Woolly Words

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On retiring from the Physics Department at IIT KGP in 1975, SDM joined as HoD, Math Dept at Viswabharati (remember that he had an M Sc each in Physics and Math; and equally profound publications in both).

He revisited KGP in 1983 and had dinner with us and watched our toddler son and pronounced (with some uninhibited astonishment): "Khoob shunder cheley hoyecche!".

While narrating his experiences at VB, he was bemoaning that his young Math Faculty there discovered that he didn't know Topology...it was neither taught in his pre-independence student days at Cal nor did he need it in his research work in GR, QM or Group Theory...he was a past master of Analysis and Algebra.

So, it seems, in public discussions like Vivas or Seminars, when he finds a loophole in their talks and tries to crucify them saying that their ideas of Point of Accumulation, say, are all wrong, they would retort:

"It happens to be right in Topology"

And silence him.

When we were living in Qrs C1-97 we had huge front and backyards and we employed a mali to keep them clean. He was an ancient import from East Bengal, toothless, and equipped with a charming vocabulary and an exotic accent. I suspect he was a rickshaw-puller before migrating to KGP. And his knowledge of gardening was about the same as my knowledge of Math...workmanlike, with no frills.

And I would ask him what the name of that flower in Bengali is. And he would say: Chompak. Then I would retort that the other day he used Chompak for a totally different flower; and he would bestow a condescending toothless smile and declaim:

"That is desi chompak while this is junglee chompak".

Same with Mollika...he would call 5 different flowers mollika and, when questioned how, would add adjectives and invectives...like chhotto, bodo, kalo, chandro, surjo...

In our AP Village in the 1950s, post-independence, there were a variety of novel merchandise. Neither the shopkeepers nor us consumers knew their names.

So, there were two broadside epithets: Bengal and Bangalore...don't ask me why not Jaipur.

So, I ask the shopkeeper what this new thing is called.

And he would reply: Oh, that is Bengal pappu (gram) or Bengal dumpa (white aloo)...

And when he is tired of Bengal, he would take up Bangalore: Bangalore vankay (chow-chow), Banglore mircha (capsicum)...

And when he is fed up with both he would say: Simla beans (kingsize).

On returning to Nawabi Hyderabad, I now find that the most popular Woolly Word is: Turai.

Any flower on a tree that looked exotic to them would be called Turai puvvu (krishnachura).

And Turai is bottle gourd one day and snake gourd the other...

We now come to the hi-tech lingo:

Bug, virus, and spam are passe'.

The in-thing is various G's.

"My cell phone is 2G-enabled...it has GPRS, wi-fi, GPS..."

"Oh, that's nothing...my QWERTY phone has 3G...all downloads at the flick of a button...just watching 3 Idiots..."

How many did you say?

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