Remember when you were little and
grandma was snoozing and you were determined to be a tease? Grandma would seem
to be unfazed by your incursions into her comfort zone and then all of a
sudden, her eyes would fly open and her false teeth would pop out at you. Scary! And the next day you would try it
again to see if she would do it again!!
(I agree that my childhood memories may not be universal, but I’m sure
somebody, somewhere will have experienced this.)
This morning a young dog, still at
the very playful age, was urging an old dog to be up and at it. It was early morning, the sky still grey and
the weather damp from overnight rain.
The old dog sported a very grey muzzle and ears. He ignored the youngster and rearranged his
limbs with a deep sigh. The youngster
would not give up. Finally, the old one raised himself rheumatically on all
fours and bared his teeth with a menacing growl. The youngster fled yelping
down the street. The old one shook
himself (I’m sure I heard a satisfied ‘harrumph’) and settled himself back into
snooze mode. Some tricks still work. And
the young dog will be back tomorrow.
The juxtaposition of memory and
incident was a welcome start to the day.
More so since the morning papers always seem to offer bad news, on top
of bad news.
Today, at least one news item proved
interesting: The East Indian dictionary. A resource that will provide future
generations with information about the mother tongue that many no longer use.
My introduction to EI-speak was via
a recipe. The final touch required one
to run a greased belan
over the surface of a cooked sweet ‘dough’ after it had been poured into a
mould, in order to render it smooth before cutting into triangles. What on earth was a belan? A classmate at Secretarial School, supplied
the answer: ‘rolling pin’. She was, as I
discovered later, an EI.
Over the years, I have encountered
words and expressions which convey much better than the translation, exactly
what the speaker means. For example a ghoomat is a ghoomat ! What else would you call a gutted, dried gourd, topped
off with a dried skin, drummed upon with the tips of the fingers to render a
magnetic beat? It’s not a drum, it’s not a tabla, it’s
not a bongo. It’s a ghoomat.
EI speak is not easy to acquire; you
need to be attuned from birth. It is
akin to Marathi but is a dialect in its own right, with vocabulary, grammar and
idiom that the dictionary will hopefully capture. I never did quite pick it up
since hubby spoke fluent English and Marathi when conversation was needed. At other times, words were redundant.
But my AI ears are always tuned in
to new sounds and I did manage to grab a few choice words and phrases here and
there.
My
favourite? Just has to be ‘pyethyu’ (rendered phonetically). It is supposed to mean ‘young lad’ but more
often connotes ‘lazy rascal’ and many a nephew has been hailed with ‘oye pyethyu’ in
his time!
Being EI is not just belonging to a
community, it is a way of life which one encounters in the living: cuisine and
kitchen implements, weddings and social encounters, dress, music, architecture
and furnishing, customs and observances.
How long will all this be followed?
For example, almost gone is the lugna (lugda?) – the nine yard sari - replaced by ubiquitous denim (the
universal jeans). As a wife, I did sport
the festive nine yards on occasion (surprisingly comfortable!) but as a widow I need to don one of
another colour. So, mine has become a relic
which may perhaps be worn by generation next more as fancy dress than attire.
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