English snag in Haryana Police

News has reached us that a Haryana police inspector has asked a complainant to translate his complaint in Hindi and submit it for further investigations into an FIR which was registered about more than three years back. Not that it’s because the investigator comes from the Jat heartland, Rohtak, but that most of his ilk have a ‘tight’ hand at the Queen’s language, if that expression means difficulty in communicating in English.

When I joined the Haryana Police about 40 years back, we were three probationers undergoing training at the Madhuban Police Academy, then known as the Police Training Centre. Our outdoor training in charge, a DSP, would summon us on the ground calling out, ‘Both of you three report at 6 am on the parade ground daily.’ Having done my Master’s in English, I was quite amused then at the instructor’s ‘English command’.

If there was any change in the schedule, our instructor would tell us, ‘There is a “changement” in the programme sahebs.’

Another expression then prevalent in the institution was ‘farjanti’ (dressing down), which probably got corrupted from ‘presentation’ when delinquent officials were ‘produced’ before the adjutant. A head constable who was notorious for his deeds, when came out after ‘farjanti’, was asked what happened inside the ‘Orderly Room’, to which he boastfully said, ‘Nothing, saheb only appreciated my turn-out.’

A South Indian IPS officer on night patrol near the Karnal railway station noticed that the wine shop, locally called ‘theka’, was open till late in the night. In the morning, he sent for the city inspector. Since many people from the South mix up the use of gender while speaking out nouns, this officer also told the inspector, ‘Udhar raat mein theka khuli hai! Uska intezam karo (Go and sort out the opening of wine shop till late).’

The inspector, again a Jat from Rohtak, took ‘theka’ for Teka, which is a common name in Haryana; and ‘khuli’ for a ‘coolie’. He kept searching for a coolie by the name Teka the whole day and got a ‘farjanti’ in the evening from his boss.

‘Family’, in Haryana Police parlance, refers to the wife. A newly married recruit asked for leave, pleading he had his family visiting him. The same South Indian officer knew that he was just married and sought to know, ‘How come he has a family that soon?’

‘Janab, Haryana main ho jata hai (Sir, it happens in Haryana)’, the officer’s reader explained.