The drudgeries of life
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Mera Hindi kharaab hai :P
Yep, I know! Even the subject line in Hindi meaning "My Hindi sucks" has a grammatical flaw.
It should've read "Meri Hindi kharaab hai"... apparently Hindi is a female!
No wonder we don't get along so well, हिन्ढी and I :)
A few examples of my (ab)using the Hindi lingo, unwittingly, but of course :D
Ok!
So on the recent Dream Trip of ours, we were totally amazed every now and then when travelling on the road. The reason being the breathtaking sceneries!
Anyway on one such occasion, I was mesmerized by the beautiful landscape that was unfolding in front of my eyes!
Being aware of the "Pinch me somebody, pinch me" dialog used commonly to dispel the notion of the speaker being in a dream, I used it's Hindi equivalent (or so I thought) in this manner:
"Koi mujhe chimto!!" ("Somebody give me a hug!")
Well, Chimti is the Hindi equivalent of "Pinch", so I assumed that Chimto would be its apt variation to be used in the sentence.
What ensued was people laughing out loud and pulling my leg to no end. Ouch!
Needless to say, there was no need for me getting either the Chimti or Chimtoed :D
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4 weeks ago, on a cold January morning, I made my way towards the A-lobby first floor bathroom juggling my bucket, a pair of jeans, a turtle-neck t-shirt, a towel, undergarments, and a denim jacket (it was so friggin' cold that you can't imagine walking out after a bath without at least 3 layers of clothing :P).
Finding a couple of friends chatting in the corridor near the bathrooms, I inquired of them in Hindi as to the availability of hot water in the bathrooms' geyser.
My exact words were: "गर्म पानी आ रही है?" ("Garam paani aa rahi hai?")
Voila! The guys burst out laughing! LOL!
Apparently hot water in Hindi is a male, so I should've enquired:
"गर्म पानी आ रहा है?" ("Garam paani aa raha hai?")
Soon, a mini crowd assembled there to discover what the hullabaloo was all about.
Discovering the source of the entertainment, everyone stayed back, and lots of jokes were cracked about my Hindi.
I added insult to my own injury by trying to project my learning about hot water onto the flow of a river.
I said, "Ok! I got it. So the Hindi version of "The river is flowing" should be नदी बह रहा है ("Nadii beh rahi hai?")."
Everyone burst out laughing again! I was informed about rivers being females in Hindi. Arghhhh!
So the correct sentence would be "नदी बह रही है" ("Nadii beh rahi hai?")
This, and a lots of other bloopers of mine were discussed for over 30 minutes.
People definitely had a good laugh!
But till the end I didn't get the answer to my original question: whether there was any hot water or not?! :P
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Of late a friend informed me that the hindi word "Sangharsh" means "Struggle"!
Till now I thought it meant "To succeed"...
No wonder people always stared at me (probably impressed with surprise?!) when after they asked me:
"Beta, zindagi me kya karna chahte ho?" ("Son, what do you wish to do in life?"),
I used to reply coolly:
"Sangharsh karna chahta hoon" ("I wish to struggle!")
No wonder God listened to my so called wish, and I'm an eternal struggler :P
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Many more such incidents errr accidents, but I will publish them sometime later!
Meanwhile, a dear friend is teaching me Hindi... unless of course I'm ruining her command over it :P
Be back with more in a future post...
Till then, Kripya dhairya rakhein :P
(I meant to say, "Please have patience"... please tell me I didn't goof up this time round too!!)
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