DISQUS

ash_rose · 3 years ago

That was vantage sidin!


Welcome back dude ! can c this one becoming the next'travails...'...When it comes to commiserating with fellow southies, u zimply rock..!!

Shruthi · 3 years ago

That was really good! Was wondering if you have really and truly vanished from the face of the earth!


Genders... ugh! :))



Thirty years back, my mom, just learning Hindi, made some really great bloopers:



When the vegetable seller told her that the coriander leaves cost Pacchees(25) paise (this was ages ago, remember) - she said, "Nahin, pachaas(50) paise mein dedo!!"

(She got the two mixed up, poor soul, and thought she was bargaining beautifully!). Thank God my father was around, else, the veg seller would have had a gala time.



Next, when a neighbour called her and asked her what she was doing, she answered "Main Bonda ban rahi hun" :) [I am becoming a Bonda]



Glad you are back, Sidin. Don't vanish again.

Aumkar Nur · 3 years ago

Deadly piece of writing...as usual...
and the gap makes it all the more delicious...

keep it coming Sidin...or as they say in Punjabi...a language u dare not condemn."Aan de.."

Twilight Fairy · 3 years ago

LOL! south indians arent the only ones with such confusions.. bongs too have a bad time with the gender and of course insert the 'au' sound in everything.

Akhilesh Tilotia · 3 years ago

Welcome back dude!
Good new year treat from you! :)

Hitler's soul · 3 years ago

Bahooot accha post likhteee ho aap.:p
That was a real fun read :).

Vidya · 3 years ago

he he very funny post.. really liked it .. Just happened to drop by your blog and found it very interesting..


I liked the 'no sanity-loving young boy will ever woo a hindi-speaking maiden' para best :)



And your are right about the gender thing :D

Ravi · 3 years ago

Once had to say 23 to an autowallah. I forgot who to say it in Hindiand had to quickly reel off the numbers from 1 onwards to 23 ( i had rote-learnt it as third language in class V ) to recall it
:-)



Noodle

Aditi Mukherjee · 3 years ago

If it is any consolation about the French thing, their grammer and gender system is just as bad if not worse than Hindi ;)

indu · 3 years ago

hey sidin ,
gr8 post. being from mallu land,i never learnt to speak hindi till last year. And even now i have no clue about the gender thing. i dont think i will ever have tht:(.

and to top it all, blokes from hindi heartland asks me how i managed to talk to my friends in college without knowin hindi!! i think according to them its the only language that exists in India and all South Indian languages are Tamil including malayalee( the most common word i heard for malayalam after keraleese)

Sushil · 3 years ago

Very funny post. My blooper in a school hindi exam was to forget the word for coconut and writing a line which said "Nar ka pani peene ke liye bahut acha hai" . Unfortunately only late I realized the difference between "Nar" and "Narial"

Archana Mallikarjunan · 3 years ago

rofl! :) CAM! i suffer from the same kana-khana syndrome.. Hail Sothi Languages! :)

Ardra · 3 years ago

so sidin has reappeared on the horizon of blogdom- glad to see you- and hope u don't go dissappearing again- atleast not for so long...
as for the gender thing- I add ka/ki/ke- all three just in case and the hearer canchoose the right one!

and in spite of being mallu- tamil too stumps me at times-

hubby loves to tease me becos I say "naai varaar" with utmost respect- "avar varuthu" with complete disdain- sigh....

Madhu · 3 years ago

ha haa :) knowing most of the story first hand still doesnt take away the fun. :))

nn · 3 years ago

Good one Sidin!


My attempts at "write in your own words" were equally embarrassing. Sentences like 'thavala well me hai" were read out in class...

Lazy strokes · 3 years ago

An oldish Malayalam movie comes to mind...


"Mein Gurkha hu,...err, he, heim"



Pls note that we Mallus never make it to the end of it to pronounce it hoon, haan etc. We get it over with rather quickly and spare the nasal of all the trouble - 'hu', 'he', and 'haiym' are more like it.

anthony · 3 years ago

HAHAHAHAHA..
You just are too much..

Been waiting for your next post here it comes with a bang.



I had put up your Nomenclature Post in my Blog's hall of fame..

Blog's hall of fame..

And now this one is almost as good.

And damn you, i am laughing at work..



SO I asked, Kya Huiii?

