People are often shy to acknowledge that they are Bengalis. They somehow take pride in saying that they cannot speak or read the language.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I don't know Bengali perfectly. I don't know how to write it or even read it. I have an accent, I speak without authority, and so I've always perceived a disjunction between it and me. As a result, I consider my mother tongue, paradoxically, a foreign language.
I feel I can express the nuances of the Bengali lifestyle and ways of thinking better than other cultures.
My father always taught me to never be quiet. That's the good thing about a Bengali household.
West Bengal belongs to Bengalis. We should live here like a king and not as servants.
Because my parents are Indian, everybody speaks Hindi to me, and I have no idea what they are saying.
I speak English. I grew up speaking Bengali. This is the normal, the known, the obvious composition of who I am. Then there's Italian, this strange, other component of me that I've just created. It was a creative process just to learn the language, never mind to start expressing myself in it.
My mum made a conscious decision not to teach me any Indian languages so I wouldn't talk with an accent.
I like to read Bengali novels and short stories. I am not that fond of reading English books, as I don't have a connect with it.
I learnt to sing in Bengali, my mother tongue, then went on to sing in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Gujarati and every possible Indian language.
Bengalis love to celebrate their language, their culture, their politics, their fierce attachment to a city that has been famously dying for more than a century. They resent with equal ferocity the reflex stereotyping that labels any civic dysfunction anywhere in the world 'another Calcutta.'