First Class at the Matt...

At 6’O clock after the gym, I have gone to Ramakrishna Matt to begin my Chinese Language Training. If it were not for the anachronistic feeling I felt during the first hour i.e. from 6 to 7 wherein we had a sermon I wouldn’t even have cared to blog this.

In the huge auditorium hall with somewhere around 600 to 700 people gathered the whole thing was like the first day I stepped into my college, Little Flower Junior college. Noise all around, sweating profusely as I was not in the line of fans, I felt strange seeing the absolute orderliness with which people here conduct the proceedings. After about ten to fifteen minutes are so there came the mission head and we all rose in unison to greet him. A prayer was chanted and everybody settled down.

He began to read out some of the rules of the organization:

• Please show respect to girls. If found misbehaving direct expulsion. Hmm… interesting. With a time span of two hours max I wonder we would find anytime to have interaction at all.
• Girls have their own stairs and a separate one for boys. Please maintain queue before entering. Should that be told? I mean is it not plain enough for us to see that with more than 100 people trying to get the class there is no other way than queuing up.
• There would be 40 classes in one session spanning four months. Only 3 leaves in the whole session would be allowed. Anything more Director needs to be contacted to decide whether to expel the student or anything else. And on top of that no two leaves one after another.
• Everybody is expected to reach the premises at least 15 minutes before the class commences. A grace time of 5 to 10 minutes is allowed exceeding which DIRECTOR needs to be contacted to decide etc.
• Read two hours every day and don’t forget to do the homework. Good thing there was no mention of EXPULSION if one is found not obeying this rule.
• Please see notice board everyday for announcements and the above rules are subject to change and new rules will be added as the time progresses.

And there were lot more which I don’t remember as I didn’t find worthy of arguing. To end it all we are told all the rules are meant to develop discipline, punctuality and character. But is this the way discipline is to be enforced? Is it not known to them that all these things had been drilled to us from schools and that it is high to let the character grow by themselves? Who is the loser here if he/she doesn’t attend the classes? It’s us meaning it is those who pay who lose. What the heck does it mean that taking more than 3 leaves might lead to one getting expelled? Is it not some sort of threat? I felt like being chained. I know most of what I said sounds over the top but at some point of time that’s the truth. You can’t be all along one’s progress watching every step. You have to wait for them to make mistakes and realize on their own.

Going away from the above discussion the assortment of students in the class was very amusing. There are total of 33 students in the class. We were all told to introduce ourselves to the entire class and also the reason for joining this particular course. At the end of the exercise I felt being part of wild assortment of people who have come there for different purposes.

• More than 35% of the students there wanted to pursue MBBS in China, after completing their 10+2.
• One lady(an example of perfect shyster...) wanted to learn the language as her “would-be” is expected to stay in China after tying the nuptial knot.
• An old man of around 70 years wanted to know what their culture, diversity and language is all about as he is very much interested to know about various things.
• A project manager from Satyam computers found it very difficult to converse with the clients there in China.
• One guy (that’s me) wanted it as he expects the company he is going to join in to expand it’s branches in China.
• A bike manufacturer who is in the process of rolling out bikes which can go 60 kms at Rs.2/-, which powered by dynamo, wants it as the mode of communication between himself and the clients is becoming very difficult. He is basically importing the material from China and fixing it up and there was one more who wanted to join as he was expected to run his father’s business in China.
• Some joined because they had to meaning they wanted other foreign languages like French, Spanish or German but it turned out they had no seats except CHINESE.
• Some just for fun.

It is very interesting because it just shows you how important a language can play a role in the life and also as you come face to face with people from various strata of life. I understand this happens even during the computer language courses but you wouldn’t find such diversity there. With basics being taught in first class and some introduction on how this language has come to be, we were told there are 10,000 characters in the language and 4 tones. A particular “word” say “ma” in four tones has four different meanings and some words with same tone has different characters and different meanings. Oy!!! Take it lite, don’t worry. I can do it. The largest Chinese speaking people follow mandarin Dialect as it has been made the official language of China and also the world’s largest spoken language.

Bottom-line: A very tough language to master and to get a grip on with lots and lots of practice. ( Phew!!! Another way of making me restless for months to come…) With that I would say zai chin (see you again, good bye) to all