Empowered by 145;kaa-tonne146;

8220;Then you must have a little bit of it, like one pair of shorts.8221; Hindi again.

8220;If you want8230; but people don8217;t wear kaa-tonnes to the gym, sir,8221; he said, with the polite firmness of a hotel concierge who has just discovered you are not five-star stuff.

He then waived to the woman manning the men8217;s side and said: 8220;Show him the kaa-tonnes.8221; So she showed me the cottons, which were nice. On my way out, I thanked the salesman. 8220;Thank you, sir. Come again,8221; he said, smiling a measured Western smile.

I emerged from the shop with a bag and a thought. Why do these people, sales clerks and waiters, in the new mall culture insist on speaking in

English, even if you try hard to get them down to Hindi? Your reasons could be twin: because you are more comfortable speaking Hindi or because you think the waiter would understand Hindi better and would be less likely to get your order wrong.

Their reasons are twin, too: they or their trainers perhaps think that most people patronising the gleaming outlets would be averse to communicating in Hindi 8212; after all, it8217;s not the language in which you buy a Tommy Hilfiger, do you? And by muffling the cacophonous sound of the vernacular in the mall, they are also ensuring that the mall stands in proud contrast to the street outside with rickshaw-pullers in abusive flourish.

Or the reason, I thought as I faced a store of seconds clothing, can be much simpler: they speak English because they want to speak the language of success.

Why do I write in English? And why do I speak it? Who entitled me to this language? If it is my choice or success formula, it can be his, too.

So in the gym, I wear my kaa-tonne shorts and listen to the juice bar sweetheart taalk to me in English.