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During our schooling at our seaside village Muthukur in the early 1950s, English was truly a foreign tongue to us. No one ever spoke it and we never heard it spoken at home or in the street. All the English we met with was in our school books and every word we learned was an adventure to us. Apart from our text books, the few story books in English we read were simplified, abridged, and bookish...nothing colloquial about them.
When we first heard some new flash word that had no precise equivalent in our mother tongue, Telugu, we were at first bewildered, then amused, and finally charmed when we enriched our meager vocabulary with it.
"Thanks" is one such word. I remember it said by a visiting uncle of mine when I gave him a 'glass' of water. Till then no one said anything when I served them things much more delicious than water like coffee and soda. They just smiled, if that, and gulped it as if it were their due. Then on, in our household, we used to thank each other just for the heck of it...we thought we became city-bred. Till now there is no equivalent to "Thanks" in colloquial Telugu. "Dhanyavadam" is so bookish as to carry nuances of humbug with it.
Same, I think, is with Tamil. Before leaving home and settling down for good in Tiruvannamalai at 17, Ramana Maharshi went to the American Mission School in Madurai (around 1895). English was his bugbear at school and he never spoke the tongue although he could follow it well enough to correct it when it was misspoken by Tamilians who never went to a missionary school. During his final battle with cancer which he lost at 70 in 1950, he was served by his devotees and attendants assiduously. And on his deathbed he said to them in Tamil:
"There is no word in Tamil to express my gratitude to you. 'Thanks' is the best word but it is English. All I can say is 'Santosham!' (I'm pleased!)"
There was a new student who joined our class in Muthukur in our fifth form. He was the son of the new doctor transferred from Nellore, perhaps on a punishment posting. In our first day's Assembly, he jostled his neighbor unintentionally. And he at once apologized:
"Sorry!"
The bumpkin who heard the word for the first time didn't know how to respond, and teased him:
"You go go go...and Marry...ha ha ha!"
Everyone laughed...that was the nearest equivalent to what we would now say: 'mild ragging'.
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During our schooling at our seaside village Muthukur in the early 1950s, English was truly a foreign tongue to us. No one ever spoke it and we never heard it spoken at home or in the street. All the English we met with was in our school books and every word we learned was an adventure to us. Apart from our text books, the few story books in English we read were simplified, abridged, and bookish...nothing colloquial about them.
When we first heard some new flash word that had no precise equivalent in our mother tongue, Telugu, we were at first bewildered, then amused, and finally charmed when we enriched our meager vocabulary with it.
"Thanks" is one such word. I remember it said by a visiting uncle of mine when I gave him a 'glass' of water. Till then no one said anything when I served them things much more delicious than water like coffee and soda. They just smiled, if that, and gulped it as if it were their due. Then on, in our household, we used to thank each other just for the heck of it...we thought we became city-bred. Till now there is no equivalent to "Thanks" in colloquial Telugu. "Dhanyavadam" is so bookish as to carry nuances of humbug with it.
Same, I think, is with Tamil. Before leaving home and settling down for good in Tiruvannamalai at 17, Ramana Maharshi went to the American Mission School in Madurai (around 1895). English was his bugbear at school and he never spoke the tongue although he could follow it well enough to correct it when it was misspoken by Tamilians who never went to a missionary school. During his final battle with cancer which he lost at 70 in 1950, he was served by his devotees and attendants assiduously. And on his deathbed he said to them in Tamil:
"There is no word in Tamil to express my gratitude to you. 'Thanks' is the best word but it is English. All I can say is 'Santosham!' (I'm pleased!)"
There was a new student who joined our class in Muthukur in our fifth form. He was the son of the new doctor transferred from Nellore, perhaps on a punishment posting. In our first day's Assembly, he jostled his neighbor unintentionally. And he at once apologized:
"Sorry!"
The bumpkin who heard the word for the first time didn't know how to respond, and teased him:
"You go go go...and Marry...ha ha ha!"
Everyone laughed...that was the nearest equivalent to what we would now say: 'mild ragging'.
Looking After
Talking of untranslatable colloquialisms I had a lovely experience today.
Everyone knows that Hyderabad traffic is the worst ever pellmell. The stupendous increase in the number of automobiles is only partly responsible for it. The real trouble is that the number of traffic policemen on duty is pitiably small. Apparently the supply is ten times less than the demand of any civilized city. And the Traffic Department is more interested in collecting fines than ensuring smooth flow of traffic. To increase their 'revenue' they recently equipped their cops with digital cameras, new gadgets that policemen love and drivers hate.
Early every morning at 7.30, I drive my D-i-L to the nearest bus stop which happens to be one of the busiest in our locality. It is in the midst of a 4-way junction that has no traffic signals but the heaviest morning traffic with scores of huge school buses honking their way madly at one another. And there is never any policeman on duty at that hour...the couple of them posted there arrive after their cheerful breakfast, armed with their cameras, at 8.30 by when the traffic eases itself through curses and bruises. And the cops get busy clicking their heart out at motorists who they think are breaking their traffic rules.
This afternoon at 3 when there was little traffic, I drove my toy car there to fetch my D-i-L back after her duties. And, while taking a perfectly legitimate left turn, I saw one of the cops with his camera pointing to me. I parked my car at a perfectly legitimate parking lot and walked back to inquire. The youthful cop was by then saddled on his motor bike, starting it home after his delicious duties.
I hailed and he stopped. And I asked him in Telugu:
"What is the matter? Did I do anything wrong...you were pointing your camera at me just now?"
And he replied in polite Telugu:
"Ledu Ledu sir! Mee lanti peddalu mammalni choosukovali!"
Which can be roughly translated into English thus:
"No, no sir! Esteemed gentlemen like you should look after us!"
I then looked after him to the best of my ability and he drove away mighty pleased...
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