Wednesday, December 16, 2009

The Baasha fight to fame

As the readers of this blog are slightly aware from here, my Hindi is thoda khamzor. That was my tagline in Mumbai, when I spoke to anyone ranging from the doodh wallah to the taxi wallah to the apartment security guard.

“Bhaiyya mera hindi thoda khamzor hai”

That would sound weird to the normal reader. However, people who know me well know quite well the extent of my fluency in Hindi. Ok, forget them, any of you tell me how I possibly can converse with the apartment’s Marathi security guard this way:

“Bhaiyya, oopar paani nahi aa raha hai. Motor mein kya problem? Motor wallah nahin aaya repairing ke liye? 4 hours hua hai abhi tak koi nahi aaya? What the hell will I do without water?!

Or, with the Bihari taxi wallah like this:

“Bhaiyya, yahan se seedha jaayiye, phir aage second right pe white car ke paas ek shop hai na, wahaan ek minute stop kar dijiye. Uske baad Bandra mein ek friend ko fast pick up karna hai.”

Half the time, I would forget that jaldi is what should replace fast. And, of course, there is always the eternal dhed, dhaai problem. I am still not sure which one is 1.5 and which one 2.5. It is quite some magic that I remember that aadha is 0.5.

Aisi haalath mein I could never have risked walking down the roads of Mumbai without a sticker on my forehead saying “Thoda khamzor Hindi, Beware!” Well, almost! I started warning everyone I met with the Thoda Khamzor tagline. The very predictable response I always got (accompanied by something between a smile and laugh) was “Aap Taaaamil hai kya?!”

A story on that will be quite a digression, let’s save it for another day.

The point of this post was to let all of you know that I have come miles from the thoda khamzor girl I used to be, so much so that I have started composing wonderful poems which might some day become famous songs in Bollywood movies.

As faithful readers of my blog, I thought you all should get a sneak preview of these masterpieces before they go public and I start earning millions.

Here goes my favorite:

Hamare Rashtra Basha ko Zindabad

Main nahi bulaiya tereko, Sinbad

Zindabad hai Zinabad

Uske bad

Sab kuch Barbaad!!!!

Manage, on reading this poem, was all praise. He said no one could ever have started the first line with Zindabad and ended the poem with Barbaad. He is still in awe of my immense exponential progress with the Hindi language.

The next one is something I thought up today, while I was struggling to finish some damned Excel work.

Khatarnaak hoon mein

Hindi mein bolne ki pehle

Khadak hoon mein

Hindi mein bolne mein

Joker hoon mein

Hindi mein bolne ki baad!

I need to own up to something here. I actually do not know the meaning of Khadak, just added it for the ‘rhyme value’. And, when I came to Joker, I was stuck with no Hindi equivalent for hours. And, having a bunch of pure blood Tams working around me did not help the cause. So, readers, please bear with it till Kavity is back with the next set of khatarnaak‘ly’ improvised poems!

Thab Thak Pyaar se Aap sab ki dost,

Kavity

(Edit: Thanks to 'Butt'ah for advising me to change 'ka' to 'ki')

P.S. Definitely dedicated to FinalsPrep_Marketing (Nice Try) (same guys linked above) for having encouraged me to talk all the nonsense Hindi in the world :D

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ennai Kodume Sir Idhu :)

மணிகண்டன் (Manikandan K S) said...

Very Humorous! ROTFL :)
(Podhumaa?)

Archana said...

wah wah wah....kya baat hai
tum ek hindi pandit ho!!!

Now I understand y BV updated in FB that he envies u for ur indecipherable blogs....

Kavity said...

@ Vinay: Much better than your Hindi, as Katrix would say. That's why you are jealous. However, I do pity you as you are having an action replay of the songs :D

@ Mani: Ada Paavi! Did I ask you to comment 'Humorous'? My image totally damaged :(

@ Archu: Don't listen to BV. He always keeps saying I write 'Peter' posts. He just does not have the patience to read stuff!

Bihag Bhatt said...

The problem in having SS as your Hindi guru is that you have no clarity about Gender. While in SS's case, the problem extended well beyond any language, you should steer away from such pitfalls. :)

You shouls end a post with "Aap KI dost"; "Aap KA dost" is what a guy would write.

Kavity said...

@ 'Butt'ah: Thanks a ton for the enlightenment! I am learning from a Gujju what I could not learn from a Bong, and it happens to be Hindi. Quite a situation we have out here.

As regards SS' clarity of gender or rather, the lack of it, I would like to refrain from commenting. I still assume my blog has a family audience :D

Shrutz said...

Aapki dost ya aapki saheli? Though that just makes you sound like a social worker preaching population control :))
Also, I think it's "Bhaasha".. quibbling, quibbling ;)

Kavity said...

'Saheli' sounds pathetic! No 'Edit' there! :P
However, you are right on the Bhaasha front. Cross checked with google translate :)
What is the world really coming to?! First a Bong, then a Gujju and then a Mellu teaching me Hindi!! My Hindi must really be beyond all repair by now :(

Deepa and Srinath said...

Correction to Vinay: "Kya kodumai hai yeh !!!"

Vinay Garg said...

Hilarious. Just came to your blog from blog references.

The world is becoming flat. Langauges are merging. you wont have problems then.:p Your words are crisp and fresh. too good.

Kavity said...

@ Deepa: Hehe.. ellam ungal aasirvaadham :)

@ Vinay: Thanks :) Keep visiting!

Ramya said...

oh kavi.. finally i mark my attendance here .. (mainly coz i wud be meeting u tomm and wont want to be beaten up: )

hindi and us go a long way back da.. why did u hav to forget our short rendezvous with hindi called "rapids" :P

and talkin abt learning hindi post stepping out of chennai - my northie frnds call my hindi "cute" and tam frnds get irritated with my "toh"s and "yeh"s and "woh"s i use in every non-hindi sentence :P

and i have a std confession line to any new hindi speaking person meet .. i say this right away "mera hindi thoda karaab hai... maaf kijiye.. mein samajh sakthi hoon, lekin teek se nahi baath karoongi... " (hope this came out better than urs :P