Madrasi…
I was in Rajasthan for a vacation on the third week of December. Though I used by broken Hindi to good effect in most places, my bad vocabulary and the use of wrong words in places made it ample clear to the listener that I was not a native speaker of the language. This invariably led to questions on my mother tongue and such and to some funny exchanges. A couple of them are reproduced below:
Encounter 1:
Man: Aap kahan ke hain sir?
Me: Madras ke hain hum
Man: Achcha, vahan pe Telugu chalti hai naa?
Me: Telugu bhi chalti hai, par vahan ki bhasha Tamil hai
Man: Achcha achcha
Encounter 2:
Man: Aap ghar mein koun si bhasha bolte hain sir?
Me: Tamil
Man: Achcha, to aap Bangalore se aaye hain?
Me: !!?!!
That reminds of a conversation back in ISB some two and a half years ago. When our batch was new into ISB, everybody in the dining hall was almost a stranger to us. So, we used to sit in these long tables with ten people around trying to break ice, introduce ourselves to the group and chat in general. In one such conversation, there were 7-8 people around a table.
Guy1 (to another guy near him): So where are you from?
Guy2: I’m from Bangalore
Guy3: Oh, where are you originally from?
Guy2 (little surprised at the question): Why, I’m a Kannadiga from Bangalore.
All activity at the table stopped. For some reason, everybody wanted to act funny at the same time and so there was silence at the table and everybody looked at this guy.
Guy4: Kannadiga from Bangalore? Do you have a visa or something?
At this point everyone started laughing.
- TV/Radio/Films/Theatre, Trips | Time: 10:46:01 AM (UTC+8)
Good one..I’m reading your blog after long time.
Comment by Subbaraman — February 25, 2008 @ 3:06:58 PM
That’s true dude, I’m part Mangalorean, and for a long time, I didn’t really know the differences between all the SOuth Indian languages, they were only “South Indian”. That also explains the etymology of “Madrasi” in mid and North India, which labels all South Indians in one word.
Comment by Rohan — March 6, 2008 @ 1:59:16 PM