India is a country which boasts of twenty two official languages and over 400 living languages. So trying to even feel comfortable in another region of the country where an unknown language is spoken can be a real pressure situation. And often, not knowing the local language can create disastrous scenes.

I remember one scene from around 20 years ago at Nagpur. Then, Nagpur wasn’t the beautiful cosmopolitan city it is now, and students who descended from the urban parts of Northern India, particularly Delhi, were prone to turning up their noses, when they reached here- for it wasn’t classy enough, didn’t have shopping malls and the only forms of entertainment were the local cinema halls. But in Nagpur, you didn’t need to speak Marathi, except to rural patients, as most people understood Hindi well.

One of my friends, a rather pretty 20 year old, decided to visit Akola with her new friends on a holiday. Now, she was rather new to the state, and Marathi was a complete no-no. As luck would have it, the train they chose to travel in was overtaken by the goons of a political rally, and they had hundreds of ticketless travellers thronging the compartments. This group of young girls couldn’t even reach their berths and had to suffer standing in the aisles till they reached Akola, being jostled and shoved by all kinds of people.

After a few hours of standing and being jolted in that uncomfortable position, their patience had given way. And when an old man in his 60s tried to push past my friend, she almost screamed, “Kidhar jaana hai, babaji?” (Where do you want to go?). To which the old man murmured “Sandaas jaana hai” (I need to go to the toilet). And my glamorous friend, almost screeched, “Sandaas Akola ke pehle aata hai ya baad mein?” (Does Sandaas come before or after Akola)!!! Needless to add everyone in the compartment was in splits despite the stress of travelling like that.

Another incident which did the rounds in Medical School concerned a Mizo student who was struggling with Hindi in the first place, and had a rougher time comprehending Marathi. During one village visit, he found a mother explaining her child’s symptoms. He needed to ask the mother whether the child had worm infestation. After mulling over how to ask the question, he made a such a boo-boo that the mother almost jumped out of her seat. He asked the mother whether her kid passed ‘janaawar’ (animals!) in his stool!

There are loads of such stunning tales from Medical School. Some other day- till we try to decipher the nuances of the languages of India.