Jaycee · 3 years ago

hilarious sidin


nice one for the new year. I remember when i was in fifth i had forgot how to say enough and my freinds mom kept on feeding me till i remembered "bus aunty aur nahi"

Manish Bhatt · 3 years ago

lala is not a relation, yes, but they use lulla (as in Sunil Lulla) for small kids in the family.


And potha, pothi is a telling pronunciation. In north, they have pota, poti, just as they have Kavita (not Kavitha) and Lata (not Latha). Useful tip, that.

Sankalp · 3 years ago

Welcomeback and what a way to end the draught of posts.


Hilarious post!



Main to aap ki kalam chalne ka besabri se intezaar kar raha tha.



I cam speak close to immaculate Hindi even after spending the last 2 years in AP, isnt that an achievement?

nirav · 3 years ago

Nice one. To prevent further discrimination of south indians, some pgp2s have already formed a "Dakshin Bharatiya Hindi Sangathan" in WIMWI.
THe membership would be very high, till one tam gent proposed that others also form a Uttar Bharatiya Tamil Sangathan (or whatever you call that in TAM)

I guess you would be the honorary president, and Total (or Joshua Pereira ..wasnt it) would be the honorary chairman ;)

silverine · 3 years ago

You are perhaps the best humor writer I have come across with a sense of humor that comes so naturally. There is absolutely no effort used to reel off incidents, observations and descriptions. Such talent is rare. This made hilarious reading.

hs · 3 years ago

'Pothi', incidentally is used to denote a big book (heavy one and/or revered/religious/important). And yes, it also has a gender - F.

Thanu · 3 years ago

Oh I have done the sade ek.


Then again I can speak hindi better than any hindi native, speaks Malayalam



And my friend makes me proud.

Sagar Rastogi · 3 years ago

my mothertongue is Hindi, so enjoyed it even more >:) Hilarious!

abhijit · 3 years ago

That was a well-written post. I took French in school. French is somewhat similar to Hindi in the sense that it has got words to address people respectfully, unlike English where everyone is referred to as "you".


French also has accents placed above and below letters to differentiate the sounds.



All in all its equally confusing.

Shyam · 3 years ago

Oh jeez... I laughed so much because I identified with the Hindi learning SOOOOOOOO damn much! :)

S.Mohan Raj · 3 years ago

Sidin back with a bang! I instantly identified myself here. On my first visit to the North from Chennai I was made fun of for pronouncing "Khaana" as "Kaana" and "Singh" as "Sing". And I still have the confusion as to which non-living thing in Hindi is "aa raha hai" and which is "aa rahi hai".


Paani sounded very much like Rani, so i asked somebody in my hostel "Pani aa rahi hai kya?" "Paani nahi aa raha" was the instant riposte. Fax does rhyme with Max, pity one has to do a sex change surgery to make it female.



Coupled with that you have enough local styles like "Aapne jaana kahan hai" which has a Punjabi accent. "Aap kya pasand keejiyega? or Kaun Mohalla" in Bihari style or "Tanne samajh na aave?" in chaste Haryanvi. All these are too much for an unsuspecting Madrasi who already has to pump out enough air from his belly to pronounce "Khaana" and "Thali" and "Singh".

Akshay Raut · 3 years ago

Man I so agree with you. I am a Maharashtrian. And although we are a tad bit better than you mallus when it comes to our lingual skills in Hindi, it is not something to write home about. And what we usually end up speaking is a concoction of hindi framework with embedded marathi words.

VC · 3 years ago

Awesome! Back with a bang!
Reminded me of the guy who said 'ande ki maathaa chahiye' at a restaurant.

Vipul Kedia · 3 years ago

Great post Sidin, back after a long long time


Vipul

chill · 3 years ago

that was one fantastic piece. I can see it enter the echelons of fame like the south indian names bit.
Keep rocking on...

Anusha Parthasarathy · 3 years ago

Thats a real good post Sidin. Welcome back. Missed your posts for a long time. I too had problems with Hindi but managed to get good scores and learnt the language pretty well inspite of being in chennai. I remember when once my hindi teacher asked me "Who is Harivansh Rai Bachchan?" Pat came the reply " He is Amitabh Bachchan's father"
She got so upset with me nad later drove the daylights out of me...

Poor dame! she had expected me to say that he was the writer of "Madhushaala"...:))

Anusha Parthasarathy · 3 years ago

VC


Are you talking about the guy from malluland who said this???



