Goan Talk

A pilot in Goa is one who owns or rides a motorcycle taxi, that unique local mode of transport. Until a friend revealed what the word meant here, I used to wonder why neighbours gave my husband curious looks when I said he was a pilot.

As recent arrivals in this lovely little western state, we were amused to read familiar Hindu names spelt unusually. ‘Purxottama’ and ‘Xembhu’ were easy to decipher, but we needed help to read ‘Quenim’ as Keni. It look a couple of months to get used to names like Conceptao de Souza a Quadros Ferrao. And to know that ‘Joao’ was pronounced Zoo-aw.

The first time a shop-keeper asked me whether I’d like a rupyacho Gandhi, I was foxed. He owed me a buck and didn’t have change. I was willing to accept a toffee worth the amount. But a Gandhi worth one rupee? Curious, I said yes, and received a small, white postal stamp with the brown profile of the Father of the Nation on it. “Rupyacho Gandhi” accurately describes the value of the man in the country today.

Once, trying to cajole a colleague, I said, “Koi Baat Nahin”. He kept quiet for a moment, then wondered aloud why I’d chosen that moment to confess that I hadn’t bathed.

The same colleague was puzzled when I described someone very fair as ‘gori-chitti’. ‘Gori’ he knew was fair, but ‘chitti’ meant letter, hence the confusion. Films have popularised the Hindi language, but since many here have not learnt its grammar and vocabulary, there is often misinterpretation of the words. For instance, the innocent phrase ‘kamaal hai’ slipped out of my mouth one day. At that, the acquaintance I was conversing with appeared visibly shaken. Why, she demanded, had I called her, “kamaal hai’. It took many minutes before we sorted matters out.

She had heard and seen people use these two words in Hindi films. The voice that spoke them was always raised and so were the hands of the speaker. She had assumed they were abusive swear words. In an identical situation, another friend thought I was being nasty when I said to her, “Hudd Ho Gayee”. She thought ‘Hudd’ meant a female canine. Again, the reason for such an assumption was lost in a Bollywood movie she had seen sometime, some place. Whose language she had not quite followed.

The hotel industry has its own stories.

It was the prized New Millennium Eve. We wore new uniforms, guided guests, supervised decorations, checked who was where, etc. My colleague, Maharudhra Rajadhyakshya (name invented), was on duty in the lobby. The president of our hotel’s biggest client walked in. New to India, his English was heavily accented. MR held out a gracious hand. The foreigner mumbled something. MR figured the gentleman was introducing himself and reciprocated by telling him his name. Now Maharudhra Raja-dhyak-shya is not easy to pronounce so MR had to repeat the name several times. Both smiled and split. Then began the fun. The guest thought ‘Maharudhra Rajadhyakshya’ was the Indian way of saying ‘Happy New Year’ and greeted everybody thus.

Vocabularies and accents cause unintended confusion. We changed the room of one East Asian guest because people giggled whenever he said, “Wanh, wanh, wanh”. It sounded as if he were crying though he was merely calling out his room number one-one-one.

One morning a couple checked in tired and grimy. They were led to the health club for a wash, as their room wasn’t ready. When they returned, what they sounded like, “We’ve bruised our tit and want to it.” We gulped before guessing that they had “brushed their teeth” and wanted breakfast.

One walk-in was told that the cost per night was for the room, taxes and breakfast. Later, he came to the front desk to book the taxi he’d been promised, he said, by the boy who’d checked him in. We were puzzled, until we realized that he’d mistaken taxes for taxis and thought we were paying for his sight-seeing.

Another instance. A staff showing a deluxe room to a female guest explained that the extra cost was for “the bathtub, the wardrobe, and the view”. The lady rushed downstairs and told us just what she thought of our (unsuspecting) colleague. She had been warned about Indian men but, she ranted, this was unexpected. Subsequently we discovered that she had heard the last three words “and the view” as “ah-love-you”.

What is more interesting though is the evolution of phrases that are not found even in neighbouring Maharashtra or Karnataka which are only a couple of minutes’ drive away. One such is the quaint greeting that all Catholics extend to the Hindus during the Ganapati festival. “Happy Ganesh”, they say. It is like saying “Happy Christ” at Christmas, I pointed out to a friend for it doesn’t make sense. Perhaps not to outsiders, she said. But couldn’t I just gracefully accept the warmth behind the greeting? Why dissect and analyse the hows, buts and whys of it all? Ah well, I had to agree with her and now when any one wishes me “Happy Ganesh” I reply with a nasal, musical ‘Thankuaahn’ just as anyone else would.