Lingua Franca

Mattindia attracts guests from all over the world, but very few of them are from the UK. In my two months in Kerala there have been no other Brits staying here.

Back in March and April I met a charming Swiss couple, an interesting Viennese designer, a Canadian woman who has been travelling most of the winter, an architect from Bermuda, an artist  from Berlin, a motley bunch of French speakers and a delightful Italian guy of around my age, who lives on the Riviera. There are some are very colourful characters, like the puppeteers from New York (one in a wheelchair,) and two Australian women who were a Tweedledum and Tweedledee to each other, separated by a generation but joined by their preference to dress alike in baggy shorts and matching tee-shirts. And the mix is constantly changing, so I have no idea who might pitch up later in the week, or whether I shall finish up having the whole place to myself before I leave.

Diplomatic Relations

I have tended to keep to myself, not from any xenophobic tendencies but simply because my treatments are physically exhausting and by the time I have recovered, I am not much in the mood for socialising. 

The French and the English have their differences

Mind you, foreigners are a weird lot, aren't they? They talk a great deal to each other, even though they have never met before. They play games and go off on trips together, and whatever they are doing, they always make a lot of noise.

I think they're all a bit weird, and likewise, they see me as something of the oddity. They have never met an Englishman who speaks their language. They find this confusing, and quite baffling. With the staff and therapists, they all converse in broken English, but when they talk to me they speak in their own language, and I keep switching to reply appropriately  - in German, French, or Italian. I am not fluent, but I am convincingly conversational and can get away with suitable grunts and gestures when words fail me.

They are bemused. This is not their idea of an Englishman. I think they might even suspect me of being a half-breed, who has recently retired from some sort of espionage activity, since I seem able to disguise my ethnicity. They just don't buy my assertion that I did languages at school and enjoy them. I am also amused by the way that the staff here are so used to their European clientele that they are as likely to greet them in the morning with Bonjour or Guten Morgen as with a nod and a Namaste!

Jolly Good Show!

As we all know from our experience of call centres, flamboyant and verbose English is the lingua franca throughout India, and the foreign guests at Mattindia seem to cope with the doctor and therapists better than most of us cope with the Customer Service Line for our power supplier or phone company. Maybe it's because the French and Germans are listening harder word by word, whereas we tend to listen to the flow.

Goodness, Gracious, Me! - the lost generation

When I first came to India, 40-odd years ago, the Indian middle classes still peppered their conversations with a pre-war quirky vocabulary of minor public schools, with phrases like: "I say, old chap," and "Spiffing match at the Club on Saturday." Those days are past, but there are plenty of imperial ghosts still haunting Indian life. Many hotels include "Bed Tea" in the room price - that's early morning tea with your wake-up call, a tradition that had vanished from most UK establishments long before Trust Houses were swept into the Forte brand - and that's going back a while. 

One thing you learn fast whether you travel on business or as a tourist: it's not enough to speak English; you have to learn to speak Global English. This means no metaphors or cultural allusions, distinct enunciation of every word and active listening. If you don't follow these rules, you will find that you are surrounded by people speaking their version of English, and all understanding each other perfectly.

Meanwhile you are up the creek without a phrase-book, and feeling cheated that someone stole our vocabulary.

In addition to playing both cricket and hockey better than we do.