Mulgi Shikli Pragati Zhali – I

When I shifted to Mumbai, little did I know I would be showered by such pleasant surprises on a day-to-day basis.

Right from its rains to local trains,

Missing zebra crossings to manners of road crossing,

Never ending road repairs to state of affairs

Life so vibrant, people so resilient

Ganpati Visarjan to Navratri Dandiyas,

The Hindi jargon to to to (Oh, forget it)... Oh, everything was so very different.

Wow ! It was going to be fun filled Mumbai for someone as remotely connected to it as me. I was enthralled by its powerfully diverse eloquence. Today I will talk about only one of those - the language… the Mumbaiya bhasha that has fascinated me immensely.

There are many instances, which made me look bamboozled. Here, I have jotted down some of them.

Well, to start with, even before coming to Mumbai, I was aware that some of the kitchen stuff / vegetables are called differently in Mumbai like Potato/onion are batata/kanda, salt is meeth. Egg would become baida and pyaaz ke pakode would be nicely replaced by kanda bajjiya’s …so far so good, I could deal with them easily on daily basis.

But hold on.... there was a lot more in store for me.

Once our maid forgot to bring her umbrella. “Subah subah ghaai mein bhool gayi”. Ghaai??? Or was it ghia? But then ghia also didn’t make any sense here. Ghia happens to be a vegetable in north India. How could she forget her umbrella in a vegetable? Maybe a slip of tongue. I gave some work to my ever-alert brains. Oh I see, all she wanted to say that she left it in a vegetable shop while buying ghia. I pat myself for having such a presence of mind.

One morning my colleague came panting to the office. “Train mein kitna Gardi tha aaj”. Gardi???

Darn!! Here comes another alien word for me. But I don’t give up so easily. Being an introvert, instead of asking him what is he talking about, I coaxed my smart brains to start working again.

Hmmm hmm hmm “Garmi” & “Sardi” are two weather conditions I know and maybe this “Gardi” was somewhere between them. I rolled my eyes with utmost joy. Yessss, I had guessed it right. So, they call it “Gardi”. How sweet of Mumbai people to think of such a lovely intermediate name.

Gardi = (Garmi + Sardi) + a touch of Humidi(ty).

My seventh sense reconfirmed my logic. Oh, if only I had applied my logical brains while programming, I would have got double promotions all the time (My eyes are now set for PM’s post).

Ok ok, come to the point now. So, that’s why this poor guy is panting so heavily. I smiled back to him “Yeah, aajkal bahot gardi hai, especially in this monsoon season”. He gave me a strange look, without uttering a word.

Nevertheless, I was amazingly surprised at my intelligence level and grasping power. I congratulated myself at the rate I was picking up the local vocab. My confidence level had reached a new height.

Recently, when employing the new maid, I did my two-bit to ask her a few questions. Confidently I asked “Kya-kya karogi?” Among other things, she made gesture of folding clothes and said “Kapde ka Ghadi lagake rakhegi”.

Ghadi??? Oh ok, she’d fold the clothes on time. Eh? What’s the big deal? She has to do it anyways on time or else why on earth are we paying her so much? Being a Sunday I was home and my mother thanked me for my presence at that moment; she couldn’t have handled this kind of interpretation alone. Brainy me. :))

To be continued…

Current song- Chookar Mere Man ko, Kiya Tune Kya Ishara – Kishore