“But K, this is not a June 9 entry. How can you say it is?”
As I sat and tried to figure out which June 9 entry Mr. M. was referring to, he went on about how there were other entries that didn’t seem to be June 9. The sheet I had in front of me had only a single entry for June 9 and it just didn’t make sense. Inside my head was a recurring scream, Which June 9 entry are you referring to, you crazy finance man?
Finally, B, his assistant took pity on me and whispered softly, “He means genuine, not June 9″. It took me a full 5 minutes to comprehend what B was saying and the only response I could manage was a semi-hysterical giggle. Laughter of any denomination was not wise at that point, so I frantically excused myself and ran out of the room just so I could let myself go.
We live in a country with many languages, many accents and many, many variants of spoken English. And with these variations come moments of unexpected hilarity. I remember a new-to-India firang friend calling me up frantically from a restaurant one night because one of the businessmen in her dinner party kept insisting she try the ‘Snakes’. He wouldn’t take no for an answer and she didn’t know what to do. You told me these guys were all vegetarian, she wailed.
There’s nothing quite like our fabulous Indian accents. A shop assistant asking if you want your gift ‘raped’ doesn’t so much as raise eyebrows any more. Only in India does a Doctor tell you need a ‘chaste’ x-ray; while a friend responds to your wishes with a ‘Shame to you’. Then there’s my cousin asking me to please pass the ‘choss’ that makes me giggle like a crazed idiot every single time.
Sometimes it’s easy to forget that English is not a first language for any of us Indians, or even a second. And because of the diversity of mother-tongues we start out with, we’ve all ended up with accents and pronunciations that are unique and sometimes, unwittingly funny. In some instances it’s helped people get famous even.
I’m sure you all have ‘lost in pro-noun-ciation’ stories. Do share them with me. It would be ‘zimbly aamacing’.
P.S. This post is a result of a series of tweets exchanged with my friend RAT. He’s also the first non-family person who told me I should keep writing. He thinks Indians are non-violent by nature. So if you don’t like my stuff, find him on twitter and get ‘voyelent‘.
With my dad, it worked in reverse. When we were posted in Gorkhapur, he asked the local tailor to make “kerchief” of the material leftover from stitching his shirts. The shocked and embarrasssed tailor told him, “Saab, kachchi toh banega, lekin bahut chota banega!”
What ae ‘sasky piss’ of writing
My son flunked his stats exam = Maaro Dikro states maa gayo (gujju). Also can be interpreted as ‘ my son has gone to the States’
Coming from the land of God’s own country, I have been witness to the massacre of English every single day. Even the pot-bellied, shoe-brush mustached “heero” of the movies is unabashed to dole out words that need extra logic to be deciphered. And this could be from a vile-tongued lawyer, to a cigar smoking business tycoon who wears cooling-glass, or a simple lungi clad man of the street. He is “kyuck” in his answers, his opposite to No is “SS” and he thinks all the girls in the classroom or a school do well in their studies because they are sincere and have good mammaries. Suresh Gobi is notorious for this very he has soliloquies in English with the camera and his dialogues, both being totally agitated.
But the best one from my experience was when I was visiting US and so was this other colleague. It wasn’t a faux pas from mis-pro-noun-cia-tion but just the disparity between American and Indian cultures. When our American counterpart was taking us out for lunch, she had her child’s car seat in the back. She had to make room with 2 other people also accompanying us. While she was wondering what was the best possible solution, my esteemed colleague quickly came to the rescue and said , “Helena, why dont you just put it in your dickie”.
I have never seen blood drain off a person’s face that fast ever. EVER! And quick look down by Helena did not help me either. I am still embarrassed for having fallen down laughing that afternoon.
And of course until in our hotel room that evening, my colleague had no idea of what went wrong that day!
Bhinoy: ‘Massacaring’ a language is much more than having one’s native language influence one’s accent. I personally find the use of ostentatious and redundant words more jarring, simply because it tends to impress people with no real grounding in the language and conveys so little. (For example, if I wanted to be arrogant, I’d have said sesquipedalian and pleonastic in the previous sentence.)
Accents and colloquialisms are part and parcel of language and there are no rights and wrongs. English has traveled around the globe and wherever it went local languages added words and local people gave it a different voice, French, Italians, Germans, Spaniards, Russians, Indians all have contributed to if anything the growth of the language, which is anytime better than the language in its attempt to maintain purity becomes obsolete….
Even in the so called English speaking countries – the Scots, the Welsh, the Aussies, the New Zealanders not to mention different states of the US everywhere English is spoken in a “different” way with their own accents and colloquial flavors.
Language is just a means to exchange ideas and it would be superficial to make impressions based on somebody’s accent and colloquial use of a phrase. The way I look at accents and colloquial usage of English as a portal to understand different cultures better, not to mention it’s good exercise for amateur linguist to try to identify source of words, and origin of the person his/her ancestry etc…
We are saved! Sanctimonious Man has flown in to protect us from Crimes Never Committed! Yeah, zap ‘em with the Redundant Sermonizing gun, Sanctimonious Man! I was really starting to wonder if you’d land on this blog post at all, but now I feel stupid for losing my faith in you. If there’s content anywhere on the Interwebs, you can be sure Sanctimonious Man will be there.
Hey I wasn’t aware 3D movie is projected on this screen and entry in the hall is prohibited those who don’t wish to wear the polarized glasses….
I have a non-verbal lost-in-translation story, one which every foreigner experiences.
it was my first time using Kerala buses. I had no idea which of the multicoloured behemoths would take me where I wanted to go – all the signs were in Malayalam. Eventually, I went up to one and called to the conductor:
“This bus Kallamballam?”
He stared at me for a second. Then, almost imperceptibly, he wobbled his head from side to side without any change to his blank facial expression.
At that point, I had no idea how to interpret the head-wobble. I stood there looking blankly back at him until some other passengers started yelling at me. “Yes Kallamballam yes please you come saip okay my friend yes!”
Aren’t first times the best?