That's what I thought to myself I was. My father and Red were talking to the carpenter in Hindi ( a language that changes it's shape depending on who's speaking it, but I guess that holds true for most lingos) and they asked him where he was from because his Hindi was chaste; in a manner of speaking.
The talk progressed to him being able to pinpoint and tell my father he definitely was *not* from Hyderabad. Actually that doesn't take brains to decipher. Anyone with a ear not blocked with wax and noise pollution will be able to discern the Northeastern lilt in my father's speech. He's saved from sounding like a hardcore Bong speaking Hindi only because of his extensive tenure outside his home state.
But getting back to me- born in Calcutta, and brought up nomadically in UP, Gujarat, Rajasthan and now settled in Andhra Pradesh. Couldn't have gone further from my roots had I tried as a conscious effort.
Going back to Calcutta for summer hols and Dusshera doesn't entire erode your obvious non-Bong strain in the speech.
So when people ask me where I'm from I pause for a bit and say am settled in Hyderabad but have lived all over India. Saying I'm from West Bengal originally brings forth too many questions about the state which am woefully ignorant of. And it inevitably elicits the question of my spoken Hindi which is as non-Mamta Banerjee like can be. So if an encapsulation of my precedents have to be delved into tis best I jump into it at the onset, non?
But people of my nomadic ilk also seem to seek each other out. Apart from the common experiences in life, it's quite a comfort to "come home" to an individual who is also mongrelish and has enough and more of anecdotes of their own.
And now with a hybrid child in the family one can only guess how much of his Bongness, Teluguness and overall Hyderabadiness will manifest as time goes by. He will be, the ultimate mongrel!
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