Hum Hindustani

A very amusing incident happened in our office today. There is an avuncular gentleman in our office, Mr. Nair (I am using his name with his permission). An agony uncle of our office who is forever telling people to calm down, slow down, relax etc appeared very perturbed and obviously upset. The reason…..a client had called him a Madrasi!!! (He is heading a marketing group). He was & always is furious when Indians get their country’s geography, history or in this case, demography wrong. Being an extremely well read & widely travelled person he has no time for what he calls “nincompoops”. He stressed out to all of us (the client had left by then) that he is a Malayalee from Kerala. And also went on to explain the basic differences between the four different Deccan states.
Soon, the topic turned to other states as well & the movies & serials were blamed for creating prototypes & thus hindering understanding about the real culture of the states.
By then another person (not naming him as he does not have Mr. Nair’s sporting spirit) said something to me about punjus(his language , not mine----I choose to leave out the rest of his statement). When I told him that my family is originally from Haryana….he looked perplexed & said “ aren’t haryanvis Punjabis” when I said no, “ah!,then Jat” that too was wrong as I am a Rajput….
But, Mr. Nair took over from there & gave him a good piece of lecture on Indian states & cultural diversity. When we were leaving for the day, Mr. Nair had called the other guy & was offering him a lift back home!!!
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Dear readers please do not interpret it as parochialism or any such thing. This is an incident that has happened…what is impressive was Mr. Nair; a South Indian was explaining the geographical & cultural identities of the North Indian states.
It’s a victory for national integration!!

View Point

A year ago during a family vacation abroad I received a frantic SMS from a friend telling me to buy a higher end brand of cologne and aftershave combo pack which she wanted to gift to her boyfriend. In a rather long SMS, she told not to worry about the price tag as he was “priceless”. She sent this SMS at least thrice during my holidays; I got what she wanted…its cost--- 85 euros (for the smaller pack). I was hesitant but thought what the heck; she’s going to pay for it…

Two weeks later, we were back in India. When I met up with her, can you guess what she told me… she had broken up with him!!! The very sight of the cologne-aftershave pack only hurt her more &so she wouldn’t like to take it, IF I didn’t mind. (I wonder what she would have done if I said I did?)I was almost on the verge of telling her that, “keep it for your next guy”. While with a pathetic ex-pression she set out to explain how “priceless” became “useless”, my mind was chanting quietly inside “85euros, 85euros...” (Now for those of you who think I was being mean ...well I work hard for what I earn…and 85 euros could have been better spent, if only they had broken up 3 weeks earlier).

As for the reasons why she dumped him ….they seemed incomprehensible to me - all these things are a part and parcel of our daily lives. I have 2 brothers – elder is 2 years older than me and younger is almost 8 years younger - and they behave exactly the same way (as her guy did ), i.e., they don’t understand the difference between brown and pink lipsticks, they’ll say, “oh looking great” without even looking at you, they enjoy their food more if they eat faster( sometimes before I finish my second mouthful, they have finished their whole plate), their sentences are liberally laced with slang, its like punctuation marks for them (only exception- whenever mom is around ),they whistle all the time, in fact bhaiyya can whistle any tune he wants to & to top it all my dad too joins in ( I don’t think anyone of them is a “cheapo”) and oh yes…to the outside world they may be like the active volcanoes(both my brothers do not take any nonsense lying down), but at home they too are mamma’s boys(they may just kill me for telling this!)

I don’t know what ex-pression I wore on my face, but my friend seemed to overflow with sympathy for me (or my lack of knowledge) whereas I was thinking which planet did she land from? …and also, thank god I never invited her to my home…

That day, on returning home, I jokingly I told my brothers “tum log to kuware marne wale ho”.

Language Barrier with so funny incidents

Hi friends, I just had to post this, its so funny….happened about 30mins back, just as we were leaving office…a very senior officer in our company comes from a non-Hindi speaking background. Moreover he spent all his life abroad, so exposure to Hindi was limited, if at all.
A bearer of our office had accidentally left a dusting cloth in his cabin (on the top shelf) & he was furious. He came out and in his deep baritone voice, right in the middle of the office called the bearer and said, “andar jaake kapda utaro”.
The bearer’s reaction ? “ I know English, sir” in a very injured tone.