The power of curiosity

I've always had a fascination towards learning new languages and trying to build new relationships. I realised how much fun it was to speak a foreign language during my postgraduate days. I was in Calicut, North Kerala.

My mother, being from Palakkad, Malayalam was somehow always around the house as I grew up. Either in the form of movies, TV shows or relatives who dropped by.My mother's Tamil vocabulary was woven with Malayalam words. As I came of age, I had a sudden fascination towards Malayalam movies which were rich in content and message.

So, when I was in Kerala for my studies my knowledge of Malayalam was put to test. I was in for a surprise when I was able to communicate what I wanted to say to a tea seller, early in the morning. I was able to strike a conversation with him and when I walked off the 50 year old tea seller had not just made his first sale of the day but also a friend. Over the next few months every morning used to be a ritual where I would meet friend, Bala Krishnan, fondly called as Krishn-etta and bond over the events from around the world.

Photo © Petr Vaclavek, Collection: Hemera, Thinkstock

Having learned Hindi in school, speaking Tamil at home, learning Malayalam from the air and knowing English as a way of life, I'm happy to call myself a Polyglot.

In the recently conducted multi lingual meeting at CTC, where there were speech slots available in Hindi, Kannada, Telugu, French and Malayalam, I dared to put my knowledge of Malayalam to the acid test. At the end of the speech, I was left with a contentment of having accomplished a special milestone. A 5 minute speech in a language in which I have no formal education, no regular practice or a language that I learned from the wisdom of curiosity was a moment to savor.

Having realised the potency of a language's knowledge, I tried to used the time I spent on mobile phones to good use. I came across an app called Duolingo, which uses an interactive platform to teach languages. I enrolled into the German course and started learning Deutsch.

One of the first phrases that I learned was “deutsche sprache schwere sprache” which literally translates to “German language difficult language”. I smiled at the irony of the moment but I was not to bogged down by this threat. Daily lesson notifications were at times irritating but I persisted and after a few months I completed the course on Duolingo.

During a casual chat with my friend, Sivadas, a fellow Toastmaster who I befriended from the yesteryears, suggested why don't I take up the German exam and get certified. I was excited at the possibility of getting certified. With the help of a professional German tutor, I appeared for A1 German exam at Goethe zentrum and passed the exam. Mission erfüllt (mission accomplished).

When I look back at my journey of learning languages, I am intrigued at how a grain of thought that grew from curiosity, supported by persistence had turned out to be a valuable skill. Today I'm not just able to make friends from around the world but also add value to my business profile as a Entrepreneur - Sales Engineer in the Textile industry.