I have this friend whose father is known to have said this at a restaurant...Infact this friend told me that he referred to "Swimming pool" as " Paani Mein Ghoomna thing "



Hee ! Hee !!

ritzkini · 3 years ago

back with a vengeance,eh ?
=))

ulti dude !

*i meant ulti in english,not matrabhasha hindi !*

:)

Surya Ragunaathan · 3 years ago

hey, first timer on ur blog...excellent! hilarious! ur post reminded me of my dad's hatred for Hindi...he works with a PSU bank...once while talking to a customer, he happend to ask, "aapka kaata kidhar hai?"(Khaatha - account)...hehe, he's given up on his attempts...btw, u r one amongst the top 5 here, chk it out - www.sanityunstuck.blogspot.com (his is a good blog to read as well)
cheers!!

siddharth · 3 years ago

great post sidin..

Maverick · 3 years ago

Ha ha haaaa...you are on rampage once again....

Ramesh · 3 years ago

Awesome post Sidin...the freaking bhajji thing is so damn familiar..yeah, it means the same in gult too :-) Be a lil careful when ur addressing a surd and have a tam/gult around you..they would laugh their heads off indeed.

mm · 3 years ago

Sidinboy,i feel u should now be writing a book called "my experiments with hindi"..u have written about this in ur ealier blogs too..i remember.And this post was well worth the wait..
Long Live Sidin!!

Venky · 3 years ago

awesome one sidin!!
and.. how much i can relate to this...

i remember this incident a few years ago when I wanted to visit the top floor of a high rise in Bangalore to get a view of the city- i was stopped in the lift by the sincere guard and asked where i wanted to go and why (it was a government office building). And putting my Hindi to test i said "dikhane ke liye uppar ja raha hoon" (i intened saying "dekhne ke liye") It took me a few years to realise why the guard looked so shocked..

Nina · 3 years ago

Rule South India!
My dad went to Delhi to study not knowing a word of Hindi, and therefore a constant source of amusement to his friends. He once saw a poster for the movie 'Des Pardes' and excitedly told his friends that a new English movie called 'Desparadoes' had come out...

A friend once said this: 'Mujhe ek lakdi pakao'- he meant 'Mujhe ek ladki patao'.

And my printer once threw a piece of metal at me (I swear!)

flaashgordon · 3 years ago

Sidin Aliyo!


Tood good !



Reminds me of the time when one who went to buy a rope for tying a clothesline at a multi purpose store and asks. " Ek Rassi milegaa?". The shopkeeper replies. "Lassi nahi hain, Chhaas chalegaa?" ...



Well , there's that and more in my own post on the same topic (Rukavat ke liye Raved (i mean khed) hai' . Just click on my name.........

Queer · 3 years ago

Holy Cow....that was wicked!!! My brother has the same exact problem!!! Sorry dude....but the end of it, I was rolling! Good piece

Aslan · 3 years ago

pure genius d00d. talk abt bein' the voice of the public. i'm sure any true blue mallu who studied in an REC can relate perfectly to this.. i for one can. thank god all this happened back in college. 4 yrs there didn't further my technical knowledge, but it sure gave me what 8 yrs of CBSE (course A) hindi textbooks cudn't. 1st milestone was crossed on 1/1/06 when the guy at the anjuna beach shack asked me "aap mumbai se ho?" - 2nd milestone wud be when i pattafy a northie gal. ;) methinks its high time i embarked on that mission! :p

Aslan · 3 years ago

n' my here's my contrib to the blooper list: i went one beyond the sade ek phenomenon. a guy asked me "time kya hai?" n' i replied, "ded baje ho gaya" n' the frustrating tittering.. but he had the sense to correct me "ded baj gaye/gaya/gayi..." :-o

Udita · 3 years ago

!!! this post was soo funny...we used to have a Mallu in our batch and one of the hindi speaking girl would goto him and start blabbering in hindi...we just used to love the confused expression on his face...after an yr he was frustrated at amount of hindi he had picked up without even trying...but i find these goofups endearingly funny..may be even a southie would love if we mess up tamil or malyalam in such cute manner...:)..great post

Manoj Pillai · 3 years ago

Awesome post man.
Really Booker prize material.

:-)



-Manoj.

