ENGLISH, DESI FLAVOUR AND OF COURSE ME!
English Vinglish - No, this has nothing to do with the great movie!
Children are always amazing. They are spontaneous and down right funny. They coin words in such a way that you and me would never imagine. In case we were to incorporate these children’s quotes in some Children’s Dictionary it would certainly make interesting reading.
Sarah, my grand daughter, is now six years old. She lives in Saudi with her parents and visits us during her vacations. She speaks fluently in Hindi and English. When she is around here in India, she tries to speak to us in Marathi, often coining words in a funny way. Last year, I remember the word Dekhla (देखल) she had called out on seeing a peacock on a roof top of a building, just opposites ours. When I called her to show that peacock, she had said, “Mi dekhla”, ‘I saw’, was what she meant. Mi (मी) = I (in Marathi) but the word dekla was indeed innovative – coined from Hindi dekha and Marathi (बघितलं) baghit la, both meaning ‘saw’. I belong to a generation from India where we never said to our parents that we loved them. Sitting with them, talking to them, eating meals together was our way expressing our love. But the word ‘Love’ is hardly ever used to express what we feel towards each other. There was no need for that expression ever. In the same manner, we don’t expect Siddhartha, Araina and our sweet little Sarah to say ‘I love’ to us every time they call from abroad. We know that all of them do love us immensely as much as our daughter. My little darling Sarah does say, “I love you, baba(बाबा)!” to me or “I love you, aai (आई)” to my wife. It feels nice to hear such words as Aai and Baba instead of the English Granny and Grand pa.
Then there was this kid, Bharati, some 8 years or so then. She had come to visit my (मामी )mami (aunt), who happened to be the girl’s granny. Bharati was telling her about her school, her teacher and recited all the poems she had learnt. My mami was impressed; I could see it in her eyes. “My little Bhartu, oh my (फाड -फाड बोलणारी ) phad phad English speaking doll”, so saying she picked her up and took her in her arms. Embarrassment was writ all over her face – grown up girl of 2ndstandard being taken up and thus cuddled in arms – this was simply too much. But what the little one said was amazing. “Oh God, (आजी) Aaji (granny) has taken me kade!” Spontaneously she had used the beautiful Marathi word ‘kade’ or the phrase 'kadevar ghene' (कडेवर घेणे) for crude English ‘taken me in her arms’.
Children are funny! This happened when Sanju, my nephew, was young (But he is still funny. But that’s different story), may be about six years. He was looking at our ceiling fan. Suddenly he said, “Mama, your fan goes round and round” (मामा, तुमचा पंखा गर -गर फिरतो?", I still remember, those were his exact words. “Why, yours doesn’t?”, I asked. “ Yes, it does. It goes ‘gur gur’, (तो गर -गर तर फिरतो),पण तो आपली मान डावी कडे -उजवी कडे करत सांगतो 'नाय, नाही!)But it also says ‘No – No’”, so saying he moved his neck to the left and then to the right and repeated the action several times. I realised that he was talking about the table fan in his room.
What perhaps started as child’s innovative episodes is now taking firm root in our write ups and communications. One may like certain ‘Hinglish’ words, but to use these words in formal communications is some thing else. I have decided to preserve, at any cost, my Oxford Dictionary (1950 edition), passed on to me by my father. It has all the authentic English words and phrases and idioms. The current editions of Oxford Dictionary, they say, have some 200 Indian words. (We should be proud, you would say) Words like bungalow, masala, vindaloo, lakh(lac), crore, taluka and many others have been popular and frequently used by English speakers in Britain and America since the time of the British Raj. Their distinction of being of Indian origin is almost forgotten. Who knows, the dictionary will have phrases like – “She will take mi kade”( it will not required to put it in italics), ‘The earth goes gur gur around itself’ and ‘his aai and baba took good care of him’. At times, it is quite a fun to read the net lingo. Some of these words are also incorporated, again they say, in the latest edition of Ox. Dic.( that’s my abbreviation 4 u). Hence we have some thing like ‘chillax’ (chill out and relax), ‘stavacation’ (staying at home on a vacation).
But I shall have my own dictionary, the original one, to check that I have spelt ‘Quality’ correctly and not written as Kwality and would not need any Xpert (sorry, expert to be correct) to tell me about it. I shall have all the samoaas, tikkas, paneer, tandoories- the whole lot of Indian cuisine – with all its desi flavour. But as for English --- no desi flavour please!
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