[Reader-list] Postscript to Indian Idol and

[zainab at xtdnet.nl]

11th March 2005



It was just last Friday, last Friday, when Abhijeet Sawant became the
first Indian Idol. And the questions that have been lingering on my mind
since the week that has passed are about democracy.

On Sunday, 6th March, I was traveling in the local train from Byculla to
Kurla, in the ladies compartment. At Dadar station, a woman with two
children entered the compartment and sat on the seat opposite to mine.
Sitting next to me, at the window seat, was a woman and sitting opposite
her, on the window seat was another woman. The two children (boys), aged
around seven years, began singing Hindi film songs in chorus as soon as
they became comfortable in their seats. I was very amused at this sight.
The two boys were singing very melodiously and somehow, the scene was very
surreal. It was performance, a pretty and perfect performance. I could not
help smiling broadly and was enjoying myself. The lady sitting next to me,
and the one sitting opposite her began smiling as well. The lady sitting
next to me mistook my smile to mean ‘look at these kids, how they can
rattle Hindi film songs instead of knowing their school lessons’. The
children, in the meanwhile, felt shy and stopped singing. The lady next to
me asked them their ages. Then she turned towards me and said, “This is
all the impact of television. Look at these children. It is all the doing
of Indian Idol!!!”

So I think Indian Idol has settled into urban talk lingo of Mumbai and
will now be evoked either as ‘the other’ or as a metaphor for the effects
of television on the public or both.

Just yesterday, I was in the Municipal Corporation building and a
colourful poster of Abhijeet Sawant was on the walls near the lifts. The
poster read, “Our son has won. And this is all due to the lakhs of votes
which the BMC workers polled for our boy. He has won because of you.”

Today, as I am writing this posting, the city is at ransom again. The BEST
public bus service is on strike for an indefinite period. I am told that
there is tremendous traffic on the streets and trains are jam-packed. As I
listen to this news, I tell my mother, “There is just one person who can
rescue us from this strike. It is Abhijeet Sawant!” Hail democrazy!

The questions on my mind: what is democracy? Is the notion of democracy
changing with the emerging urbanism? Is democracy unworkable beyond a
certain scale? Is there a link between public spaces and democracy?


Now, for a little peek into Mumbai’s urban talk. Following six months of
fieldwork, I have compiled a basic A, B, C, D (with some missing
alphabets) of Mumbai’s lingo, gathered from different encounters and
groups. Please feel free to modify and transform the content. Let’s go:

A – apnawala, literally meaning ‘our man’, allegorically meaning ‘aligned
with us’. Like Zubair, the Ticket Examiner I have been talking to, is
hailed as apnawala by Muslim commuters or Abhijeet Sawant is hailed as
‘our boy’ by the BMC union

B – both bhidoo (as in buddy) and bhenchod (abusive, literally meaning
sister fucker) and bhidoo can also be lovingly and affectionately
addressed as bhenchod

B – also stands for baap meaning influential person, a person in power.
Usually, the Mumbai police is referred to as baap. Also used as a common
slang term as in kya baap? (what man?)

C – chutiya, allegorically meaning to make a fool of oneself or to be
fooled – as in when Manoj Kumar used to tell me, “Shah Rukh keeps going to
the area where the BMC van is parked and does dhanda there and gets
caught, making chutiya of himself!”

D – well, you guessed it right. D stands for dhanda i.e. business, the
lifeline of this city. Perhaps Mumbai actually derives its character and
its ethos from the practices of dhanda at various levels

E – stands for ‘English’ not meaning British but a girl who is dressed
‘modernly’ aka television and Bollywood style and can speak fluent English
language. Was first used by my Driving Master who would tell me to drive
cautiously if an ‘English’ was walking in front of the car. “Make sure you
don’t touch her with the car because she is English and will then abuse in
English and I will not be able to respond to her!”, he would warn me.

F – stands for faltoo and is directly linked with L which stands for lukha
and lafanga – faltoo and lukha both denote, at various points in time and
persons, unemployed, useless, worthless, and the unemployed is often
hailed as lafanga though lafanga is used to ‘mark’ an individual who is a
miscreant, usually an eve-teaser

G – stands for the abbreviation ‘GPL’ i.e. gaand pe lath (kick his arse)
which means drive him/her off because she/he is faltoo and is wasting our
precious (economic) time. As shop owners will tell their salesman, “GPL
the customer” because she/he is faltoo, wasting time and is not genuinely
interested in buying

G – also stands for gaadi meaning Municipal and Police Van which land up
suddenly to raid on hawkers

H – hawker, the prominent ‘other’ in the city who is an encroacher on
property and is a dirty sore on the city, the only obstacle which prevents
Mumbai from becoming a Shanghai, a clean and green city

I – obviously, Indian Idol now!

M – maal directly linked with D for dhanda. Maal suggests goods,
commodities and is the engine driving dhanda. But maal can also be used
metaphorically as a term for a sexy/voluptuous girl (as in kya maal hai
baap!) or maal can also mean narcotic drugs. Thus, maal is a term both,
for the legal and the illegal

M – also stands for madarchod (abusive, meaning mother-fucker). Very
common abusive term, though used more often in anger

M – also stands for Madam, used by persons non-conversant in English to
refer to a lady who can speak English fluently

P – stands for Party. Now, ‘party’ is a term used by people of all classes
in the city. In common lingo, ‘party’ suggests a ‘business party’, a
potential customer as in maaldaar party hai, or zordaar party hai.
Basically used to denote ‘the other side in the dealing’. Party also
stands for Page 3 Party, used in the Bandra lingo as in “Where’s the party
tonight?”

R – stands for raasta, as in raasta napo meaning get lost. Raasta
literally meaning road.

S & T – are interlinked alphabets in Mumbai lingo. For instance, S for
tsunami and T for tsunami. So also, S for station (i.e. railway station)
and T for theshan (Marathi pronunciation of railway station). T, in the
railway station lingo stands for TTE (ticket examiner), and the TTE
indulges in S for Sounding i.e. levying fines. Then again, S in the dhanda
lingo stands for Seth meaning boss and the hawker also addresses the
customer as Seth during sales on the road indicating that customer is the
man in charge, in control. T also stands for Time, often pronounced as
tame – Time, the only thing we are always running short of in this city!

V – stands for Vaat meaning fire in the arse, as in vaat lag gayi, we are
doomed, run!

Y – for yaar, used both as slang as well as to suggest ‘buddy’ – as in
jaane de na yaar (please let go buddy!)

Z – zindagi as in life jiska koi bharosa nahi, life which is there today,
gone tomorrow!





Zainab Bawa
Bombay
www.xanga.com/CityBytes
http://crimsonfeet.recut.org/rubrique53.html