I understand Hindi so well that I still don't know how to speak it.
I was three years old and too shy to speak English out loud when my family immigrated to Houston, Texas. It didn’t take much time to catch along. By the second time I visited India, I was nine years old and already “talked like an American”.
Hindi is a language where I don't know anything at all. I’m fluent enough, but everything I know about myself disappears. I stumble through conversations with my cousins and I mispronounce all the important words:
"Are there a lot of crowds (bheed)?"
"Yes, there is a lot of beer. It's very cheap.”
Hindi is a language of obedience. I’ve only ever used the formal “you”, which is used to address elders (aap). I’m the youngest on both sides of my extended family, so there hasn't been anyone to address with the informal “you” (tum). English, on the other hand, is a language of disrespect. English is a language of shame, indulgence, and seclusion. There’s only one “you” in English. It feels dirty to address my relatives with that “you”, the same “you” that I use for everything else. This distinction never crossed my mind in Houston, Texas and it will never have to in Seattle.
I’m still fluent enough—I can call my relatives and I can ask them Hi, how are you? and also How is the dog? I can watch movies without subtitles and I can translate from Hindi to English and from English to Hindi. I’m fluent enough, but everything I know is shaped by my distance. I haven't had to go to school in Hindi. I haven't had to cry, play, or fight in Hindi. I haven't had to work in Hindi. I haven’t grown up in Hindi.
I’m fluent enough, and my Duolingo streak is five hundred and forty-four days, but at eighteen years old I still “talk like an American”. I've grown up hearing my parents swear, pray, joke in Hindi. They can't do that in English, but I can. I haven't had to live in Hindi.
I’m still waiting for the right words to come to me.
