“No tengo a Dios pero tengo fe.”
Take it from a twenty-year-old that not knowing what’s coming for you in the future might be one of the best things to experience as a human being.
Elite, a Spanish series featured on Netflix happened to create a life-altering experience for Pragya, a design student at NIFT Bangalore. This show led her to take the first step into showing interest in Spanish culture. However, with motivation, there needs to be enough push and pull factors in order for the individual to consistently pursue their interest. Now this challenge was accepted by Manu Rios, a Spanish actor that featured in the show.
Like most talented and creative youngsters today, Pragya expressed her love for the show by drawing a portrait of the actor and posting it on Instagram which caught the eyes of the actor himself. Let’s say the girl was on a dopamine rush with all that love and appreciation reciprocated by her celebrity crush. “This was it!”, she thought to herself. “Now there is no turning back from becoming a Spanish prodigy.” From then on, Pragya made her journey of learning look effortless. Though Google makes access to information extremely easy, it is not to be associated with the information being accurate or intelligible. With language learning apps like Duo lingo and general Spanish media that involved news, music, movies, YouTube videos and more, creating an environment of easy learning. With her outgoing and expressive personality, it comes as no surprise that soon she began to talk to native Spanish speakers on Omegle, a free social networking website where she cleared her doubts and made kind friends out of strangers.
“No tengo a Dios pero tengo fe. I don’t have god, but I have faith.” This is one of her favourite lyrics from a famous Spanish singer, Rosalia Vila Tobella. An artist who is known for being an ‘atypical pop star’, for genre-bending music styles. In Pragya’s words, Rosalia creates music that is so experimental in taste that one can barely figure out the genre it belongs to. This also made her delve into enjoying flamenco beats.
Though she only shares her love for it in front of her bathroom mirror, she believes her aspiration to take it on stage will come with more practice. Not to say she hasn’t ever performed on stage. One of her most memorable performances was a Rosalia song in her college where she gracefully moved hearts with her melodic notes. From Spanish Rap, and Mexican folk to cliche French song tracks, Pragya has been expanding her music taste hoping to achieve nothing but pleasure out of it. It needn’t be obviously stated that ever since she has dived into the Spanish culture and language, it has started influencing her art style, music tastes and even her day-to-day media intake.
However what’s interesting is how this has subconsciously affected the way she speaks, behaves and even how she views herself. Pragya confides her feelings of inadequacy in her academics and how the fear of competition lead her to never partake in anything that gained her interest. Though associating her self-worth with her quality of work can lead to negative results, in this case, Pragya’s efforts paid off as she became highly fluent in Spanish to the point where her native Spanish friends saw her as one of their own.
This generated a nuanced feeling of pride and confidence within her alongside a feeling of superiority which didn’t last that long but while it did, she enjoyed it. She believes that a huge mistake people make while learning Spanish is that they byheart the words. Doing so has no benefit for the essence of the language lies in its accent. It’s understandable to mess up at the start but if someone doesn’t care to work on their accent later on, then it should be considered as nothing but disrespect. With these viewpoints, Pragya almost plays the role of a protective parent who loves Spanish for the unique and satisfying language it is and for all the other aspects that aren’t associated with the initial reasons that motivated her to learn it. Learning a new language influenced her feelings, emotions and thoughts in a way that began a new chapter in her life. It is easy to ask people to practice self-care and self-love. However beyond the luxury spa day and treating yourself with your favourite dessert, the act of grasping experiences and taking a novaturient approach to life can be equally rewarding, if not more. With that, this young Indian girl has used a piece of media as a tool to explore her inner capabilities, creating a massive impact on her course of life.
