The rain on your parade

language is what defines a race. slang-uage is what defines the rat race.

my grandfather hopped on to a train heading home to lucknow from delhi. he was ten. he was also only the third person in the carriage; the other two being an elderly pair of lucknavi ladies busy gossiping about the people who had also attended the wedding they were returning from. this was as standard fare conversation back in 1909 as it is today in 2009. at some point in the journey a british lawyer also entered the carriage,  noticeable only because his face was riddled with smallpox scars and was supposedly as ugly as it gets. the ladies gave him a scornful glance and one said, “ay hay, bajia, ye gora kambakht kitna badsoorat hai. kabhi pehlay aisa na dekha“. at this point, my granddad interjected, “kabhi kabhi sheerazion mein bhi phulka nikal aata hai“. the ladies looked at him and burst out laughing and asked him which part of lucknow he was from.

i assume you are as clueless as i was when i was told this tale of the deductive powers of the old ladies in guessing my grandfather’s city of origin. apparently it was the reference to the two species of pigeons (the sheerazis are a pure white breed and the phulka is a twin-coloured type, usually white with patches of black, gray or brown) that gave him away – pigeons being one of the four interests of highly succesful lucknavis (the others were kite flying, poetry and mujras).

38 years after this incident, partition happened.

and it so transpired that in the melting pot that is karachi came people who claimed to speak the same language but would debate for generations whether the right word for thread is taaga or dhaaga. the story is told of the muhajir and the sindhi who were having a heated argument at a tea shop when a bengali stepped in to calm them down. the muhajir guy says to the bengali, “yaar tu hee faisla kar de. bulbul bolti hai ya bolta hai?“; to which the bengali responded “saabji, bulbul to bolay hoon“. and not only did all these guys come in to karachi but – urdu, by and large, being the lingua franca – in the inclusivist spirit that only speakers of a language with as diversified roots as urdu could have; they kept on absorbing words from other cultures right into their dailyspeak.

today, the streets of karachi echo with the sounds of a language which ghalib or iqbal would never figure out. no poet worth mentioning has ever, to the best of my knowledge, had found occasion to refer to a good thing as lush. or set. or tight. or ing-lish. or oodham. or anth. or cheeti. or several other synonyms that come to mind. but this is what it has come to.

so 99 years after he had wowed two unknown old ladies with his pop culture references in a world still coloured sepia in my imagination of it; my granddad’s grandson found himself seated behind couple of teens in a hospital cafeteria at 3:30 am. they were discussing the two cute med students who had stepped in for a tea break.

“yaar, copy check kar”

“abay ye to sirf a plus hain, fine leg pe dekh – position holder khari hai.”

this of course was not impossible to grasp. virtually everyone in karachi can understand a reference to the examination system and to cricket. (for the record – i didn’t agree with the rating. she wasn’t bad but not a position holder by a long shot). later in the day, i was at the gas station waiting for the guy in front of me to get done with the air hose for his tyres but he was having some difficulty in deciphering the code that the puncture wala was using. admittedly, “aira vaal daddy leak hai” isn’t easy but the fact that the guy couldn’t figure out that he was being told that the valve was leaking came as something of an eye opener. apparently, there are people in karachi who haven’t mastered the local dialect and so it follows naturally that there are people in the rest of our pure motherland who think that karachiites are aliens (and not just in the “muhajir” sense of the word).

i have therefore compiled a short list of slang words here which i intend to increase with your contributions till it becomes urdu’s answer to urban dictionary. ok, maybe thats going too far. but you get the idea. for someone looking for a conventional urdu dictionary online there is a very cool thing on crulp if you know your urdu alphabet.

 andhi: literally the feminine adjective for “blind”; the word is used to describe a situation of no accountability. you have effectively established an andhi if you do as you please with no concern for anyone else. e.g. andhi lagee huee hai na – hamid jaisa chumpoo bhi loot ker chala jaata hai.

bharam: i’m not sure if there is an english equivalent  but the closest literal meaning would be “face” as in not willing to lose face etc. however, that is not how it is used on the street and in the ‘hood. here the word is more closely corresponding with “attitude”. as in hamid se baat karna bekaar hai, uske bharam khatam hee nahin hotay. the verb form is bharam maarna or bharam karana and the less commonly used superlative is nangay bharam.

chamaar: literally a leather worker, the word is used as an insult meaning imbecile or moron. e.g. hamid, yaar, tu bhi chamaar hai, pehlay nahin bata saktay they?

dhakkan: literally a top or lid, it is used almost exactly as the above term. e.g. hamid, yaar, tu sirf chamaar nahin hai. eik number ka dhakkan hai. pehlay nahin bata saktay they?

english or inglish: this refers to something cool. because something can only be cool or stylish if its imported from the former masters. e.g. hamid hai to dhakkan, magar kitting buhut english kerta hai.

gathering: almost what it means in english. it is used to mean your social circle. hamid ne buhut jaldee un donon ke sath gathering bana lee hai.

hagga: its kind of embarassing to know this – but, after all, we do come from a culture that spawned the inimitable chirkeen – but a hagga literally would be a turd. it is used to mean blunder. e.g. hamid ne bhi kya hagga maara, farzeen ko us ke bhai ke saamne line kara dee.

kuppee: desi moonshine. illegal, homemade brew. also known as tharra. hamid apni gathering ke sath pul ke neechay kuppee peeta hai.

line maarna or line karana: probably a distortion of some forgotten english colloquialism it means, quite simply, to flirt. eg. hamid roz st. joseph ke bahar khara ho ker bachiyon ko line maarta hai.

maimoona: a girlfriend. drawn from – as far as i can figure out – anwar maqsood and moeen akhter’s wisecracks about a memon guy’s wife almost always being called maimoona way back in the days of studio ponay teen. e.g. abay scene sun! hamid apni maimoona ko bike per juice pilanay laya tha aur wahan hum se takar gaya. ha ha ha!

this series will be continued some day. i will need your contributions, so please, please add them in your comments.