Be proud of your accent

Now the above topic is an old cliché, which has been abused to no extent. However, yours truly finds it pretty amusing to use it in his blog again. Well the incidents that made me write on this topic are equally amusing. Once we were having a discussion on the latest gossip in Bollywood. I pronounce Bolly in Bollywood with a vertical O, like in Hole or Toll, because of my Mallu (Malayali / Keralite) roots, while the experts with a Doctorate in English in our midst pronounce it with a lateral ‘Auh’ like in Ball, hence Ballywood. So, the moment I said Bóllywood, my friend laughs her heart out and quips “You have such a Mallu accent”. Though the quip about Mallu accent is always offered in good humour, the undertone of ridicule and sarcasm therein is evident only if you are born in the land of the Ko-Ko-nut (Coconut) trees. Well, that was that. However, a couple of days later the same group meets up with the addition of a French guy who was visiting. The bloke was describing his happy weekend in Goa and goes “Hadz ziz wonderfool time. Lots of beerz on the bitch”. Though it took me a couple of seconds to realise that the guy intended to convey that he had a lot of beers on the beach, my English professori friend was crooning about how sexy his accent is. Sexy!! Really? The dork can’t put a sentence together, for chrissakes! So what makes his half baked English sexy while my more-so-fully-baked English (with the exception of the ignominious “O”) deserving of a belly-roll?

Is it the innate habit of patronising anything and everything that comes from across the border or a sense of inadequacy within? Either ways, the result is the same. Accent bashing! For a Gujarati - Coke is always Cock, for a person from Andhra or Telangana - Worst is Warasttt, for a Tamilian - Raw is Raa. But this difference in pronunciations lends its roots to the excess of spoken languages in India. There are 22 scheduled languages according to the Constitution. In addition there are other 1600 languages, some of which originated outside India. To add to the variety, each language is spoken in various dialects in the 29 different states in the country. We are one of the few people of the world who can boast of such diversity in the first place. Hence, a slight skew in pronunciation deserves a pardon! Even if you go global, for the Japanese – Free size is Furii Saizu, for the Americans – Sheikh is Sheeekh, for the Thai – friend is flend, for the Russians – alcohol is alkagol.

Coming back to the land of the Kokonut trees, the next time you decide to poke at me about my Oh-so-Mallu-accent, I will stuff your mouth with banana chibs and pack you off to my ungel in the gelf! Non-mallus, please read chibs = chips, ungel = uncle, gelf = gulf (predominantly Dubai but does not exclude the other Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and some other places in the Gelf!

As to what I find sexy? Penelope Cruz swearing at Jack Sparrow at the top of her voice in Spanish in the last scene of that movie Pirates of the Caribbean - On Stranger Tides ;)

High time we gave 'It' the respect it deserves

The inspiration for this thought came from various events. Events where people took offence to a living breathing being referred to with the pronoun “IT”. For example, in my earlier blog, I referred to the baby in the womb as It. A friend of mine referred to a doggy as It. Now why is IT denounced as a pronoun which should be used to refer only to things, objects, non-living and unimportant on the emotional scale (somehow not the material scale. Your diamond necklace? IT is so beautiful! Thank god that didn’t change)

Now why has the word IT been dropped a couple of notches on the respect scale? Let us go to the roots of this word. IT originated when the Old English pronoun Hit (meaning He in modern English) which was gender specific got merged with the proto-Germanic Het to produce a neuter pronoun It. Leaving all the etymological boutros boutros aside, I find the word IT the purest form of reference. It is gender neutral, it is devoid of discrimination of any kind being it caste, creed, origin, colour, size, shape or any other distinguishing parameter that pops in your mind. The English version “IT” is even more pronounced in its purity as compared to other languages like French where the speaker needs to distinguish between an il and an elle depending upon gender used in the context.

Now let us ask ourselves a few questions to demonstrate why IT is a hero. Would we refer to the Soul as a he or a she or worse still something, somebody or anybody? We won’t, because it is the purest form of existence. Old timers would refer to a higher power or the unknown with an IT not with a gender specific pronoun or a name. On a lighter note, ask a kid to narrate the line from the comic series Superman when the super hero is spotted. The line goes – It’s a bird...It’s a plane...It’s Superman! It is not - It’s a bird...It’s a plane...He’s Superman! We have not paid attention to that tiny little detail, have we? If we had, we would have fretted and fumed about what a grave insult we did to the suave superhero by referring to him with that despicable lowly “IT”.

The thought I want to incept into your minds is that every word has an intent and value. Just like beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, the respect in a sentence lies on the tongue of the speaker. One can use the sweetest of adjectives but still spit venom at the same time. Therefore, “It” does not necessarily mean a non-living, non-feeling, lowly object. It can simply mean the purest, unprejudiced, non-discriminatory being.

So it is time we give IT the respect it deserves or else we will always blame IT for our prejudiced outlook until it is too late to realise that IT was not to be blamed! (Did I just use IT six times in that sentence?!!!)

As for the baby in the womb, I would let it enjoy those months of bliss before it is welcomed to our prejudiced world as a he or a she!

The Gastronomical Bond

What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word ‘FOOD’? I bet your thoughts will be far different from the thoughts of the Neanderthal man (may I simply call him Nandy). For Nandy, food was equivalent to survival as were water and shelter. Nandy never bothered to prepare a balsamic reduction to accompany his wild boar or gold roast his spatchcock. For him it was concise and crisp – hunt, kill (if not already dead), put over fire, eat! However, in today’s world of Nouvelle cuisine there is so much Master-chef mania in the air, that children may as well sous-vide their carrots and greens before having them. Whatever is the case, or the era of human evolution, food has always been a binding force, the glue which kept societies together.

Breaking bread is a phrase which is often used and which symbolizes the practice of sharing food to solemnise a meal. Though the name I believe lends its origin to the Christian Eucharist or the Lord’s Supper as it is more popularly referred to, the practice cuts across all religions, cultures and geographies. For example, the Japanese have a similar practice called the Kagami Mochi or the breaking of the Mochi, which refers to opening a bottle of Sake at a party or ceremony. Now that we have broken bread and broken open a bottle of drink, I guess the ice for the drink should preferably come from the term ‘Breaking the Ice’! The practice of offering a meal to a guest at one’s home symbolises acceptance of the guest into the household and the building of a deeper bond between the two people.

It goes without saying that the variety of cuisine across the globe is mind-boggling. However, on a closer look we will be amazed to see dishes in two distinct countries resemble each other as if the origins of the two were the same. A Falafel in the Middle-East is a distant cousin of the Parippuvada of South India. A Kati Roll of Kolkata in India is related to a Mexican Burrito or a Lebanese Shawarma. A Tibetan Momo is akin to a Chinese Wonton just like an Aegean Kakavia which is a Greek fish stew is another form of Bouillabaisse from Marseille. These are just the tip of a gastronomical iceberg!

So I conclude by asking you of a favour this time. Next time you sit down for a meal, remember another person on another continent is cherishing a meal which is very similar to yours and enjoy every morsel of the food on the plate without forking it down your throat or wasting any of it. Also, if you have any excess, do share some. It will help build a gastronomical bond with someone.  Because, only Nandy knew how difficult it was to get his meal. Now, we can’t go back and ask him. Can we?