Urpunjenglish

Despite the delay in my speaking abilities, my father thought once I commanded the language, I would flourish in speech. (Buzzer sound). Negative.

And his prodigy would disappoint him once again when she started school. I remember my JK school teacher very well. She had Dorothy Hamill hair and a very sweet smile. I saw that smile many times as she tried to discern my language. She was very patient and many times used sign language to communicate with me. Not typical sign language for deaf people but some clandestine body language that only her and I could understand.

I remember being very scared the first day of school school. The day timings did not make sense to me although in retropect, it was pretty straightforward. There was morning recess, a lunch period,afternoon recess and 3:30 dismissal.But for the only Pakistani girl in the class, whose mother tongue was not English, I was pretty messed up.

I spoke a very strange language according to my father. While my parents spoke in Urdu with me -- a formal and very poetic language that has Persian and Arabic root words, they communicated amongst themselves in Punjabi, colloquial slang version of Urdu that was very harsh and laden with guttural sounds. When my father spoke to neighbours, stop owners and his work colleagues, of course it was in English with a heavy Punjabi accent. I was therefore exposed to three languages before the age of 4.

Hence, after many years of silence, when the day finally came, the time my father waited years for, I did a very strange thing. I ended up consolidating all languages into one, which today I will call: Urpunjenglish. That's right folks -- I created my own way of speaking. My poor father, thought I would be his enlightened one, by fluently speaking all three languages and impressing the socks off his friends. I knew something was awry when he abruptly stopped taking me to his high society poetry meetings after I spewed nonsensical things from my mouth in public. For the most part, many people would pat me on the head with a constipated look. Others would simply smile, shake their heads and walk away. Some straight out asked my father if I had a speech impediment. And the emphathetic ones would write down their doctor's phone number on the back of the poetry meeting agenda sheet.

At the end of the day, everyone had difficulty understanding me except one person.

My mother.

I would incessantly babble all day long in her presence and she quickly figured out my communication. She never used body language but did ask me to repeat myself. Incredibly, I never said the same thing twice but she could understand what I was referring to. Since ONE person could communicate to me, there was never a need to help me speak one language properly. That was until I started school. Hmm, they never thought about that.

On many occasions, I would sit in class with no clue what the hell was going on. I was very good at going along with the motions. If drama was a credit to obtain in kindergarten, I would have an Academy Award by Senior Kindergarten. I made it look like I understood. When my teacher would ask, articulating every single word in her sentence, if I understood how to use the abacus in class, I was nodded until my neck hurt. Instead, I dismantled it and made a beaded necklace during craft time.

When I would grab my crotch during reading time, my teacher would send me to the washroom only to find me an hour later, standing alone in the hall, looking at pictures of past school principals on the wall. I still love looking at photos...

During reading time, I would make up my own story by looking at the illustrations instead of reading the text. My teacher would smile her strange smile and jot down notes in her book. When I stretched over to peek when she was distracted, I noticed I had the least amount of gold stars beside my name.

I do remember being kept after school regularily for ten minutes, wiping the chalkboard while my mother spoke to the teacher. They would both look over at me, and then I would see my mother shaking her head after the teacher would point to all her fingers. Back then, I thought it sweet that she teach my mom how to count. I would learn later that she was listing off all the times I was caught misinterpreting clear instructions that day.

Word got back to my father who had to go and see my teacher for parent/teacher interviews. When he returned, I was summoned into the living room for THE talk. I was commanded to speak no other language beside English. He turned to my mother and repeated the command. Everyone was supposed to speak English with me so I could learn how to ask to go to the bathroom at school. My mother put her hand on my shoulder as I trembled with fear. The order was given and I had to obey. From the next day forward, I had to abandon Urpunjenglish and venture in a world of crazy words like "the". Could not explain this word back then but I was aware that if I started every sentence with "the", it would mean two things: that I was really smart and I could speak English.

One day, we were dismissed for morning recess. Because I still had trouble reading time, I mistook the dismissal for lunchtime. I raised my hand to impress my teacher and the rest of the class with the all important question of the day.

"The time?" I smiled, proud that I put two English words together.

