Cookiejh,Jee tv,and Pure Vehhjjjjj..Run!The pronunciation monsters are back in town!

As a child who grew up in a very North Indian environment, I, like many others of our generation were exposed to a lot of butchering of our names.Thus, you have 'Amit' being pronounced as 'Amat', Kapil would become 'kapal' (pronounced like couple) and 'nikhil' would become 'nikhal'. However, this trend was more or less limited to our grandparents, most of whom had migrated after Partition. The reason for this became apparent to me much later on, while I was learning Urdu.You see,in Urdu(or the Nastaliq script,to be precise), there is a general under-emphasis on vowel sounds, especially the short ones. Normally,in everyday writing, people omit the diacritical marks for 'i' or 'u'. One generally has to guess where the 'i's' and the 'u's' are. Now since my grandparents grew up learning Urdu as the primary language for correspondence, it must have begun to subconsciously alter their pronunciations.



Coming back to the present generation, one can make a similar observation about people who pronounce 'z' as 'j'.I find it quite irritating when people say 'cookiej', 'jee tv'', and 'singh ij king'. This habit can be clearly attributed to the shortcomings in the devanagari script. Since the devanagari script doesn't have a proper alphabet for 'z', most people use the 'j' alphabet for that. Although, a 'dot' below the 'j' is used to denote the 'z' sound,it is normally forgotten and thus you have an entire generation of people who say 'hujoor,jee tv pe jakhmi film aa rahi hai' (mom,if you are reading,get the hint).


So as one can see,a script has a significant influence on the pronunciation.This is more true for Indic/Perso Arabic scripts rather than Roman ones.Since English script tends to be uniform(atleast as far as my observations go),one finds a lesser impact of it's script on the pronunciation.

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Oh since we are on this topic, Pune deserves a special mention as far as linguistic genocide is concerned.From Deewhine Raid Rojhejh(Divine Red Roses) to the Pure Vehhhhhjjj(Pure Veg) signboards, Pune is the official burial ground of refined speech in the country.And talking about signboards there was this place 'Anu's beauty parlour' near my house.Remove the apostrophe from the first word.Anu should have thought through.

Modernity,Political Correctness and Progress

One of the prominent phenomenon of our modern times has been the emergence of political correctness.Although political correctness may have a pleasant effect in our increasingly multicultural world,it may have some unforeseen negative influence on slowing the pace of modernism(not to be confused with westernism).Let me explain

If one talks about ancient pagan cults or Greek mythology or the Roman Civilization,you ll find that normally people don't mind calling a spade a spade.So one will have no qualms about calling the Romans blood-thirsty brutes whose form of entertainment may be called absolutely unacceptable by today's standards.However,if we were to use the same logical premise for some of our contemporary customs,people immediately draw their swords at you.Let's say we go ahead in time by 3000 years.Let us assume that by 5000AD,all our present day religions have vanished.Now in such a society,would we shirk away from calling most of our religious texts as nice allegorical tales with little or no factual truth in them.But right now,because of our so called political correctness,most of these texts stay impervious to closer scrutiny.Yes,I agree,any such sort of revelation might cause a tumult in the society(You just can't tell the pope "Look dude!,that Genesis story is nice and all,but it didn't happen").It's like telling a kid that Santa Claus doesn't exist.The difference is,the kid grows up,but the priest doesn't.
But what you can have is a deliberated,well reasoned public discussion,without people jumping to conclusions and branding you as racist/communal/etc.Otherwise,we may just slip into this useless rut of trying to please everybody and not getting anywhere.By,the way,for the record,the shitty author who wrote this is one of the most politically correct jackasses you'll ever come across.But it's nice to contradict oneself,isn't it?

Going Vintage

The other day I saw this documentary on Begum Akhtar.It featured these old records of Begum Akhtar and they were purely mesmerizing.What I noticed that what enhanced their appeal was that they were old recordings,and their was a certain distortion in the recording.The distortion actually gave a charming antiquated effect to the songs.Come to think of it,I would not prefer to listen to Begum Akhtar's songs on a Bose,simply because in their pursuit of improvement, they might destroy the charm.

Another thing similar to this is listening to the radio(not the private ones,but the old government stations).It is sometimes more pleasurable to hear a song on the radio,because of two reasons.One,it is unexpected,so the joy gets doubled.Secondly,the radio produces the same vintage charm that the gramophone or record players did.It has more character.Also,sometimes listening to your favourite song on the radio,in the dead of the night,with only the voice of the RJ(normally Government Radio Jockeys are fluent in Hindustani,unlike the private ones,which adds to the charm) produces that hauntingly romantic effect,just like Ai Ajnabi in Dil Se,with Shahrukh Khan as the jockey,and Manisha Koirala listening to the Radio.

Zulf-e-Nastaliq

The ink leaves my pen,
Undulating like your tresses,

Mirroring the beauty of Nastaliq,
They fall on my shoulders.

The blackness of the letters against the paper
Your hair spread against the splendid sun.

The dots shine against the light
Did I just see a glint in those eyes?

Nastaliq:Urdu Script

Yeh Chanda Kanoon Hai

There's this new show on SAB TV called 'Yeh Chanda Kanoon Hai",featuring actors like Ashif Sheikh, Tikku Talsania, and Juhi Parmar.Although I am not a fan of the SAB comedies(most of them tend to be a part of the overt Punjabi caricature camp,and the others are plain boring),this show has proved to be an exception, especially because of the performance of the actors, and the little quirks in their characters.For eg,Tikku Talsania who plays the judge with a blatant fondness for Juhi Parmar,also has this habit of mispronunciation of Urdu words(yes,my subconscious pro-Urdu bias is at play!).

Let's hope this show continues it's fresh and innovative approach and doesn't fall prey to all those habits which Indian comedies are normally prone to.So far, only Sarabhai and Sarabhai,and Dekh Bhai Dekh have been successful in doing that.Yes Boss was slso good,although I haven't seen it in a long time.Oh,I almost forgot.A special mention to those 2 assistants of the judge(forgot what they are called in Hindustani).They are simply superb.
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My second consecutive non-philosophical article.Three cheers to materialism!

From Television to Idiot Box.From DD to Cable

Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of Doordarshan or rather,television broadcasting in India.On the occassiom,here was a wonderful documentary on DD about the evolution of television in India.There were clips from old time DD productions like Hum Log,Buniyaad,Tamas,Mirza Ghalib etc.
Seeing those clips made me realize the amazing amount of crap that passes as entertainment these days.And also the transition of 'television' to 'idiot box'.How did we move from 'Tamas',which raised the issue of communalism in India,to 'Rakhi ka Swayamwar'.When did interviews by Noam Chomsky get replaced by those of Payal Rohatgi.It's indeed a sad state of affairs.The only kind of people you see on TV today are hyper/boorish/dancing punjabis(and being one myself,I seriously can't tolerate another ounce of pseudo punjabis on TV/films) or funny accented South Indians,overtly traditional women or out rightly evil/westernized vamps.When was the last time you saw an Assamese doctor or a Muslim engineer or a Punjabi intellectual.Why can't TV move out of stereotyping.And yes I agree,private channels have to market to consumers but can't the messages be delivered in a subtle manner.
Until then all I can say is,'Is Jungle se mujhe bachao'

Standing on the precipice,
Walking the tightrope

Between One-ness and Duality
Between existence and non-existence

A tumult reverbrates in this silence,
There is something to this nothingness

An instant is nothing but an illusion
Look!It's the ice melting in the river.