The World Within ………

Nobody reads a mystery to get to the middle. They read it to get to the end. If it’s a letdown, they won’t buy anymore. The first page sells that book. The last page sells your next book

The National Language Ambiguity December 21, 2008

Filed under: Traveller's Tales — shyamsweth @ 8:31 am

Well i happened to board Navjeevan Express about 15 minutes before its scheduled departure of 9:35 AM. Since it was day time and as the train traversed through Andra Pradesh for most of the day i could see a lot of  Andrites occupying seats illegitimately in reseerved compartments.

Mine Happened to be a upper berth while a Gujarati Seth occupied the opposite one. This fellow happened to know only Gujarati and Hindi. While a telegu family was negotiating with him for a place to sit till the next stop where they would disembark. Well, since the fellow didn’t understand “Their” English they happened to change the language of conversation to Hindi. This was were the fun began.

The girl who had been negotiating was not that fluent in Hindi. Thats what i would call Thuuti-Fhooti Hindi. This was what she told the gujarati, “Ham Gudur aane se train se gir jaenge” (We shall fall from the train ones it reaches Gudur-the next stop) while what she should have told was “Ham Gudur……….train se uttar jaenge”

The gujarati happened to be dreading and felt as if it was he who would have caused the death of the family

 

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