It seems I have learned to fool people into believing that I speak kannada! Three guys I met at my office, a driver in a bus, 2 bus conductors and atleast three autowalahs, one pizza delivery guy are my recent victimes! How do I know that? They started talking to me kannada straight away. The incident with the bus driver was hilarious. I deliberately start talking in kannada to  start a conversation. Say I want a ticket to “cmh”. Instead of saying just the place name and handing over the money, I say something more. I say “cmh hogakke eshtu aaguthe?”. He replies “haidu”. Then I hand over the change and say “thogolli”. He hands over the ticket with one hand while he is driving with the other. Now, I have to talk, so I say “illi thumba traffic aguthe”! You can see how I practice now. But on that occasion, the driver smiled a bit and started telling a joke.I could hardly make out what the joke was but since in the end he was laughing I gave him good company. You know those situations were you should have raised your hand right at the start of a lecture instead of waiting for some more time and ask. And the lecturer goes “that is basic and what were you doing till now?”. Now, I could not tell that guy that I know only a little bit of kannada and dissappoint him after he has told his joke. So I did a good thing by acting like I understood. I had to do it. You should never dissappoint someone trying to cheer you up!

Back to kannada now. I have decided that I have reached a stage where I should no longer read transliterated text. Hence, going to buy some first standard kannanda books and learn kannada alphabets. Then, read those kids’ story books. What better way to learn a language than by reading it? By this year end I should know all the alphabets and should be fluent enough in reading kannada.