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Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Words that convey a lot!

I feel lucky I have been exposed to many languages in my life and can follow quite a few of them thoroughly. It makes things a lot simpler (and is actually funny too) when you are able to choose your vocabulary to make the communication simpler :)

Bhassad (भसड)
One fine day during my MBA course, there was quite a bit of hotchpotch with too many activities on campus. I wanted to check about something & I walked up to the CR of our class Prashant to check. He replied, 'abhi thodi der mein dekhtaa hoon yaar, bohat bhassad machi hui hai'. That was my first encounter with this word. I loved the word & I wondered how much did that one word convey! Truly! There are versions of this word like 'hotchpotch', 'chaos', 'confusion', 'afraa-tafri' etc. But no other word can convey the gist as this word and such a simple word to use!

Bakala (بقالة)
This is an arabic word for a small departmental store, kirana store, small super market or the kinds. If you are going to buy some grocery & are going to a small store, you can say 'shop', 'grocery shop', 'kirana', 'departmental store' etc. etc. But ever since we came across this word from our stay in Kuwait, we realized how big use this word is of. It was 2006-2007 that we learnt this word & ever since we have been using it. Such a life-saver!

Pindaakudu (పిండాకుడు)
I love this word! Simply love! Anyone from a Telugu Brahmin community from Andhra (by Andhra I mean Andhra Pradesh (minus) the Telangana), would know this word perfectly well. This is not a word that is used in a sophisticated form of communication (yes, I admit, Andhra side is not a lot sophisticated like the Telangana side but let me not get into the divides of the states & regions) but what an amazing word this is! It actually means 'whatever', or 'yaa..fine' (actually not in the literal sense but talking sense, the serious meaning is something else) but the effect that this word can create no other word for any other meaning can do I swear!

Parchooran (પરચૂરણ)
This is a Gujarati word. As much as I love the place I was brought up in (Ahmedabad), I know Gujarat is not a very sophisticated state & so the culture & the language too. It sounds very funny to speak and it doesn't particularly please the ears like some other languages especially Hindi does. This word means 'miscellaneous', but this word can be used in many different contexts - like for the money change to small little household articles to miscellaneous kids' items to small little grocery shopping to what not! If we have to say all these different things in different contexts, it will definitely be a pain trying to communicate & help others understand.


Maamu (मामू)
This is the best part of the Munna bhai movie apart from all the other amazing things. What would Munna have called Circuit when he had random thoughts. If he had said, 'don't behave like a stupid', would it have created that impact or would it have even conveyed the same meaning? Absolutely no! This movie was actually remade in Telugu but whichever language that is not able to translate the word 'maamu' to give the impact would have made a waste effort in remaking the film, honestly! What a word again!!!

The above ones are the high impact ones that I could recollect immediately one after the other as I use them or come across them. Enjoy!

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