ON BEING LOYAL TO QUEEN'S ENGLISH!

On Being Loyal to Queen’s English!

There was this very news.

I read just this morning and it minded me of my blog-post ‘ENGLISH, DESI FLAVOUR AND OF COURSE ME!’  I had written thus:

Children are always amazing. They are spontaneous and downright 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 nine years old (She will be ten on this thirteenth). 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. It was some four years ago. I was surprised to see a peacock on the roof- top of a building just opposite to ours. I called out Sarah, “Sarah, come here. There a peacock over there.” I remember the word Dekhla 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 = I (in Marathi) but the word dekla was indeed innovative – coined from Hindi dekha and Marathi 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 my son, my bahu and our sweet little choti bachhi 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!” to me or “I love you, aai” to my wife. It feels nice to hear such words as Aai and Baba instead of the English Granny and Grand pa or even aaji and    aajoba (in Marathi) or dadi and dada(in Hindi). Maybe because our children called us mummy and daddy. 

Then there was this kid, Bharati, some 8 years or so (at that time and today, she has grown up children of her own). She had come to visit my 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 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 2^nd standard being taken up and thus cuddled in arms – this was simply too much! But what the little one said was amazing. “Oh God, Aaji (granny) has taken me kade!” Spontaneously she had used the beautiful Marathi word ‘kade’ or ‘kadevar’ 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 then. He was looking at our ceiling fan. Suddenly he said, “Mama, your fan goes round and round”. “Why, yours doesn’t?”, I asked. “Yes, it does. It goes ‘gur gur’ 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 something else. I have decided to preserve, at any cost, my Oxford Dictionary (1950 edition), passed on to me by my father, passing through hands of my four sisters before coming to me. 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 – '...he will take mi kade' ( it will not be required to put it in italics), ‘The earth goes gur gur around itself’, ‘....his aai and baba took good care of him’, 'he spoke in phad phad English','..this duniya' is very small indeed',etc.

 At times, it is quite a fun to read the net lingo. Some of those words are also incorporated, again they say, in the latest edition of Ox. Dic.( that’s my abbreviation 4 u). Hence we have something like ‘chillax’ (chill out and relax), ‘stavacation’ (staying at home on a vacation). With introduction of 1000 odd new words, many slangs will get official entry in schools. God save the Queen.. oops Queen's English!

But I shall retain and preserve my own dictionary, the original one, to check that I have spelt ‘Quality’ correctly and not written it 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 and devour all those 60 odd mouth watering recipes with the foodie’s unique twists from ‘Made in India’ by Kunal Vijayakar, (It is, no doubt, in simple language and the recipes can be followed by anyone, even those like me, who have never entered the kitchen; but honestly speaking, I have not ventured as yet into that adventurous field of doing some cooking myself) or indulge in all those dishes prepared for me from Sanjeev Kapoor’s ‘Khazana’ or even have, as a side dish, Sarla Dalal’s ‘Auchi Calorie Paushtic Aahaar’.  But as for English --- no desi flavour please!  More loyal to Queen’s English than the Queen herself!

                                                                                                 Vinay Trilokekar