On 1/25/06, Vinit Bhansali <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Yeah.
>
> Those dumb idiots should have realized that it is every
> english-only-speaking person's RIGHT to demand flexibility from people who
> know more than one language.
>
> Right?
>
> ;-)
$;^D I didn't demand anything, I just sat there and let
them chatter on, quietly thinking how rude it was to
totally exclude me so suddenly from the conversation.
That's why I about busted a gut when I realized that they
had unintentionally excluded the driver as well, since
they assumed that ALL Indian people speak Hindi, but
the driver was from Tamil Nadu and spoke none. THAT
was the crux of my joke. $;^D Ashok, the driver, was far
more miffed than I was - I'm used to people chattering
away in any of a dozen languages, since my high
school was highly "diverse".
I think it's quite dumb for a Tamil Nadu native to
demand that Hindi speakers speak only in Tamil
Nadu's language, right? Especially in America!
He should be more sensitive to their needs, since
they're the majority-language-speaker in India,
even though we're not in India, we're in America,
and everyone in the car at least speaks English in
common, if nothing else. It cuts both ways. So I
and our Tamil Nadu driver are horribly guilty of
oppressing Hindi speakers. I'm sure it went down
on our permanent records. $;^D
Anne Marie
--
Nitimur in vetitum semper cupimusque negata.
--Ovid, Amores, III, 4, 7.
