Growing Up Bilingual: The Indian Language Switch
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The Indian language switch is not a choice. It is a reflex. The specific reflex of the person who grew up speaking one language at home, another at school, a third with the grandparents, and a fourth with the friends from the other part of the city. The switch that happens mid-sentence, that is not noticed until it is pointed out, that is the specific fluency of the Indian who has always lived in multiple languages simultaneously.
Growing up bilingual in India is not growing up bilingual in the way the word is usually used. It is growing up multilingual, multi-register, multi-script — the specific linguistic complexity of the Indian childhood that produced the specific linguistic flexibility of the Indian adult.
The Home Language
The home language was the first language. The language of the kitchen, of the parents, of the grandparents who spoke nothing else. The language that was not taught — absorbed. The language that is still the language of the emotions, of the dreams, of the specific moments when the English or the Hindi or the school language is not enough and the home language is the only one that has the right word.
The Press Play on Memories T-Shirt is for the home language — the specific words that play back the entire childhood in a single sound. The word that your grandmother used that has no translation. The phrase that your mother said that meant something specific and untranslatable. The home language that is the most honest language, the one that surfaces when the guard is down.
The School Language
The school language was the language of the aspiration. The English that was taught, that was practised, that was the specific marker of the educated Indian. The Last Bench T-Shirt is for the student who spoke the school language with the specific accent of the person who learned it rather than absorbed it — who was at the back, who had their own relationship with the school language, who used it when required and switched back when the teacher wasn't listening.
The Best Lessons Were Printed T-Shirt is for the school language's textbooks — the English that was learned from the printed page, that was formal and correct and slightly different from the English that was spoken, that was the school language in its most official form.
The Switch
The Indian language switch is the most specific skill of the Indian multilingual. The switch that happens in the middle of the sentence, that moves from the home language to the school language to the friend language without pause, without effort, without the specific self-consciousness of the person who is aware of switching. The Still Tuned to the Frequency T-Shirt is for the switch — the specific ability to find the right frequency for the right person, to switch without static, to be understood in every language.
The switch is also the specific skill of the Indian who has moved cities, who speaks the language of the new city with the accent of the old one, who carries multiple linguistic identities simultaneously. The Made in India T-Shirt is for the Indian who is made in India in the most specific sense — made in a particular place, a particular language, a particular way of speaking that no subsequent city has entirely replaced.
The Grandparent Language
The grandparent language was the language of the roots. The language that the grandparents spoke, that the parents understood but did not always speak, that the children understood even less but recognised. The Tumhari Yaad Aati Hai T-Shirt is for the grandparent language — for the specific words that are missed, that have no replacement in the school language or the friend language, that are the most specific inheritance of the Indian multilingual. The language that is being lost, one generation at a time, and that is mourned in the specific way that you mourn something you didn't know you were losing until it was almost gone.
The Friend Language
The friend language was the language that was invented between people. The specific mix of the home language and the school language and the slang that was generated in the gully, in the classroom, in the specific social space of the Indian childhood. The We Shared One Cold Drink and Called It Brotherhood T-Shirt is for the friend language — the language that was shared, that was ours, that was understood only by the people who were there. The language that is still spoken between old friends, that surfaces when the school friends meet, that is the most specific evidence of a shared history.
The Fluency
The Indian multilingual is fluent in the specific way that only the person who has always lived in multiple languages can be fluent: not perfectly in any one language, but perfectly in the movement between them. The Sab Thik Hai T-Shirt is for the fluency — the specific equanimity of the person who has always found a way to be understood, who has always found the right language for the right moment, who carries all of their languages with them and switches without thinking.
Browse the full Jolly Jacket 90s Nostalgic Tshirts Collection — for the Indian who grew up in multiple languages and carries all of them. The tee that says: I grew up switching. I carry all of it. This is who I am.