Sometimes when I’m genuinely furious, I cuss in Hindi but think in English. Not a conscious decision, but my mind has moved on from thinking in Hindi to another language and often feels crippling. I continually blame myself for a disassociation with Hindi, but my second language has — in-disguise — provided me with a second life.
When did I feel furious, and how do I express frustration? Like many Indian girls, I grew up in a Hindi-speaking household, where I learned how to compose and self-soothe. My aunt would often repeat her first interaction with me after getting married to my uncle, where I had taken a cold shower in the freezing month of December and hurriedly got ready for school with wet hair. She says, “I felt a shiver shake me just by looking at you.” That was probably one of the first memories of me composing myself even when I felt I needed help, and I moved on. As my life unfolded, I found collecting myself more — just like the girls and women around me. I wouldn’t even know if I was angry and that I was suppressing my emotions. When I felt wronged, I couldn’t decipher the emotions, but I managed them repeatedly, partly because I wasn’t sure how to express myself in my language. In Hindi, I didn’t know how to say “I feel violated.”
Then came a time in college when I found myself communicating more in Hinglish and English but still didn’t learn how to express myself with language. Words like “you’re abusing me” did not come naturally to me in Hindi, and it would take years before they come naturally to me in English. I, again, continually lived with self-doubt, hatred, and sadness. That sadness of the cruel world that objectifies women was bottling up inside, but I wouldn’t know why. Why wasn’t I able to step up and express my anger when I felt that boys around me were inappropriate? In the past few years, I have questioned this so much and never realized that it was because I did not have the words for it. For instance, my friends thought it was appropriate to send an acquaintance into a room, lock the door and act like a predator. I don’t know why they thought it was funny. I still don’t know what is funny about someone staging a rape-scare! I was silent throughout that act of violence because I did not know how to express myself in my own language.
I felt more in control when I started saying NO. I don’t know when I felt most violated, but I know that I began to express my anger when I started relying on English. People say a no means no in any language, but you know what, I did not learn how to say no in Hindi. For years I felt wronged, lost, abused, but I didn’t know how to tell people hurting me that they cannot do this to me anymore. . I’m a little over 30 now, and I have realized why I have been angry most of my life in the last few years. More importantly, where that anger comes was born. As a result, I feel more in control because I have the vocabulary to command and demand it. Now, where is this coming from? A few days back, I started thinking of how I often forget Hindi words because I communicate in English more now. I felt that I’d lost a limb. I was distraught. Wept. I felt the guilt of letting a part of myself go, but as I’ve lived with feeling for a few days, I realized it was an act of survival. Expressing my anger in English meant, my second chance at life is all about fighting for what my cultural and societal beliefs have robbed me of. Choosing English as my language of anger is not an act of assimilation; it is me fighting to claim what is rightfully mine — my mind, body, and freedom.
