Phonetic blues of India

FOR the sake of brevity, all ranks in the Army are abbreviated. On my driving licence, my name reads as Maj IPS Kohli. This document has been used numerous times to establish my identity.

Post-retirement, I have put on weight. Soft skills in India are the pits. Reminders by service providers for delayed payment of bills, etc. are routed through call centres manned by semi-literates. Welcome and thank you for your keemti samay are something which they parrot. A single word beyond the written narrative is the ‘give away’. Without exception, each one who called enquired politely ‘Kya aap Muj (for Maj) IPS Kohli bol rahein hein? (In Punjabi, a buffalo is called muj) I always reply with a chuckle that I might have put on weight, but I’m not bovine. When banks started issuing personalised cheque books, Maj Boor Singh received his as Majboor Singh. Not a typo. Lack of profundity.

Many well-read erudite Indians have a problem with phonetics. Some people pronounce names of cities differently, and phonetics is not the reason why. Lucknow is Nakhlou and Allahabad is Illahabad. Delhi is Dilli for most Delhiites. Many Indians, especially those from the cow belt, have a problem with the alphabet ‘S’. For them, Shimla was always Shimla and never good old Simla. For a UPite, the sun sines and the buck dare not istop at his desk.

A singer can ruin a piece, no matter how well he or she sings. The consonants ‘j’ and ‘z’ are their undoing. If jannat is pronounced zannat and zindagi is pronounced jindagi, to the discerning it strikes a discordant note. In college, a lecturer pronounced ‘w’ as ‘b’. In his class,  ‘witches’ were upgraded to ‘bitches’. He would pronounce ‘which’ as bich. People from Odisha substitute ‘v’ with ‘bh’ thus ‘very’ becomes bhery. Tamilians pronounce ‘o’ as ‘wo’. A Tamilian will always say wonly for only.

During winter, Kashmiris shift their shawl trade to the hinterland. Every year they manage to con my wife by selling dubious shawls. Having spent a third of my service in J&K, I am sufficiently acquainted with the traits — firstly: glib tongue. They manage to con her every year. I haven’t succeeded even once in 31 years. Secondly, a peculiar diction: yeh silik (silk) ka hai. Hamein bhi ek chanus (chance) dijiye.

Upon posting to a new unit, a Bihari JCO was showing me around the sub- unit I was going to command. I saw a fruit-laden tree and enquired what fruit was it?  ‘Saab, isko arhuva kehte hain.’ He meant aarhoo (peaches).

Ask a person in Nagaland going to Canada, where are you off to and you will hear Gaynatha.

There is one community in India which is phonetically fault-free, especially after sunset. Ever heard a Punjabi speak one vowel, one consonant out of sync in the brilliant and effortless rendition of the choicest invective?