Chirkutt, kaidai, ghonchu, howla, chomu, @#

Bollywood has made Bambaiyya world-famous. But what of the slangs of other cities? We discovered that one city’s Faadu is another city’s Dhool. One city’s Pulli Raja is another city’s Shah Rukh. For more word play, read on. By the Sunday Mid Day team, illustrations by Satish Archarya.

Delhi

A rude, aggressive ‘vernac’ dominates tongues in the great northern melting pot. Netagiri (politics) surprisingly does not make its way into the lingo here; a strong student culture, a love for rich, Punjabi food, chaotic traffic and the sheer chutzpah of the local Delhi-ite give the language a unique flavour.

1. Goli dena to bluff someone.
The Red Fort guide is giving goli to the firang tourist.

2. Vella one who has nothing to do (Delhi equivalent of lukhha).
Now that the exams are over, everyone’s vella, man!

3. Faadu cool.
Aye, faadu t-shirt, dude!

4. Chirkutt imbecile.
A driver to a pedestrian: Aye chirkutt, get off the middle of the road!

5. Khatak useless/ good-for-nothing.
Boss to employee: Do some work, khatak!

6. Khulle monetary change (Delhi equivalent of chutta).
Do you have some khulla for the bus?

7. Roti a meal.
It’s one’o’clock; let’s eat roti (lunch).

8. Ganda marr raha hai to crack a PJ.
This guy is always cracking gandas, yaar!


9. Ulti a short form of ultimate (to imply that something is great).
Dil Chahta Hai is an ulti movie, man!

10. Thullas cops (the Delhi equivalent of ‘pandus’).
Wear your seat belt, otherwise a thulla will fine you.

11. Ismein fight hoga/rahega there will be a problem.
We will get the slum cleared, but ismein fight (problem) hoga.

12. Chak-mak awesome.
Oye, you’re wearing chak-mak shoes, yaar!

13. Ai-wein just like that.
Aiwein bolta rehta hai! (He talks for no reason.)

[...]

Midnight's Orphans : OutLookIndia.com:

As Hindi writer Rajendra Yadav explains: "Writing is determined by your readers. For the IWE, his readership is less than 30 per cent Indian. When I write in my own language, I know and my reader knows what I’m talking about. But if I have to write for English readers then I have to go into tedious explanations, leaving little space for creative writing. That’s why Indian writing in English is so second-rate. It’s circumscribed by what the western reader can appreciate: exotica or erotica. At best, the IWE showcases Indian life, whereas we grapple with it. The IWE take a touristy look at India, like Pankaj Mishra’s The Romantics, where he’s simply a tourist who doesn’t know the inner psyche of the people or the more clever device Vikram Seth uses in A Suitable Boy, the pretext of looking for a bridegroom, which takes him to different locales and professions.

"A western visitor to Tamil Nadu naturally prefers the sambhar in a five-star hotel to the real thing as it’s cooked specially for his palate. He can’t eat the real thing so comfortably."

It’s a creatively-written traveller’s guide. They travel into our culture, describe a bit of our geography; their total approach is to westerners: a third-rate serpent-and-rope trick."

Midnight's Orphans : OutLookIndia.com:

"Fellow Marathi author Balachandran Nimade is equally contemptuous of IWE’s wider reach: We don’t need international prominence. Just as Shakespeare didn’t seek prominence anywhere but in English, I need prominence in my own language. It doesn’t upset me really that they make so much money out of their writing. They are such necromancers, creating something out of nothing."

No Fullstops For Hindi...Yet : OutLookIndia.com

All this merits mention for a simple reason. Hindi is one of the five most widely spoken languages in the world. On the other hand, only about five per cent Indians can manage English adequately; some would argue it’s as low as two per cent. Of course, even two per cent of 900 million is a sizeable number of people—18 million—which explains all the publishers at the Book Fair. But that still leaves a huge number of Indians who can’t speak the language which dominates so much of the life of their country. I believe this dominant role of English vis-a-vis Hindi and other Indian languages is not just an unhealthy colonial hangover, but also a means of continuing the suppression of Indian thought, and of preserving an alien, elite culture.

Google Search: verbix group:alt.english.usage:

"First, learn to say, 'I'm sorry, I don't speak English well.' This
simple phrase can help other people want to help you, and will help
them want to be patient with you while you learn.

Next, learn to be polite. Learn phrases of the type, 'good morning',
'good afternoon', 'good evening', 'good night', 'goodbye', 'please',
'thank you', 'hello', 'I'm sorry', and 'pardon me'.

Next, pick out the names of twenty or thirty nouns that are important
to you. These are often: relationship words, such as 'father', 'son',
'wife', 'daughter', 'mother', and so on); places like 'house',
'bathroom', 'kitchen', 'restaurant', 'office', and the like; and
objects, such as 'car', 'bus', 'newspaper', and 'pencil'.

Then, choose twenty to thirty common verbs... whichever you use most often. Learn them and their conjugations. http://www.verbix.com is a useful site for this sort of thing. A Web page listing the one hundred most common English verbs is at http://www.lingolex.com/jap/comver.htm but note that you will learn faster and better if you choose the ones YOU most commonly use.
"