Language...

I was born and brought up in Jaipur, Rajasthan (North India), where people predominantly speak Hindi. There are different languages in different surrounding states, but it's similar to Hindi in terms of understanding them even if you can't speak in their accent.

Until the day I got placed in an IT company in Hyderabad, I did not know how it feels to stay among people with an unknown language. It was the first time I stepped away from home. I requested my parents to let me go alone with 4 other friends who were placed in the same city from my college. The company provided us with 15 days of accommodation during which we had to find a hostel to stay in. So our hunt began... All 5 of my friends were from North India with no knowledge of South Indian languages.

We made a checklist of all that we needed in our hostel... a decent-sized room, cleaning service, laundry, food especially chapati, as most hostels offered only rice, and security. Sounds basic, right? But explaining this to the hostel staff took us so much effort that a third person looking at us would think we were playing dumb charades. It was crazy, and that's when I started learning a few basic words in their language.

The other major issue in those initial days was the office environment. I literally had a headache every day when I reached back home. At first, I thought it was because I was not trained to sit in front of the screen for so long, but later I realized it was because everyone around me was talking in a different language that my brain could not interpret. Every word that my ears heard, my brain was trying to interpret but could not (being in a different language), resulting in extreme fatigue and headaches. Gradually, I had to train my brain to consider them just noise and not try to interpret them, only after which I was able to focus on my work.

This experience taught me an important lesson about inclusion and diversity, especially in a country like India. We should respect each other's mother tongue, learn, and enjoy as many as possible.