Language: A Poem and Statement By Beka Bowkett

Language

Can’t miss 

Something never had 

Maybe you.

Not me

Every day

Every other

Comes speaking language

Yet sitting

In shame

Konkani

3 generations

Forgot

Through (pride or shame)

English 

Is our tongue

My granny told me a story over Christmas. I love her, I do. But she don’t half talk, an endless font of stories. The theme of cooking Christmas pud (soufflé) was India. A pretty common theme. She was talking about her grandmother. My family is from Mangalore (Mangaluru as it is now known). One of the languages there is Konkani. My granny spent her childhood feeling the thorough effects of the Raj. Her grandmother would tell her to speak Konkani. My granny speaks English. It’s no source of shame to her, to my knowledge. She said that all the women in her family, her whole family in Mangalore would speak Konkani to her & she would reply in her mother tongue, English. Telling me and my mum, as we listen, that she could never get the accent right for Konkani. Previously saying that she only knew Konkani for servants contradictory to her stories which talk of going to the market & helping raise siblings. This can be forgiven as a mark of age, time, & the community my family is from is complicated. Due to a heady mix of tradition and discrimination against caste & religion for 300 years, so things become hazy when stories are retold again and again each time different. The timing of this story being told to me is funny too because the prior weekend I wrote this poem about the very same subject.