“This thoughtful elegiac writing tells two stories of migration, about India and Ukraine, that speak of a visceral fear of losing a mother-tongue: this elegant description will resonate powerfully with all trying to hold on to their origins while settling elsewhere.” Polly Toynbee, Orwell Prize-winning political and social commentator for The Guardian, and Orwell Youth Prize 2024 judge
What does ‘home’ mean to me? Home is an interesting concept for me and my family. My father was in the merchant navy and sailed for fifteen years from the age of eighteen. All those years, his home was on board several oil tankers. For my mother, home was first her childhood house, where her own father was born and brought up as well. Then after marriage, she moved to an entirely new city and adapted to a new home there with her in-laws. The oil tankers became home for her when she sailed with my dad for three years after their marriage. Eventually they lived in three countries before moving to the UK where they lived in several cities before settling down. So, for them, home was several places all at once.
Home should be defined by family, language and memories. But what is my home? I was born in Plymouth, live in Winchester but I am Indian. In England, I am seen as Indian and therefore am different or do not belong. And in India I’m considered as the English-speaking girl with a British accent, and I don’t belong there either. So, for me growing up in the UK, the Bengali language associates me with home. When I speak to my friends, it’s only ever in English. But when I speak to anyone in my family, I speak in Bengali, which reinforces the link between family, language and home. This idea has always been clear to me; when I visit India, I can converse with my own family members in my own language, and although our upbringing and lifestyle may be different, it is the language that unites me with my relatives.
In 2022, we hosted a Ukrainian family who were forced to escape from their country due to the war. The lady was eight months pregnant, and their small four-year-old girl was so confused and scared. We didn’t understand each other, but we always tried our best to make
them comfortable and safe. But ‘home’ doesn’t always mean comfort or safety. Although both existed in our house, they would always consider ‘home’ to be Ukraine, even if they had been displaced from there. The one thing that connected them to their life back in the Ukraine was their language. At our home, they spoke in a mix of broken English and Ukrainian, outside it was a struggle to keep up with the world and share their thoughts in a meaningful way. The parents had to worry about their children’s futures, not only because they are missing out on growing up with their grandparents and their country’s culture, but they also worried that their new-born baby would never learn to speak Ukrainian. Would their daughter forget her language, the words that enabled her to communicate with her grandparents? Each time we visit them in their new flat close to our home, I observe that their daughter has lost a bit of her original accent, sounding more and more like her classmates. And just like me, their son was born in the UK, so will he ever be fluent in Ukrainian?
There’s a legend in India about the Mughal Emperor Akbar and his extremely intelligent first minister, Birbal. Akbar and many others in the court would challenge Birbal and try to catch him out, but he always had an answer for everything. One day, a stranger walked into the court and declared that he knew every single language in the world. Of course, everyone was very impressed as he started speaking in a multitude of different languages like Latin, French, English, Hindi, Urdu, Persian with no hesitation. But he turned to Birbal and said, ‘Now tell me, what is my mother tongue?’
Birbal thought very hard, then said, ‘Give me a day and then I will know for sure.’ The man was taken to a guest room where he could rest for the night. At midnight, the man’s door creaked open, while he was fast asleep. Birbal crept in, holding a bucket of ice-cold water and splashed it on him!
‘@£#%*€!’ the man swore, scrambling out of the soaked sheets.
And with that, Birbal slunk back to his room smiling, his mission complete. The next morning, Birbal announced to the court that he had outsmarted them again. He revealed the man’s mother tongue, to which the man was completely flabbergasted. ‘How did you know?’ he challenged Birbal.
Birbal explained that when you are met with shock or surprise, you impulsively react in your mother tongue, so he shocked him in the middle of the night, and the man swore in his first language!
This story is simply saying that in moments of pain, surprise or anger, one uses their mother tongue to express themselves.
I wonder whether language will still hold as much importance to the world as we advance into the future. What language will my children speak? Will they grow up with the cultures and language of our family, like I did, or will they not show an interest? Will they be raised with enough curiosity for their history, or would they rather just speak what is relevant to them and their location. In the global village that we live in, will we lose the concept of home and mother-tongues? Will we all be painted with the same brush strokes? I don’t know yet but for now, I feel different in a good way when I have my own exclusive language that I can speak to my family in, and feel like we belong to each other . And just like that poor man who was identified with a bucketful of ice-cold water, I will cherish the languages I know, and especially the one that means ‘home’ to me.