“ASSAM SE HO? LAGTE TOH NAHI…!!”

A few days ago, during an office function, something happened that still makes me chuckle whenever I think about it. We were all making small talk over paneer tikka and watery cold drinks, when my hometown in Assam slipped into the conversation. No big deal, right? Except, it was.

I noticed Pankaj — one of my junior colleagues — suddenly freeze like he had seen a ghost. He kept giving me restless glances, like he was working up the courage to ask something forbidden. Finally, after a dramatic pause worthy of a Bollywood scene, he blurted out:

“Sir… aap Assam se ho?”

“Yes,” I said, raising an eyebrow. “Why?”

And then came the punchline of the year:

“Sir, main toh aapko UP ka samajh raha tha!”

At that point, I laughed so loudly that people turned around to check if the samosas had finally arrived fresh.

Now, before you think Pankaj is careless with geography, let me assure you — he’s one of the most sincere, decent colleagues I’ve known for over a year. But honestly, I don’t blame him. This wasn’t the first time I had been mistaken for a Kanpuriya, Delhiite, or even a proud Bihari. The reason? My apparently suspiciously good Hindi.

How Hindi adopted me (without my permission)

Here’s the funny part: I never formally studied Hindi. Not a single year. I did my schooling in a Bengali-medium school, and in our state board, Hindi wasn’t even compulsory. It was — and still is — an elective. So technically, I’m not supposed to be this good at Hindi. But life, as always, had other plans.

My “training” began in the early ’90s, courtesy of the one and only Doordarshan National. Remember those golden days? No OTT, no Netflix, no YouTube. Just DD National — our national babysitter.

While my friends were outdoors playing cricket, I was glued to TV serials like Shanti, Swabhimaan, Byomkesh Bakshi, and cultural shows like Surabhi. Sundays meant Bollywood movies with all the melodrama and songs in perfect Hindi. Without realizing it, I was absorbing the language line by line, dialogue by dialogue. By the time I hit high school, my Hindi was so fluent that people would ask if I secretly had a tuition teacher from Kanpur.

Transferable job = PhD in Hindi

If Doordarshan gave me my Bachelor’s degree in Hindi, my transferable job gave me a PhD.

My work took me across India, especially the Hindi belt — UP, Bihar, Delhi, Haryana. Living with locals, bargaining with auto-wallahs, negotiating with landlords, surviving the unique art of Delhi road rage — each experience added a new flavor to my Hindi.

Soon, I wasn’t just speaking Hindi. I was living it. I could drop a Lucknowi “aap” to sound cultured, switch to a Delhi “tu” to survive a traffic fight, or toss in a Patna-style “ka ho bhaiya?” to blend in with the crowd.

Basically, I became a linguistic chameleon.

Enter: My Wife

Now, you’d assume that at home, I would at least speak Assamese, right? Wrong.

My wife, who is also originally from Assam, isn’t fluent in our native tongue at all. Her schooling happened in Kerala, her career took her to Maharashtra, and somewhere in between, Assamese slipped out of her vocabulary like a forgotten password.

So, the only language we both comfortably speak at home is — you guessed it — Hindi. That makes ours the only Assamese household where parents speak Hindi with each other while simultaneously telling their daughter, “Beta, learn your mother tongue, it’s important!”

Yes, the irony is delicious.

The Mistaken Identity Problem

So here I am — an Assamese guy who studied in Bengali medium, never took Hindi as a subject, but speaks Hindi so fluently that people mistake me for a Kanpuriya. Honestly, it’s a bit of an identity crisis.

At times, I feel like a secret agent: Assamese by birth, Bengali by schooling, Hindi by lifestyle. Put me in a room of strangers, and within five minutes of conversation, someone is bound to say, “Bhai, Delhi se ho na?”

Sometimes, I play along. Why ruin their carefully built assumptions? But mostly, I enjoy watching their shock when I reveal the truth. The reactions are priceless. Some stare at me as though I’ve betrayed the constitution. Others try to dig out an Assamese accent in my Hindi like an archaeologist searching for fossils. Spoiler: they never find it.

Coming back to Pankaj — he’s still recovering from his discovery. The other day, during lunch, I caught him staring at me again, probably hoping I’d slip up with a word like “Xoru” or “Bhal paau” (a bit of Assamese here and there). But no, all he gets is polished Hindi sprinkled with just enough Bollywood masala to make him believe I grew up somewhere between Lucknow and Patna.

I almost feel bad for him. Almost.

The Bigger Joke

The bigger joke, of course, is on me. Because I often wonder: had it not been for DD National, transferable jobs, and my wife’s Hindi-only policy, what language would I actually be fluent in today? Assamese? Bengali? English? Who knows!

Instead, I’m now the Assamese guy who shocks people with Hindi so authentic that it leaves them questioning their geography textbooks.

And honestly, I’m not complaining. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this: Language isn’t just about grammar or vocabulary — it’s about connection. And if my Hindi makes people feel I’m one of their own, then that’s the best compliment I could ever receive.

Still, just for fun, maybe I should start carrying a card in my wallet that says:

“Caution: Assamese by birth. Bengali by schooling. Hindi by accident. Proceed without assumptions.”