Last week while having lunch in the office I and George met David. He asked us if we were from India and we had a good conversation. He asked us if we could join him and others for a discussion which they have once a week. We decided to accept his invitation for the following week. They have this meeting every Tuesday after office hours in one of the meeting rooms.
As the following week Abdul also joined us, we 3 went to attend this discussion. They welcomed us by giving a round of applause and said they were really happy to welcome their Indian brethren. There were about 15-20 people here. This group calls themselves the English Corner. We formally introduced ourselves to them and they did the same. During this discussion I came to know why the staff in this company had English names. The company’s policy is such that when a person joins the organization they provide them with an English name. It sounds very strange, coz who would like to be known by a name which he/she had no relation with till they completed their graduation. This policy was in place so that when foreigners would come to their company it would be easier for them to remember the English names rather than the Chinese one.
The people out here were very excited to know about India. Some of the questions might sound ridiculous, but these were really asked. I am just stating some of these here.
Q1) Does real life in India differ from reel life? (This was asked specifically because they had seen girls and boys singing and dancing in Indian movies.)
Q2) If a boy has more money can he marry more than one wife?
Q3) Why do Indian girls win so many beauty contests?
Q4) Does the husband pay money to the bride while getting married or vice-versa?
Q5) How many servants does an average indian have in the house?
Some of their questions had us in splits, while for some we just didn’t have any answer. Though most of these guys speak in broken English, it’s encouraging to see them learning a language even though they know that it would hardly be used in the market there. Some of these guys were just learning so that they could communicate with foreigners and understand them. I know it would be difficult for these guys to improve their language as they hardly have access to English media. But did someone say, Nothing in life comes easy.
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