As we all know, India is the place where education is a serious business. This change has came about a decade ago or so, but everyone is now trying to get a degree to kick off one’s earnings. This process takes a lot from a man and gives him also a lot. South part of India was always famous for education, they are more literate and profound or at least considered to be, and that was the reason that most of the renowned educational institutes are in that part of the country. But, the only problem in going there for a north-Indian middle-class boy/girl is the language barrier.

Two such boys, Rohan and Rishi from the great town of Banaras, went all the way to madras( Chennai now) to study engineering. Being from Banaras They were fond of the local mouth refreshment “paan” and found it very difficult to resist as they were not able to find any pan shop down there in Madras. Three weeks later they finally found a shop and went to it.

Rohan, along with Rishi, enters the shop, the atmosphere is brewing with a pleasant fume that has an essence of smoke in it. Everyone is sitting there around the shop either having a pan or smoking cigarettes and cigars.

On the radio, Harsha Bhogle’s distinct voice could be heard distinctively taking everyone through the ball-by-ball battle between India and Australia in a test match. Sachin was playing at 98 and Rohan asked the shop owner for a paan, Mr. Iyer the shop owner yelled:” Keep quiet, Sachin is on 99 just wait.” They quietly waited as they were also thrilled and the match was happening in the city only. Sachin took a single and then sharply converted it into a double and raised his bat high punching in the air. Sachin completed his century and the entire shop went into boom mode. They started yelling, smoking, and drinking more. After some time.

Rohan initiated the conversation again with Mr. Iyer, by asking him for a paan but the shop owner was local and illiterate and was not able to understand him. He said something in the local language that went like a bouncer to both of them and they started doing all sorts of actions to explain to him what they were trying to say.

Rohan, doing the action of putting something in his mouth and murmuring,” paan” in the mouth was just confusing Iyer who replied with some verbal alterations due to frustration. 

Mr. Iyer thought Rohan was mocking him because of him being a south Indian (color discrimination). In India, there are countless numbers of languages and cultures, different language-speaking people consider others alien, and they behave toward them differently, so was the case with Rohan and Mr. Iyer.

Mr. Iyer said: “Hey! You tell correctly what, want or, get Out.” using all the Colonial skills he had. Rohan and Rishi felt humiliated and insulted as an illiterate man shouted at them for a mere paan. Furious they both started yelling at him:” Is it our fault, that you don’t even know the language of students, who run your business. You illiterate …” and whatnot, they were just ruthlessly hammering him.

Then a man sitting in the shop, around 30-35-year-old, tall as tower approached Iyer and asked him for a cigar in the local language. Iyer, along with arguing gave that man his want, he shredded it and burnt the cigar at the same time, he was looking like an action figure just out of fantasy of the wild west.

He interrupted them again:” Why on the earth are you both shouting at such a sweet man? Is this what you have learned up in the north, A man who has lived 50 years of his life with the same language, and  suddenly you are expecting him to be fluent in your tongue.” Rishi was very hyper at that point like any teenager.

He has just got the chance to leave his home bubble and explore the new arch life is offering him:” Listen, sir, I haven’t studied all my life to take shoutings from a vendor, and in the first place, he started the argument saying things that we haven’t even thought of.”

He added:” When we came to this city, our reaction was just WOW! We fell in love with it but soon realized that it was nothing that we dreamt of, we were treated as aliens and no local vendor or shopkeeper understood us or our problems. You know it’s 1998, and everyone has started living anywhere they want; still, we were bullied in the hostel due to our language and culture. We came here just for a paan, but this man again abused us, and this time we lost it. I’m sorry. ”

The man realized the whole scenario was a mere confusion due to language and told Iyer the same, Iyer felt terrible for the boys and apologized for being rude in the first place. Iyer gave them both paan and gave them contact for renting a room so that the bullying could stop. 

They told Iyer to make a menu list in English so that they can say to him what they want without anyone facing any trouble. They will eat thousands of paan but will never forget their “Interpreted Paan.”