and infatuation – a throwback to similar moments of my own….

And she laughed as she said, “You’re not reacting the way I thought you would!! I thought you’d be all…” and she made one of those crazy, rabid dog-cross-Tasmanian-devil imitation faces…. “but you’re like this!”

We immediately went on to video call my sister so Rhea could share her moment with her favourite aunt and in that half hour, we three Rangel women spoke and giggled and laughed ourselves silly… and felt like life wasn’t so hard after all!

As we spoke, I checked in with myself… to just come to terms with what really was happening on the inside .. and very, very honestly, all I could feel was lightness, happiness and innocent joy. I wasn’t over thinking, I wasn’t over reacting, there was no panic…. all there was, was this settled knowing that my daughter came to me.

She opened up to me with this very precious, very important moment of her life. She trusted me.

Over the years, as the mother of a daughter, who, for what it’s worth, was very fond of being her father’s princess, I worried if I had built enough bridges that would stand the test of stormy times. I worried if my daughter would succumb to pressure or so much of the crap that children these days are exposed to. I wondered if I was too tough as a parent and had lost their trust to open up to me about important matters.

Yesterday, Rhea redeemed me of that worry.

Two weeks ago, my oldest had a heart-to-heart chat with me about drugs and weed and I’ll confess, I kept a straight face, but my head going, “omg… wtf.. WTF!!” on manic loop… and he went on to say, “Listen, Mama, don’t worry… I’m telling you this, aren’t I? I tell you everything, you know that…” and I do…

But for that scary nail-biting thing called self-doubt…

For the most part, the six of us (me + three human children + two canine babies) are like a boisterous lot of roomies. I lose it at times (read: many times) in the face of having to lose sleep, send them off to school, work & overwork, manage school activities, get groceries, be available physically and emotionally, clean up after the dogs – poop, pee, puke (theirs, not mine!) – so yes, I lose it often. I scream, I shout, I yell – to wake them up in the mornings and to keep them off from annoying each other… and to just get them into bed on time, so I can catch some zzzs…

I paused & thought about what exactly I did right, after all?! At first all I could think of were the numerous ‘stereotyped parenting no-nos‘ that I had committed – I screamed, I shouted, I was demanding, sometimes it was because-I-said-so, other times it was ‘go make yourself a sandwich’, they’ve heard me at my eloquent best and well, they’ve also heard me punctuate every sentence with profanities at times when a clean, quiet sentence would just not do justice to the frustration and angst within. So, I bashed myself up and was ready to put myself down yet again, until another voice said, “Well, you also showed up real & true wherever you were.”

Not saying that being authentic meant cussing every time things went out of hand, but well, I guess, when I did, I showed up with all my flaws in front of my kids. I wasn’t perfect, I was flawed, but here I was. I was fiercely protective about my kids, stood up for them at every step of the way, filled in eyes & a smiley on their zeroes and boxed their ears when they deserved it. I embarrassed them by dancing in public and had straight-faced, honest conversations with them about life choices, men, women, sex, romance, body parts, responsibilities, drugs, pregnancies, growing up, growing old, fashion, relationships, everything (in varying age-appropriate levels)…. and yet, remained a mom when mom needed to step in.

I guess somewhere in those ‘being real’ moments, I had broken down barriers and walls and paved the way for open access for my children to their mother. Someone they could reach out to. I reckon they’ve figured out when they can mess around and when they can ‘summon’ the dragon-slaying, steadfast ‘mom’.

So back to that threat that their father threw at me about how my children would turn out.

I realized how strongly rooted I was in the values that my parents and family had instilled in me… through living those principles and not shoving it down our throats. As an individual, my own choices helped to serve as a navigator to other values, yet the central axis remained steady. And now, I see that in showing up, flaws and all, my children are learning lessons that are far more profound and grounding…. and there’s a gradual osmosis of values.

In that awareness, there is validation…. of a job well done… of children turning up just fine. And it isn’t that validation is always required, just that sometimes, in those dark and doubtful moments, when everything looks bleak and impossible, it helps beautifully to be reminded that despite the stumbles and falls, the path is unfolding… and it is the right path you are trekking on.

So, yes, we’ll still have our struggles until this cycle of struggling comes to an end as it would eventually.

But until then….

I can see clearly now and trust that the Universe indeed has my back.

Doing a good job there, Mama! Hang in there!