4 hours ago
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N. Raghuraman, Management Guru
Mr. ‘M’ went to the tea-stall to work and Mr. ‘Q’ left his earnings and went to the evening class. Both of them had gone for the same purpose. After two months, Mr. ‘M’ has become fluent in Marathi language, while Mr. ‘Q’ is still struggling to speak it as fluently as him.
He also started blaming the world that ‘If no one will talk to me, then how do you expect me to learn a new language?’ The Maharashtra government has made it mandatory for all migrant auto and taxi drivers to prove at least working knowledge of Marathi language by August 15, 2026, otherwise their permits will be cancelled. After this, there is a race to learn Marathi. Like Mr. M, many have become successful, while some are still murmuring, ‘What a new problem this is.’
Mr. ‘M’ is from Jharkhand and Mr. ‘Q’ is from Uttar Pradesh. Both of them chose different paths to learn new skills and achieve the same goal within the stipulated time frame. Mr. ‘M’ rented out his rickshaw to a local permit holder who did not have a rickshaw of his own and started earning fares.
Since he was free from the responsibility of driving, he took a job as a waiter in a busy tea-stall near Parel railway station in Mumbai, which has a large Marathi-speaking population. Mixing among the community, Mr. M learned Marathi rapidly. While serving tea and snacks to flower seller women, second-third generation retail shopkeepers and old taxi drivers, he learned Marathi faster than Mr. ‘Q’. It is now the third month and he works in shifts at the same tea-stall and also drives his auto for at least half the day.
While most of the expatriate driver community is still stuck with classes, YouTube lessons, screenshots of Marathi reels and Marathi newspapers to learn a new language, Mr. ‘M’ proved that real-world active interaction is better than slow study. Here, people like Mr. ‘Q’ have to pay a huge logistical and financial cost to find time for language classes in between their grueling working hours.
On Monday morning, when I took an auto for some distance, Mr. ‘Q’ said in a sad tone that most passengers do not talk about anything other than the destination. He said, ‘Most people remain lost in their mobile phones with ear plugs. Even if they are speaking, they talk in English or Hindi, or in their mother tongue with their family members. While getting down they just ask – how much is it? After paying the money, they go away while talking on the phone. He asked, ‘Now tell me how can anyone expect us drivers to learn a new language?’
This reminded me of my French teacher in school, who used to speak in French whenever she met the students. Not only in the school lobby but also in the market. Simple conversations like ‘Where am I going’, ‘Where is this place’ or ‘Where is this restaurant’ came in handy when I worked for a few weeks in Paris at France’s most popular newspaper ‘Le Monde’ under the Employee Exchange Programme.
From these drivers who were learning new languages while earning their living, I learned that if we want our children to learn new languages faster than us, then there must be someone who can communicate with them in that language. This conversation should not be at the theoretical or academic level, but around words and sentences that are used in everyday life.
The bottom line is that Language can be learned better on the streets rather than in closed classrooms where it revolves only around dictionary meanings.