"Yes, its time. Be back when the bell rings", said my teacher. What she didn't understand was that I had asked if it was THE TIME FOR LUNCH. I noticed many kids in the schoolyard as I left and skipped across the street to my house. When I knocked on the door, my surprised mother let me in. I nodded, and pointed to my belly. "The time", I smiled. My mother looked at me curiously and fed me ice cream, at 10:30am in the morning. I heard the bell ring from the window and flew out of the house. Of course, I was ten minutes late. I slithered back into class while my teacher was reading her book, hoping she did not notice me. But she did.

It was lunchtime and she dismissed class once again. It was then I realized I had gone home to eat lunch at recess time. The teacher held me back while the rest of the class filed out.

"The time?" I asked.

"Nooooooo," she replied. I was confused. Enough of this crap! I was finally speaking English and still could not understand what the hell was going on.

This time her smile was tight and intimidating.

"Do you understand that you went home for lunch during morning break?" Out of embarressment, I nodded and put my hand on my stomach.

She insisted I stay during lunch time so she could teach me to read time. As she moved the hands around the clock to show me when recess and lunchtime was, the pain in my stomach got worse. I kept repeating, 'the time', 'the time' but she said NO, thinking I wanted to leave.

The next thing you know, I had vomited all over the carpet. "The time" also meant that it was time for me to be sick.

English....ahhh what a beautiful language. Words can mean so many things....

The Snowball Effect

The first time I was cognisant of the fact of being different had nothing to do with skin colour, ethnicity, culture or religion. In fact it had to do with one single snowball.

I must have been five years old. One snowy, blistery night I was awaken by a large crash. Shuddering, I pulled the covers over my head. I heard my father run down the stairs and turn on all the lights. Finally, I thought, the monster had his way. I climbed out of bed in my pink nightie and slowly made my ascent upstairs. When I reached close to the top, I peered over the top step, hiding the rest of my body below. My father was dialing on the phone. My mother had come into the kitchen, hands on her hips, waiting. He was calling the police.

I slowly got up and looked to my left at the monster light. It was intact. When I went into the living room, I encountered cold air and a gaping hole in the window. There was glass on the hardwood floor and when I stepped closer to inspect, I was stopped by my mother's hand.

"What happpened!" I asked her. I could hear my father giving our address over the phone.

"Someone threw a snowball at our window. Nothing to worry about. Go downstairs to sleep," she said softly.

Someone purposely threw a snowball, broke our window and the police were coming. Who could sleep?!? I sat down on the living room sofa, pulled my nightie over my knees and waited. My parents stood in front of the window and inspected the damage. My father looked very pensive and rubbed his chin.

"Daddy, why did someone throw a snowball at our window?" I pondered.

He did not answer for several minutes. Typically my father would always collect his thoughts before offering an explanation. This drove me nuts -- I wasn't the most patient one in the family. And it was usually then I would lose my train of thought and forget what I had asked in the first place.

"It is some teenagers playing around in the night. I am sure there is damage elsewhere," he said.

When the officer arrived, he asked a slew of questions. I nodded while my father answered hoping this gesture would show how the event affected me. The enormity of the situation did not dawn on me until the officer showed up. Apparently only our house was hit. I furrowed my brow in contemplation. Why only our house? What did we do? How were we targeted?

It was from then on, I deemed ALL teenagers as BAD.

I have a faint memory of my mother and I walking to school. She was dropping me off in the morning for kindergarten in the winter. I hit a patch of ice and fell down, taking my mother with me. While we both lay on the ice, these "teenagers" walked by us and none of them helped us get up. She struggled to get herself up and then me, brushing the snow off my clothes. I tried to hide them from her but she unmistakingly saw the tears in my eyes.

"Are you hurt my dear?" she asked.

Physically no. Emotionally yes. I hurt of indignation. Nothing I could say could explain it. In my short span of life, only five years, it was disheartening to feel different. I sensed the injustice around me in little things. A look, a turn of one's back, a sneer and body language that denoted pride. I would have not known about paranoia back then. The concept was too evolved for me. But at five years old, despite living in the UN neighborhood, in my eyes and imagination, my family would stick out like a sore thumb.

For reasons unknown.