But, you may ask, if it is just the age of a person that determines the nature of the pronoun bestowed upon him/her, then why should it be such a rocket science to address someone? Well, you see, it is a little complicated. Apart from the age factor, there is the factor of acquaintance level, i.e. how well you know the person and also how in the first place you came about to know the person and the social/personal equation with the person.
When my husband's friends addressed me as "neenga", in the beginning, I found it very odd. Odd, because, firstly I was not used to being addressed so, and secondly, it felt odd coming from people who are around the same age as I am. Perhaps, the role of second level acquaintance played a part here. Getting to know a person first hand is different from being introduced to as the so and so's wife, I reasoned. However, when I reflect upon the recent friendships (my contemporaries) that I have developed in my apartment complex, I find to my surprise that many of them address me as "neenga" or "aap". It makes me wonder if perhaps, the city-culture places a part too??
In Mumbai, the city I grew up in, people do not bother to get enmeshed in the nitty gritties of the lingo with atleast the contemporaries . The "aap" quickly comes down to "tum" or even "tu" (which may sound harsh or crude to the ears of someone who is used to speaking and hearing the purer form of the language) depending on the level of interaction and comfort factor. So, a friend is always "tum" or "tu" and never "aap". This is ,of course, my observation and I could be wrong. And, this is perhaps the reason for my ignorance or naivety in this matter.
The second factor-the social/personal equation with the person- is particularly applicable to the husband-wife relationship. I am not sure how relevant or true it is in today's world because I can only speak for myself and the small circle of friends and acquaintances I am familiar with. As far as I know, there are still many women who address their husbands as "aap" or "neenga". Note that here the seniority of the husband in terms of age is not (just) the factor that warrants the conferment of the "respectful pronoun" but the social status viz-a-viz the wife. The "aap" or "neenga" contains the respect quotient too, you see.
In the olden times, the husband used to actually be years older to the wife and also the couple never got the chance to interact freely with one another to reach the same wave-length as the other, emotionally and intellectually. Also, they were bound by social constraints that automatically bestowed the husband with a higher status. Things have changed quite a bit from then. There are a number of marriages that happen without the need for parental intervention in seeking the partner. Even in case of alliances that fructify with the help of the elders in the family, the couple in most average families are given a chance to get to know one another or they stay in a nuclear set-up after marriage to enable the intimacy to develop. The age-gap between the couple has also come down drastically, in some cases, the wife also being the older person. So, I see no reason for the wife to address the husband as "aap" :-) In my opinion, respect for a person cannot be packaged into something so frivolous; it cannot be judged by the way one addresses another. Also, in any relationship, especially marriage, the respect has to be mutual for it to thrive. So, how is that, a husband has the leeway to not address his wife as "aap" or "neenga"?
I faced this problem of tum and aap in my early days of marriage. I had always addressed the husband as "nee" (tum) from the very first meeting. I never understood the need to change the pronoun to "neenga" (aap) after marriage, hence, never did (the disapproving looks from some of the elderly community notwithstanding). So, it was always tum as far as the husband was concerned. And, as far as in-laws were concerned, I spent the first few months in the painful endeavour of constructing sentences that avoided the direct alluding of the husband as "tum" in front of them. Soon, and naturally so, the mind got tired of the game and couldn't keep up the levels. I then chucked the hypocrisy out of the window and found to my relief that the in-laws were quite cool about the fact.
So, where does all this leave me? Now, am quite used to the way of functioning of the pronouns in this part of the world and I resort to "aap" mostly all the time, even when it sounds ridiculous to be addressing a friend who I see day after day in the park, so. The only hitch is of the old habit which comes in the way and I fumble and flounder at times alternating between "tum" and "aap" in a breadth of conversation. And, what better way to end the confusion and discomfort than to switch to the Queen's language? At these times, I sing a silent "Jai Ho" to English in my mind.
