How many times have we found ourselves time-traveling during a lecture or a meeting – eyes glazed, and the mind wandering to a faraway space-time coordinate? While such fantasy flights are amusing enough, revisiting every link in the chain of thoughts, tracing them back to the origins, is sheer joy! Trying to establish why, sitting in a Monte Carlo simulation class, I was reminded of my roommate at graduate school in the US, was one such exercise. Monte-Carlo – Spain – Spanish – Mexican food – guacamole - bingo! That was where my dear roomie came into the picture!
Now, as anyone who has been to the US would concur, the first few weeks for an Indian who has no experience watching American sit-coms or movies or listening to western music or just being tuned into the US “culture” is truly a turbulent period, where frequent bouts of speechlessness is an ignominious but inescapable reality. That was an unnecessarily long sentence, but humor me, and replace all the “or” s there with “and” s and you have my friend – as desi as they come; brilliant, great GRE score, in all probabilities a sure-shot Green card candidate, but just not “tuned-in”!
Indians speak fast, and we have a lot of unconventional phrases arising out of thinking in our native languages and transliterating those thoughts into English sentences. From supermarket clerks to graduate school office staff, we all had to face the “what’s that?”, “come again”, “say what” and other such puzzled remarks every time we asked something in our hinglish or tanglish (hinglish approximately captures all Indian accents from the Punjab to the Vindhyas and tanglish everything further south). However, it was my roommate who actually made the ultimate faux pas; on day 2 in the US, he asked directions to the nearest McDonald’s to a woman on the road. What made her step back a little and look at him as if he were a game theory exam, was his pronunciation – “mech do Knawlds”! I had the laugh of my lifetime that evening, recounting the tale to everyone who half-cared to listen.
His trademark south-Indian accent got him into trouble quite often in those early days, much to my secret delight and uncontrollable laughter. His subsequent efforts to force an American accent made for more hilarious moments. Having been a star performer back in Madras, this new phase of uncertainty did unsettle him quite a bit. Introduction to Mexican food made matters worse – an attendant at Taco Bell was on the verge of resigning his job, forced as he was by our man to fix his burrito with an extra helping of “green chillies” (Obviously chili to him meant red meat) and “coriander paste” (how could the poor guy possibly know that guacamole resembles our coriander chutney)!
I must end this “friend-bashing” now, but I can’t resist the temptation of recounting what I consider the funniest incident of all – a store clerk at Krogers (a grocery store) had to actually call her manager on her walky-talky, frightened by a brown guy (this was in October 2001, and back then, brown was the color you most definitely didn’t want to be in America) with a strange accent asking if he could get some “ladies fingers”! Four of us, with 6 college degrees between us had a tough time explaining how our friend was as harmless as they come and left the store, with tight, upturned lips concealing the wave of laughter that was soon to follow!
Footnote: The roommate is now a senior process consultant for a semi-conductor MNC and travels to at least one new country every month – providing, I’m sure, fodder for many more wannabe writers at each of those places!
Now, as anyone who has been to the US would concur, the first few weeks for an Indian who has no experience watching American sit-coms or movies or listening to western music or just being tuned into the US “culture” is truly a turbulent period, where frequent bouts of speechlessness is an ignominious but inescapable reality. That was an unnecessarily long sentence, but humor me, and replace all the “or” s there with “and” s and you have my friend – as desi as they come; brilliant, great GRE score, in all probabilities a sure-shot Green card candidate, but just not “tuned-in”!
Indians speak fast, and we have a lot of unconventional phrases arising out of thinking in our native languages and transliterating those thoughts into English sentences. From supermarket clerks to graduate school office staff, we all had to face the “what’s that?”, “come again”, “say what” and other such puzzled remarks every time we asked something in our hinglish or tanglish (hinglish approximately captures all Indian accents from the Punjab to the Vindhyas and tanglish everything further south). However, it was my roommate who actually made the ultimate faux pas; on day 2 in the US, he asked directions to the nearest McDonald’s to a woman on the road. What made her step back a little and look at him as if he were a game theory exam, was his pronunciation – “mech do Knawlds”! I had the laugh of my lifetime that evening, recounting the tale to everyone who half-cared to listen.
His trademark south-Indian accent got him into trouble quite often in those early days, much to my secret delight and uncontrollable laughter. His subsequent efforts to force an American accent made for more hilarious moments. Having been a star performer back in Madras, this new phase of uncertainty did unsettle him quite a bit. Introduction to Mexican food made matters worse – an attendant at Taco Bell was on the verge of resigning his job, forced as he was by our man to fix his burrito with an extra helping of “green chillies” (Obviously chili to him meant red meat) and “coriander paste” (how could the poor guy possibly know that guacamole resembles our coriander chutney)!
I must end this “friend-bashing” now, but I can’t resist the temptation of recounting what I consider the funniest incident of all – a store clerk at Krogers (a grocery store) had to actually call her manager on her walky-talky, frightened by a brown guy (this was in October 2001, and back then, brown was the color you most definitely didn’t want to be in America) with a strange accent asking if he could get some “ladies fingers”! Four of us, with 6 college degrees between us had a tough time explaining how our friend was as harmless as they come and left the store, with tight, upturned lips concealing the wave of laughter that was soon to follow!
Footnote: The roommate is now a senior process consultant for a semi-conductor MNC and travels to at least one new country every month – providing, I’m sure, fodder for many more wannabe writers at each of those places!
7 comments:
I recall an (what I can say, your blog's counterpart) essay by Ruskin Bond, in which he observed the hassles of an English in India, understanding our pronounciations. Forget India - Being so close to UK geographically, Ireland has very different and distinct English accent, which baffles any first-timer. You can find stories, plays mocking Irish accent in British media. UK's own scotland too has its own (wierd at times) accent. They pronounce girl as gu-r-l. They give more stress on the letter 'r' like Kannadigas. Some of my colleagues pronounce 'Alarm' as 'Al-raam'. It was very difficult for me to control my oozing giggles whenever they said so. In 'Gone Away', Dom Moraes writes he becomes conscious when Das observes and chuckles at his mannerism, whereas it was Dom's own hobby to observe others. It is very true - I too feel apprehensive when someone controls his 'oozing giggles' whenever I try to speak Hindi :-)
had a good chuckle...fun to read!
had a good chuckle..fun to read...And I was reminded of how funny my "students" must have found my tanglish...but I did not budge...I storve to make them understand my southern tongue which when happened, they realised my problem was actually my math!!
Hilarious stuff man!
My roommate closely resembles the desi heroes in your story ....
We were one time eating at 'Big Bowl' and after a really spicy meal, this thayirsadham roommate of mine asked the waitress using amerikkaaan accent if she had any yog'hurt ... .... you shud have seen the look on the pretty waitress' face ... she was like what? Are you hurt?
thats hilarious narration macha!
btw howz mba life in ISB? toiling hard all the time.
write mkre
Vatsan,
I enjoyed every bit of the essay, more so as I could relate the described incident with the person too.
I was reminded of Ellis Dungan's autobiagraphy where he describes his initial days in India. Apparently a board in bombay had a line that approximately goes like "Please give your luggage to us. We send them in all directions."
There is hoarding near my home in bangalore which goes like "PG accomodation for ladies with food."
Keep writing.
the post was really funny to read.but it also conveys a message though not intended. Language and speaking ability is not all that important to be a senior process consultant in a big MNC...
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