Let's travel !!!

So you speak Hindi and I speak English. How do we communicate? Sign language.

Here's another situation: You speak English and I speak English. How do we communicate? In a version which is understood by both.

Days of sign language existed primarily in rural areas where foreigners went to explore 'real' India and faced language issues, apart from dust and clothing ones. With rural India becoming urban at a decent pace (yes, ours is a brilliant country, and we are embracing technology as fast as possible - yet with the size of our country and the uncommon platforms, decent is what we can muster in such a short span of time), foreigners are coming face-to-face with a new problem. How to converse in English.

What is known as British or American English has been adapted by people in India (for promoting tourism, or pocketing money for showing visitors around), but is vastly different from their rendition of it. The conversion wasn't such a good idea frankly. For the problem of visitors getting lost or confused in the maze of roads and people jostling and zero directions still holds true.

Sentences such as 'I show you' and 'Best price, you wait here I come soon' might be a thing left for movies and past images, yet the educated people who can make living and travel easier for visitors are busy interacting with important clients and globe-trotting. With this trickle down effect, what remains is the command over broken English which visitors have to wiggle their way around.

Let's turn some tables over here. The tourism industry, instead of claiming to build food joints for 'Americans' such that they can't get food poisoning, should teach people the art of talking to those who qualify as foreigners in our country.

This goes for taxi drivers, people at railway stations who are there for assistance at platforms (expecting all coolies to learn English will be stretching the band a bit too much), traffic police (yes, this is of utmost importance - their role is not restricted to collecting bribes or issuing senseless tickets in the name of law), and auto/rickshaw drivers. (Including manners and how-to-behave lessons is a separate issue, and will be covered some other time).

Our country has spare money that can be used to make a trip to India a hassle-free journey. Let's make it work. Communication is the key - we have the monuments, the heritage and the culture to back us up. It's time to make the travel memorable - one happy traveler will lead to many. And as the numbers grow, we will be the ones happy, and proud.