An ear for languages

From Bhojpuri to Tamil, no Indian language is too difficult for Prakash
Bhagat, says Baljeet Parmar

Bhandup resident Prakash Bhagat, also known as Monto among his friends, is famous for his literary and linguistic skills in his neighbourhood. And his knack for picking up other languages developed during his childhood years.
He grew up in Samastipur in Bihar, where, besides Hindi, he learned to speak Bhojpuri, Maithili and Sanskrit from his father, who is writer.
At the age of 12, he was taken to Tarantaran in Punjab by his uncle who was working in a printing press there. In a few months, Monto took to Punjabi, and not only could he speak it, he can also read and write in the language. The printing press owner was so impressed by his skills that he employed Monto in his press and taught him typesetting and composing.
Monto worker there for eight years and shifted to Kolkatta, along with his uncle, where he joined another printing press. During his long stint in Kolkatta he added Bengali, Oriya and Assamese to his growing linguistic skills.
In 1975, he came to Mumbai and found a job with a publishing house that used to print magazines and books in different languages. Working with colleagues from Gujarat and Maharashtra, he picked up Marathi and Gujarati, and could converse fluently in both languages. He even learned conversational Sindhi from his colleagues.
But it was time to conquer the South. And luckily for Monto, he lived in Sion Koliwada, which has a predominant Tamilian community. Soon, Tamil was no longer an alien language to him.
Today, Monto runs his own printing press in Bhandup, and has no problem proofreading texts in these languages. "I am in the process of learning Telugu, Tullu and Malyalam," he grins.