Showing posts with label indian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label indian. Show all posts

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Indlish

Some 60 years ago, when the British left India, they did not realize the blunder they had made during that time. They taught us English. I now wonder why Mr. Blair gets so upset about getting a sales call from Mr. Kumar in Bangalore. Afterall, Kumar spent a good part of his childhood education learning English so as to make a living by calling Mr. Blair. The British had created an elite class of English speakers during their rule in India to administer the empire. Even today in India, if you are good at making English jokes, you are a dude, otherwise a yarr (pal). However, over the last decade or two, there is another language that is flourishing, though out of frustration, among not-so-dude Indians. These youngsters, who have tried their best in life, but failed, to learn the nitty-gritties of English grammar, have created an indigenous English called Indlish.
Indlish varies across different regions in India based on the local language. In the north, it is Hinglish, a hybrid of Hindi (the local language) and English; in my home state, it is Punglish from Punjabi. The way ‘Indlish’ works is that when an Indian struggles to find the appropriate noun/verb/adjective to complete an English sentence, they finish it with an Indianized word. Sometimes, they use English words to complete sentences in their local language. However, it is now a common trend on college campuses to use such words.
Some words are quite common like ‘timepass’ (Kill time)or ‘timewaste’ (to not utilize time appropriately). I believe ‘tension’ is one of the most commonly used words by non-English speakers in India, like my grandmother who speaks Punglish, ‘Put tension hee te bimari di jaad hai’(tension is the root of diseases). However, there are some English words which she has had difficulty in pronouncing like inverter, a power backup system in India. She settled with an alternative in Punglish, hor-power (more-power). In India, you never address someone older than you by his/her first or last name or you could be badly scolded by somebody. It is considered very disrespectful. Every person who looks significantly older than you is called AuntyJi or UncleJi, where Ji is the most widely used suffix in North India. The Ji at the end signifies respect. If you are being extremely respectful to someone, you may call him/her SirJi/MadamJi.
In one of my courses during my first semester at Tech, a professor spoke, very fluently in a language similar to English; later on, a friend of mine told me that I was listening to the American English. I liked his style of teaching, cracking jokes in between the lecture to make it interactive. Because of his accent, I often missed the transition from his lecture to his joke, so lagged in laughing. Watching American movies (not porn) helps a lot in getting the hang of the American accent, but to my surprise, I found that even they have Americanized the Queen. There were many words, which I heard in movies and during my interaction with fellow Americans, I didn’t find in my Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. I believe it doesn’t matter if the Queen is in jeans or a sari (Indian woman’s dress). English is now the world’s local language. According to Stefan Bergman- it is the bestest.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

What is Arranged-Love Marriage?

In India, in general if you are a girl between 20-25yrs with a college degree,then it is the ripe age to get married,or in case, you are modern (making use of your college degree, I mean earning) then you can buy more time. Similarly for guys, but they have to have some job along with above things.
Traditionally, before any marriage,the parents from both sides would inquire about each other's families through middle man and then sign the deal. There would be very little scope for the guy and the gal to know about each other. That's what is called arranged marriage. You know about your partner after you are married. I know many successful marriages happened this way.
But now at 24, it's my turn, I didn't realize it untill one of my friends got her Mr. Right though a Indian matrimonial websites. I was aware of such sites before, but I never showed interest in understanding their work until a close friend of mine found her finance.
Usually, it would be appalling to some of you, who believe in love or love at first sight. But thinking logically, I found that the probability of finding your love in the young section, between 20yrs -29yrs, of 3billion women population is very bleak. For an open minded Indian (that the term if you are peso-modern/educated)to find a his/her match in his/her caste becomes next to impossible.I came up with a number,200, that the number of girls I interacted in my life who were of same age as I was. Assume 10,000 gals to be the sample space of my true love, the p=.02 which also means that I need to get in touch with rest 9800 women before I turn 30.
It is not about defending or refuting anything about arranged marriage or love marriage but trying to understand how to make the best decision which may not be the right decision.
One of the things I found is that some open-minded parents are giving some space to their children in deciding their life partners. Based on the above calculated probability, it is very difficult for an average Indian guy to find a date in a country where 'SEX' is a taboo(I am not taking about you, who has girlfriend/boyfriend). Some may disagree with it but there is a general mentality in Indian males that a girlfriend can not be a wife.

The new concept is now ARRANGE LOVE. Parents, who have already made a decision on the girl,introduce their son to her in informal ways that neither the gal nor the boy knows about the plan. They interact for some time (months or years) and once they become comfortable with each other, the talk of marriage pops up on the dinner table.
The guy, who is more comfortable with someone he knows, has more probability of choosing her than the unknown ones.

So, this is how arranged love marriage works.

Why? Because we are a developing nation and we are also developing our culture.