The Speak-Easy Folk

Ah, a piece on the Roaring Twenties, you pronounce. You would be excused to think that. The 1920s have endlessly fascinated me – on the one hand it had glamour (more jazz and Art Deco please!) and rebellion and sowed the seeds for modernity and change. On the other, it was a time of oppression, economic inequality, fragility and marked the start of a crisis that would beleaguer the world for times to come. Closer back home in India, something else was happening – the voice of language was getting amplified, and one saw the revival and strengthening of key regional languages. Tamil, Marathi, Punjabi and Gujarati literature expanded. Bengali of course was already flourishing while Urdu evolved even further. In fact, Hindi itself moved from Khari Boli to a wider, national language.

Lesser-known regional languages flourished in different ways. The ‘speak easy’ I am referring to here is the wonderful ability of my beloved Kashmiri biradari to uphold the oral tradition of the Kashmiri language (a language with roots in Sanskrit, Farsi and Arabic paying homage to its indigenous Dardic core too) and speak fluently and easily in layered sarcasm. Mind you, most South Asian languages are excellent at said affliction, but we are proud to take it to the next level.

So, as a belated gift for International Mother Language Day, I give you, good reader, Exhibit A, B and C to defend my case. Picture this: you meet your Nani (Gon-jigri to her sisters, Babi to the others and Babijee to us grandkids) – jee, as a suffix is yet another habit peculiar to Kashmiris. It is of course terribly respectful, but I was always baffled at being called Ruby ji by elders 5 times my age 🙂. But I digress. . . .well, so, you meet your Nani after weeks and ask her, ‘Aaz kya chhuw ronmut?’ – you of course already know because you’ve gone to the kitchen, taken off the steel covers from all the baanas and tasted a few dishes too. ‘All’e hayche, dum monje tuh sochal vaangun. Batta shera chaayne khaetra?’ (sun dried gourd, spicy, slow cooked kohl rabi and mallow with aubergine, shall I put it out for you?), she replies with a glint in her eyes and a childlike smile revealing her crooked teeth. It was less of an invitation and more of an instruction, one I loved to follow without any form of protest. Meal consumed, thaal licked clean, you say, ‘Babijee, tuhinz sochal vaanghun chhe best!’ Reply – ‘Uhhhhnnnnn, vanun chha?’ I am not sure I know how to even translate this (a close one might be ‘as if’ or ‘whatever’) but suffice it to say that Kashmiris are incapable of accepting compliments and must find a way to make a self-deprecating comment. The only good news is that they are also very equitable and do it to others too 😉

Here, I should also pay tribute to the sound / word ‘uhhhnnnnn’ which is usually a prefix for sentences that don’t end very well shall we say -these are usually in response to a claim being made so goes something like, ‘uhhhnnnnn’. . . ., ‘sapdyav teyl kaalay’ (in response to me telling my Mum I will definitely call her back in 5 minutes to give her what she needs) or the classic ‘buh dimas na yang’e ti’ – one of my favourites: since yang’e or asafoetida is used in very small proportions while cooking, not giving someone even that just shows how much disdain you have for said person!

Exhibit B – overhearing a conversation between your Mum and Nani where Mum was talking about an unfortunate situation that had befallen a family member expecting some level of empathy only to hear, ‘Ahanee panin koker na ayse badd tuh lookahinz gharye kyaayze traayve thool!’ (how can you blame someone else if your own hen lays eggs in another person’s yard!)

But perhaps one of the most diminishing insults was when as part of Exhibit C, we had to hear as kids, ‘Ayse rood tamah hi. . . ‘ As though it wasn’t torturous enough to know that Person X {insert friend, neighbour, relative’s child} had got far better marks than you or generally performed excellently in ‘extracurricular activities’ thereby making them an ‘all-rounder’, you had to live in the knowledge that said achievements from us would also be a pipe dream for our parents. Marvellous. All part of character building, I say.

But sarcasm wasn’t the only staple in our diet. Our lives were nourished by the fiercest kind of affection too. For every admonishment we received as kids, there were eleventy billion, ‘hatay, vondmay na zuh’ that we were blessed to be showered with. There cannot be a more all-encompassing or deep expression of love than this one – you are my life and I would give mine for you. It doesn’t stop there though – you see, there is ‘vondmaay na shoosh (lungs)’, among others because we believe in specificity. Then there is the moving ‘Tse chhakh myaen gaash tuh tresh’ – you are my light and water literally indicating your importance in their life; ‘myon gobur’ (my dear one) and ‘redda myon’ (my heart).

There is a whole treasure trove of where that came from but what I find even more heart-warming is the breadth of blessings (a-hees as they are referred to) that find their place in everyday life. No phone call or meeting is complete without ‘orzuh tuh dorkoth’ (a fabulous blessing that is so relevant for our lives – I wish you good health and strong knees, the irreplaceable ‘aay tuh batta’ (this becomes ‘zeeth aay tuh myooth batte’ on occasion which is a firm favourite (wish you a long life and tasty food – the legendary batta is back), ‘lassiv tuh pholliv’ (may you thrive and blossom) although one of my jovial aunts always added ‘assiv tuh labban khassiv’ (laugh and climb on walls 🙂) as a supplement to the one prior. ‘Bagwan theyvnav vaara vayte’ is a blessing and guiding principle cold pressed into one magical potion – may God keep you on the right path.

I so want to write more but I can almost hear my Nani shake her head and say, ‘Uhhhhhnnnn uhhhhnnnn uhhhhnnnn, tse kaeszcay chhay faragat’ so before that thought heads into its natural progression of a murmuring ‘darbadar chhe aazkalik yim bacche geymet’, I will take your leave until we meet again next week.