Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Hindi baat

Advance warning: Non-Hindi readers, pl skip post as it turned out to be too long to include translations.

Prologue: Daddy dearest has lived all his life in the land of Tamils except for a brief 11 months stint in training school, BARC at Chembur, Mumbai. Mommy has lived in the north of Vindhyas only vicariously through the Hindi movies of the '70s. Here is a record of some of their Hindi 'Laughter is the best medicine' type stories!
PS: Any movie makers looking for material for a Southie spoof, here are your answers!

Year: 1999; Location: Souvenir shop, Katra (near Jammu, base camp for the Vaishno Devi shrine)
Mommy - Yeh, yeh, yeh, yeh and yeh, kitna?
Shopkeeper: Maaji, sab milaaki pachees.
Mommy: Ennathu? Too much, too much. Pachaas. That's all.
Shopkeeper: Hain???!!!!

Year: 2003; Location: Kolkata
Dad: Tum jaanta Raj hotel?
Cabbie: Nahin saab.
Dad: (waving his hands wildly to indicate right) Yahaan se seedha, (then gesturing to the right) phir seedha, (another right)ek aur seedha, (then left) phir udhar se aisa seedha.
Cabbie: Phew! Main poochta hoon kisi se!

Year: 2008 Location:Mumbai
Postman: Yeh parcel sirf Meera madam ko dena hai
Dad: Woh feeding karta hai. Tum apun to deta hai. Main madam ko feeding baad mein deta hai. Ab deta aur jaata!
Postman: Uh, okay. Sign karo!

Not to be outdone, here are two gaffes of mine which my friends never let me forget. (here's to Kunal and Dips!)

Year: 2001, Location: Puri Beach, early in the morning on new year's
Me: Kunal, sunrise kitna sundar hai. I love the sunrise because mein to beach pe hi ugi thi!

Year: 2002, Location: Gurgaon
[I called my friend and her mom picked up the phone. I thought I'd be polite and enquire about her parents]
Me: Aunty, aap kaise ho? Dipti ke baap kaise hain?

Cheers!

25 comments:

  1. Hilarious, Meera !

    Have to say that your "ugana" on the beach gave tuff competition to your dad's "seedha jao" for the best entry :-)

    Kapil

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  2. Your pati parmeshwar's exploits wityh the language deserve a special post as well.

    ~ramsu

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  3. ROTFL!! I'm in splits! And I thought my parents were bad!! Bong-Hindi is hilarious too!

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  4. LOL! too good...you should send these to reader's digest!

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  5. awesome stuff! :)

    thanks for the laughs Meera! and special hugs for you to be able to laught at yourself!! :)

    cheers!

    abha

    ps: what DID you wanna say when you said Ugi thi?!

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  6. Agree with Kapil-- your ugna and dad's seedha compete for best anecdote. Although I laughed hardest at "deepti ka baap"!

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  7. ha ha... the last one is too funny.

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  8. ROFL.... quite literally ........ the people around me are asking me what happened...

    Deepti ke baap!!!! ha ha ha

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  9. "Dipti ke baap kaise hain?" - ROTFL!! This was THE best!!!

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  10. LOL!!!

    The second incident though, I could repeat myself - always goof up with the lefts and rights with my hand signals! ** hush **

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  11. Thks for this post...I am freshened up now..LOL

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  12. rofl!

    first time here and totally loved ur blog :)

    http://chandni.wordpress.com

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  13. I laughed my plugs out on the last one!!

    My dad had a good one at Delhi Railway station to the Waiting Room clerk who reminded him that he shouldn't leave his bags unattended:

    "Andhar Aallu Hain!!!"

    Aallu - Malayalam for 'person'

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  14. These are too cute, Cuckoo:)

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  15. I still have'nt gotten up from the floor, coz I fell off the chair laughing...
    'Beach pe ugi thi'... thats the best..you must've been a pretty flower...

    LOL!
    The shopkeeper must have minted money that day.. lucky guy!

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  16. U gotta be kidding me... And i thought my Hindi sucked as i flunked even in pre-boards.
    LOL!!!

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  17. Abha: Most of my very good friends are bongs. I know wot u mean- with my bong friend asking a guy in Delhi, "Bhaiya idhar Madh ka dukaan kidhar hai." :)

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  18. Something for you on my blog space

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  19. :D

    just yesterday i was reminding M about this post and you dad offering pachaas for pachees ka maal and we had such a laugh!

    long time no see! trust alls well! how Button doing?! :)

    cheers!

    abha

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  20. dipti ke baap kaise hain???????? hahahahahahahahaahahahah! oh my gawd! that is hilarious!!!!!!

    btw in line with this is the story of a very tall K we both know and who's hindi vocab is restricted to only some very flowery abuses. during his summer internship in delhi someone on the road has asked him
    "bhaisahab, time kitna hua hai"
    "chaar chaalis paanch" says our helpful friend. he of course meant 4:45!!!!
    :) :) :)

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  21. where art thou?? long time no see!

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  22. Hilarious! My dad has made that pachees/ pachaas mistake - only dhai instead of dedh. One of my tambram friends, whenever stranded in the North would plaintively say "Mera Hindi maloon nahin". he claimed that would get a better response than saying it correctly!

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  23. OMG!!!! ROTFL...HILARIOUS!!!! :))

    My neighbor in B'bay was a Christian guy, his hindi wasn't too great too.
    He once asked neighbor #2 "Hey, tumhara AURAT kaisa hai?"
    Neighbor#2 was flabbergasted, he asked "KAUN AURAT??!!!"
    Christian neighbor goes "Arrre, tumhara Biwi"
    Neighbor#2 says "Haan toh waise bolo na" :)

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