Hobson Jobson

It has such a lovely ring, doesn’t it? While browsing among the shelves in a friend’s library, I came across this tome which purported to be ‘a glossary of colloquial Anglo-Indian words and phrases and kindred terms, etymological, historical, geographical and discursive’!

Being an Anglo-Indian, I was intrigued, recalling the merriment which my parents’ very AI pronunciation evoked when it came to speaking the local lingo. To illustrate: for ‘coming’ my mother would call out ‘arthur’ for ‘aata hai’. We also had a very individual and colourful lexicon, typical of the AI family. Most of the words and phrases have now been forgotten but a couple which can still rustle up a smile, when the occasion demands, are glue-pachari and muttai pink (since these words were spoken and not written, I have spelt them as phonetically as possible).

Glue-pachari, which was usually shortened to ‘gloop’, was used to indicate the kind of visitor who seemed to be attached to our chairs with Fevicol and refused to leave. As with all children, fascinated by an overheard new word, I would happily announce to my parent, ‘Ma, the gloop is here’ much to her embarrassment!

Muttai pink was the descriptive used for the virulent shade of pink found in some sweetmeats and nylon ribbons. If a colour was a shade too hurtful to the eye or showed lack of taste, the tag ‘muttai’ would be gleefully added to show one’s strong reaction.

A favourite name and person was Mr. Jerry Puranawala, the handle given to the ‘rag and bones’ man or bangarwala. With his rusty scales, doubtful weights and measures, and gunny sack he would visit our homes on the appointed day to collect old newspapers, utensils, rags and other miscellany thus helping us clean our homes and keep the piggybank rattling.

These words and phrases had a certain ring to them and added colour to the conversation; words which have now fallen into disuse, and are rarely but fondly recalled when reminiscing with a generation that is fast departing this world. Transient words which marked a time in history.