Sridevi · 3 years ago

Well, look at it this way- the North Indians ought to be proud of us, and congratulate us, instead of laughing. They know only English and Hindi, and it's absolutely hilarious listening to them pronounce even a single Tam or Mally word. Whereas, we southies know English, mother tongue (Tam/ Mallu/ Gult) and can manage to convey meaning in a HIndi conversation. The northies actually have it real easy. We ought to be proud of ourselves, instead of feeling bad that we atleast attempt to learn a new language- they don't even try!

PS · 3 years ago

Too hilarious.. am ROTFL.


Some of the bloopers mentioned in the comments were hilarious too. Reminded me of this undergrad classmate of mine who knows zero hindi and his many bloopers.

Once he wanted to scold a guy in Hindi and he knows only abuses in Hindi, so asked someone whats Hindi for come here.

He ended scolding the dude "Idhar Aiye Behenchod" :))

Sanjay · 3 years ago

hmmm... That reminded me that Hindi of today is composed of hindi, urdu, persian and lots and lots of local dialects prevelant during middle ages. To appreciate it one would have to actually end up learning all the rest of the languages.


Just like we go to our house but we never go to our home but simply go home. Why? Find out from the English, or the saxons or the greeks or the latins.



Well, there was a similar article at school by a padre who doubled as a school teacher on English. And he analysed the nuances of the English language with an apaling humour! Kudos to you who has struggled and mastered a language not closely associated with the mother tongue and have the spirit left to site off the nitty-gritties. Good post indeed!

Kavita · 3 years ago

Fantastic piece of writing!! Just too good :o)


Cheers,

Kavita

nerdie · 3 years ago

Hey,,sidin,,
thats a great blog man!!!

I was laughing my head off on that!!! I have a number a mallu frnds and they also face the same kind of problems......It was a good post sidin....

dazedandconfused · 3 years ago

Wow! The funniest blog I have read so far. Its going to be really tough to update my own blog with any real sense of satisfaction.
One of my Tam batchmates from Erode, admitted during his ragging ordeal that "Bhains" meant money. So there he was giving a speech on 'money' in Hindi which went like,

"Hum sab Bhains kamane aaya hai"

and

"Sabko bhains milna hai"...

Yup. Me too tam grew up in delhi-learnt Hindi weekdays-from calendar guy.

Siddhu · 3 years ago

Screw hindi!!


Being a mallu, I have suffered a similar fate al my life! :P



Until now when some idiot makes fun of my hindi genders, I turn to him and make fun of his english pronunciation and grammar. Yields instant results! Try it out sometime. Works with 99.9% of hindi speakers!

samudrika · 3 years ago

the weekly Hindi movie on TV


You mean channel 33 on thrusday night perhaps? ;) When someone says annual trips to India, growing up in a muslim country, when eid mubarak is wished in the same vein(maybe more) as happy diwali, you know that you have met one of those mixed up souls who grew up in the Middle East.



I like your writing. Keep up the good job. Would love to read something about life in the UAE.



p.s. I started my schooling in Abu Dhabi Indian School too.

Rajesh J Advani · 3 years ago

I hear you! :)


A "North-Indian" (A term used by people in Tamil Nadu to refer to everyone who doesn't belong to the 4 "South-Indian" states) tends to have the same problem in Chennai, though.



There's three different pronunciations for "n", but "p", "ph", "b" and "bh" are represented by the same letter of the alphabet. Same for "T", "Th", "D", "Dh". I _could_ go on. But I won't.

sunshine · 3 years ago

he he... have you seen the movie "chupke chupke" starring dharmendra, amitabh, sharmila, jaya? Am sure many a fluent hindi speaking people wouldn't understand the "shuddh hindi" terms spoken there. Ever imagined a steam engine could be called lauha path gami agneerath (the fire chariot that moves on iron tracks)?


and that hilarious shayari of james-



aaj baagon mein khilenga ek gulaab

de saqi pila de pila de pila de ek gilaas julaab.



hope u know what julaab is... he he.

Meg · 3 years ago

I LOVED your post! (I've actually just read back from August to here) It reminds me of my troubles with Mandarin (haha the white girl said "undercooked" which sounds like "able-to-get-pregnant" hahaha)

Manoj · 3 years ago

This is one really funny post.
I re-read it today, and I still laughed a lot.

Very good stuff.

-Manoj(Walk2Rem)

Archana · 1 year ago

Hehhhwhawhahaa, But must admit... Even with the limitations you managed to thwart the conspiracy and get yourself a punju sasuraal... Some determination that! :)

Swathi · 5 months ago

Great Sidin!!! I couldn't stop laughing.