Kya se kya ho gaya

I just read this supremely entertaining and well written post by Spunky Monkey.

It breaks my heart to see the metamorphosis that my beloved Bangalore has undergone in the past couple of decades.During my LKG-UKG days,the cardinal rule that was followed by us kids was that everyone in the group spoke nothing but Kannada.If you did not know the language, you had no choice but to learn it.Otherwise you found yourself ostracized.Now I went to a CBSE school and we were supposed to converse in no other language but English.So my proficiency in the language was much better than all the others in the group but this wasn't very well received by them.In order to fit in and not be a pariah,I used to pretend that I knew just as much English as all of them did.So instead of saying ladies finger,we would all say byaanchakoy which was the Anglicized version of bendekaayi.The only English we were permitted to use was "Mother-Father-Sister-Brother Promise"when we had to swear solemnly that we were telling nothing but the truth.

Aside

When my mother would ask me to swear that I was telling the truth on occasions that I actually wasn't, I would promptly say "Lucy mele promise,amma."(I promise on Lucy,amma). Lucy being the sweet German Shepard that belonged to the owners of our house.

End aside

Cut to college and hanging out at Coffee Day and Barista when you would be frowned upon for asking for a cuppa joe in "Kannad". When people were of the opinion that they knew all the Kannada they needed to know to get by in Bangalore if they just suffixed everything they said with a "maadi" like "adjust maadi" and "give maadi".It still irritates the hell out of me.