The rain on your parade

buhut chaas lagee hai yaar November 5, 2009

Posted by Xill-e-Ilahi in lingo, people, social, urdu.
5 comments

this post is intended to be a sequel to inglish cheetay.

one of the few drawbacks to being from karachi, apart from the fact that there is no real urdu version for the term “karachiite” – though “karachvi” would be the linguistically appropriate word – is the problem that you don’t really fit in if you don’t drink tea. not that tea is a homegrown concept. its one of the enduring vestiges of colonialist times like cricket, gora complex and the design of the suzuki mehran. but tea has become so entrenched in karachiite lifestyle that it forms an essential part of family life, social ettiquette and business for the advertising industry (the tea wars are far more severe than the famed cola wars of the west). such is the common addiction to tea that most karachiites above thirty, no matter how they might feel about the rest of the white race, would probably excuse sir thomas lipton from the fishaar-e-qabr if they were given the option to.

of course, such an obsession spawned a new vocabulary. we have all heard of doodh patti and karak. bollywood introduced us to cutting. evn the most illiterate and underexposed street kid on a karachi street is aware of what bag wali chai is. and this brought the word “chaas” into existence. a combination of pyaas (thirst) and chai (tea), it is used to denote a strong desire to have a cup of tea and usually strikes a person with extreme severity after meals and at the times of 11 a.m. and 4 p.m.

without too much ado, i would like to present the second (and very belated) instalment of karachi’s own version of an urban dictionary.

hut jaana also tap jaana, bhin hona, bhinnot ho jana, meter ghoom jaana, sitak jaana, pin ho jana, and sulag jaana: the term is used to denote entirely the same sentiment as the english term “pissed off”. the usage is elementary – hamid ko mat chhairo, us ki buhut jaldee hut jatee hai.

tafreeh laina or simply laina (with the past tense tafreeh lay lee or lay lee): not to be confused with the rather more obscene laina as it is used in northern punjab this refers to cracking a joke at someone’s expense, making fun of someone or making someone look like a fool after playing a prank on them or doing something calculated to tease them. e.g. hamid ki laina buut aasaan hai, bus woh bunyaan wali baat yaad dila do.

chhoka: literally a boundary (4 runs) scored in cricket, it refers to a choice wisecrack which is likely to be remembered and frequently quoted. it normally follows what is known as a loose ball (a statement that could be liable to much ridicule) much the same way as it would in a real game of cricket. e.g hamid bhi itni loose ball karata hai, bacha bacha chhoka maar ker us ki lay leta hai.

chikna (superlative = madan chikna): no karachiite should call him/herself a karachiite without knowing what this means. literally meaning slick (the normal use not the slang use), it is used to refer to something cool, nice, desirable or hot. if used to describe a man it is complimentary and if used to describe a woman it is rude, risque and somewhat derogatory in the sense that it completely objectifies the female. not to be used when addressing your girlfriend. as in yaar, hamid jaisay chumpoo nay itnee chiknee bandi kaisay pata lee?

tight: a slightly more polished version of chikna, it is closely related to the north punjabi “fit“. used when being appreciative of something or someone, as in hamid, yaar, aaj tu nay baree tight kitting ki hai, koi bachi se setting chal rahi hai kya?

set: well. picked from the english “all set” it has become very popular as a cheery enquiry about someone’s health and conditions, in the question form of “sab set hai?” the term acquired even more prominence after  a sitcom called sab set hai hit the airwaves in the first half of the current decade.

setting: not even remotely related to set, it refers to an established romantic relationship between a girl and a boy. hamid ki rukhsana se setting chal rahee hai. the verb form, set karna,  is used to describe the act of courtship. hamid ki setting nahin hai, abhi to rukhsana ko set kernay ki koshish hee kar raha hai magar woh lift nahin kara rahee.

chhanraybaazee: a term slightly hard to decribe in english, it is something between flirting and strutting around to attract a girl’s or several girls’ attention. normally used to refer to the antics of the louts who hang around near the girls’ colleges in the city. hamid aur us ke dost roz rukhsana ke college ke baahir chhaanraybazee kernay puhunch jatay hain.

jaan pe hitler ho jana: a reference to hitler’s notorious regime of terror, it is used to refer to the act of persistent nagging. abay yaar, jub se hamid ko pata chala ke rukhsana ka meray ghar aana jaana hai, jaan pe hitler ho gaya hai ke us ka mobile number day.

chingum ho jana: chingum is the desi pronunciation for chewing gum and the term is drawn from the stickiness of a discraded piece of gum (often a tool for pranks at karachi’s schools). it is used to describe the act of being clingy to someone. rukhsana bata rahee thee ke aaj kal hamid us se bilkul hee chingum ho gaya hai, jaan chura nahi paa rahee hai. a variant is qambal (blanket) ho jana.

inglish cheetay July 28, 2009

Posted by Xill-e-Ilahi in lingo, people, social, urdu.
16 comments

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.