Rusti was born and brought
up in a multilingual household. Gujarati was his first language but English
took over on most occasions—and Hindi came into the picture by default.
When he was about seven or eight, Rusti was asked to write an essay about his daddy for Hindi class. So he
began collating his thoughts and structuring his essay to the best of his
linguistic abilities. After he was done, he marched up to his parents—rather
pleased with his devanagari—and
asked them to have a look at what he had penciled down.
The first few lines of the
essay went something like this: mera
pitaji mujhhe gamta hain, main
uske saath ramta hain. (I like my daddy, I play with him). Though
the intention behind the thought was extremely noble, Rusti had decided to ignore
but a few small details—like the facts that gamta (to like) and ramta (to
play) were Gujarati words that had no business appearing in his Hindi essay.
Remembering to bring these facts to his notice later, the
parents continued to read the essay. Rusti finally decided to introduce his
daddy’s name in the last line of the essay.
Mera
pitaji ka naam hain Ketan.
But his daddy’s name is Cyrus! This confused the parents to
no extent, and they confronted Rusti about what he meant by naming his daddy’s best
friend as his father!
To which Rusi nonchalantly replied, “But daddy, your name is
so difficult to write in Hindi. Ketan is so much easier!”
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