From Hinglish to Phindi
I was able to break it in only the second attempt, and as the water dripped out from the brown kernel, the hall resonated with Jaidevi / Jaidevi and marked time for Navmi / Dussehra celebrations. For once it was Hindi /Marathi and not Phindi.
What is ubiquitous in India is the latent urge to be able to converse in English. It is the aspirational medium of communication. Most quarters of India are obsessed with this. When we used to live in Noida I remember a lady once announced with brimming pride that her 3 and 4 year old daughters were more comfortable blabbering in English than in Hindi.
It was true. But just imagine the effort that might have gone in ham training toddlers egging them not so speak in their mother tongue but English, and this too in middle class or upper middle class Indian family where a significant part of the care giving is done not by the mother but by a poorly paid help, capable of speaking only a crude dialect of Hindi not even proper Khariboli.
“I am like that only “, “he is like that only “, “ he is like very angry like “ or starting a sentence with “ what happens is “ as a word for word translation for the oft spoken “kya hota hai “. I want to “sale” my TV. I will tell to the teacher. If you will parse this prose, all this is pretty much acceptable syntax integral to the Hinglish that we speak.
It is not unusual for a language to morph due to practical usage. If you would read the English of 1300s, perhaps you will not comprehend it. Perhaps the complexion of English 200 years down the line could be very different. The Americans themselves have dealt quite a blow to the Puritanism of the language. Hindi however has been more recognizable over the millennium, due to its close proximity to Sanskrit which after the age of the Upanishads has been pretty much same and of course Prakrit.
But clearly, India is going English much more now than when the English were here. Go to the malls, all signages are in English. If you are educated, you ought to be fluent in English. Nevertheless, the impact of colonization is not so indelible in India as in the Americas or Australia, as the local or native or indigenous culture in India was too well grounded to be uprooted or decimated. Or even Egypt, where the muslim invaders changed the cultural landscape completely to Arabic. India’s heritage rather foundation of 5000 years could not have been uprooted in just few centuries. One reason for this failure of the muslim invaders or the Christian colonizers was the intricate complexion of the culture. There was a core that was completely cosmic, pure philosophy, devoid of mascots and thus indestructible, and there was the rest that was more ritual and practice around the core. You could jab or restrict the periphery by curbing the ritual, but never damage the core, which was pure energy. There was a personal religion, a personal deity or personal culture. You can clamp so much more easily on a congregational culture with practicing commandments, but how do you jab or change that which is cherished in just the heart.
Today, mandatory announcements at the railway stations / airlines or the Government Doordarshan are the only unalloyed Hindi verbalizing that we have. It is not supposed to be educated or refined, or hep or cool, don’t know which one, if you speak in chaste Hindi accent. You have to anglicize it. Just like the airhostesses who speak Hindi with a Phirangi accent. The Germans speak English with an accept – akso; the French speak English with a French accent – bon; the Indians speak Hindi with an English accent.
Recognized as a tool for upward mobility, it has a tremendous snob appeal. Logically, to put on accent is not supposed to be good. One of the Brit CEOs of a Indian pharma company spoke with a Yorkshire accent. There is no “munney” in the business for money, he would say. We always made fun of him. But for a commoner, it is good to put on an accent. Earlier it would take a few trips to the US or UK to lay genuine claim to an accent, but today it is just a stones throw away, at a local call centre. They teach you better than anyone can, how to drone the ka in Chicago.
There is a burgeoning population of protagonists of English language, unfortunately at the cost of local language or culture. I personally like English. But language is the vehicle of thought, and admit it or not, the vehicle will influence the thought. As a consequence, most of the Sanskrit speakers are out of India. Most of the experts of Vedic mathematics are outside of India.
I was able to break it in only the second attempt, and as the water dripped out from the brown kernel, the hall resonated with Jaidevi / Jaidevi and marked time for Navmi / Dussehra celebrations. For once it was Hindi /Marathi and not Phindi.
What is ubiquitous in India is the latent urge to be able to converse in English. It is the aspirational medium of communication. Most quarters of India are obsessed with this. When we used to live in Noida I remember a lady once announced with brimming pride that her 3 and 4 year old daughters were more comfortable blabbering in English than in Hindi.
It was true. But just imagine the effort that might have gone in ham training toddlers egging them not so speak in their mother tongue but English, and this too in middle class or upper middle class Indian family where a significant part of the care giving is done not by the mother but by a poorly paid help, capable of speaking only a crude dialect of Hindi not even proper Khariboli.
“I am like that only “, “he is like that only “, “ he is like very angry like “ or starting a sentence with “ what happens is “ as a word for word translation for the oft spoken “kya hota hai “. I want to “sale” my TV. I will tell to the teacher. If you will parse this prose, all this is pretty much acceptable syntax integral to the Hinglish that we speak.
It is not unusual for a language to morph due to practical usage. If you would read the English of 1300s, perhaps you will not comprehend it. Perhaps the complexion of English 200 years down the line could be very different. The Americans themselves have dealt quite a blow to the Puritanism of the language. Hindi however has been more recognizable over the millennium, due to its close proximity to Sanskrit which after the age of the Upanishads has been pretty much same and of course Prakrit.
But clearly, India is going English much more now than when the English were here. Go to the malls, all signages are in English. If you are educated, you ought to be fluent in English. Nevertheless, the impact of colonization is not so indelible in India as in the Americas or Australia, as the local or native or indigenous culture in India was too well grounded to be uprooted or decimated. Or even Egypt, where the muslim invaders changed the cultural landscape completely to Arabic. India’s heritage rather foundation of 5000 years could not have been uprooted in just few centuries. One reason for this failure of the muslim invaders or the Christian colonizers was the intricate complexion of the culture. There was a core that was completely cosmic, pure philosophy, devoid of mascots and thus indestructible, and there was the rest that was more ritual and practice around the core. You could jab or restrict the periphery by curbing the ritual, but never damage the core, which was pure energy. There was a personal religion, a personal deity or personal culture. You can clamp so much more easily on a congregational culture with practicing commandments, but how do you jab or change that which is cherished in just the heart.
Today, mandatory announcements at the railway stations / airlines or the Government Doordarshan are the only unalloyed Hindi verbalizing that we have. It is not supposed to be educated or refined, or hep or cool, don’t know which one, if you speak in chaste Hindi accent. You have to anglicize it. Just like the airhostesses who speak Hindi with a Phirangi accent. The Germans speak English with an accept – akso; the French speak English with a French accent – bon; the Indians speak Hindi with an English accent.
Recognized as a tool for upward mobility, it has a tremendous snob appeal. Logically, to put on accent is not supposed to be good. One of the Brit CEOs of a Indian pharma company spoke with a Yorkshire accent. There is no “munney” in the business for money, he would say. We always made fun of him. But for a commoner, it is good to put on an accent. Earlier it would take a few trips to the US or UK to lay genuine claim to an accent, but today it is just a stones throw away, at a local call centre. They teach you better than anyone can, how to drone the ka in Chicago.
There is a burgeoning population of protagonists of English language, unfortunately at the cost of local language or culture. I personally like English. But language is the vehicle of thought, and admit it or not, the vehicle will influence the thought. As a consequence, most of the Sanskrit speakers are out of India. Most of the experts of Vedic mathematics are outside of India.
