Owlish Stance

Bankers aren’t boring any more.  They discuss whether they are doves or hawks, as the RBI Governor appears to announce the monetary policy.  Would his policy set the cat among pigeons?  The cat: an unexpected hike in rates applied to commercial banks.  And the pigeons:  business heads of industries, who listen to every word the svelte financial official utters in rapt attention.  Would the tweaking mean higher interest costs for the business or a respite, when all else is just too dreary? He has already proved that neither is his institution “caged” nor does he “parrot” the Centre’s lines. He has watched the flight of global money across borders, that sets currency markets aflutter in his previous instance. Now like the watchful eagle, he has set his sight on another soaring bird up in the sky – inflation!  

But who’s listening?  A retired senior may tune in to check whether interest rates would increase as inflation gnaws away at his meager savings, like a rat in FCI’s godown.  Or the home-loan borrower, who cannot live like a cuckoo in a borrowed nest, with the hope that home loan interest rates  do soften.  The rare avid bird-watcher would be away in a wildlife reserve trying to spot a finch or an egret.  He would not  interested in this routine fiscal event.  Neither would most youngsters who would be busy playing “Angry Birds”, “Flappy Birds” or perhaps tweeting.  That’s as close as they get to birds in life.  They know as much about birds as they know about personal finance - Zilch.  As for me, I am easy game for real urban birds, it is their turn to play “Crappy Birds” - and I am their favorite target on Mumbai streets.  

Springing a surprise is what he loves  - no wonder interest rates move like flitting butterflies changing directions in a jiffy.  Anyway, “Neither hawk, nor dove, but we are owls” declared RRR, referring to the stance the RBI  took in announcing the latest monetary policy.  He had been rather brave too.  In a country, where an owl has been bestowed with the attribute of a fool – thanks to the Hindi phrase  “Ullu”, and all who “banao” us well and proper “ullus”.  Like, who in our country do you think knows that the West associates the owl with Wisdom?   Or that the belief dated back to the Greek who believed that owls were wise since the Proto-Corinthian era circa 630 B.C.?  

We in India would not care for such details, as we have been “made ullus” for ages by taxing the interest on bank deposits although the inflation has been higher. The Government has been taxing the money that we did not earn as “income”, but only just protected its value over time!   We are so used to being “made owls” that we won’t even buy term-insurance as they don’t provide any “returns” or because some columnists asks us to be careful about insurance products which have low premiums!

Watch this ad in case you dont believe me.

So eager are we to become ‘ullus’ , that it has already become a widespread national affliction needing eradication.  For this very reason, fly-by-night operators continue to con investors seeking higher than inflation real returns with their ingenious ‘get-rich-quick’ schemes.  There are no legitimate means to beat inflation without losing an arm or a limb (read: invested capital).  Like the magicians who produce doves from thin air, these financial magicians promise to double our hard earned money in double quick time!

 When inflation eats away into our savings, some of us bury our head in the sand like an ostrich. That is the only way to deal with inflation, if we are not to fall for the scam-schemes.   But we must hail the RBI Governor – he is not an ostrich like us, but an owl with his wisdom. He would like to rein in the soaring inflation for us all, so one would truly wish him all the success in this task. Just do that, Guv.  It is time to ground inflation …like Kingfisher… er …. Airlines! Ok, we will not even call it Black Swan event if you do succeed.

(c) Gopinath Mavinkurve

Indianisms - New and Old

Indianisms  – New and Old

By Gopinath Mavinkurve

g_mavinkurve@hotmail.com

Twitter Handle:  @gopinathmm

If there is one word I use at times, not knowing that purists of the English language may consider it incorrect, it is this: “Preponed”.  If pushing the date of an event or appointment is postponed, why pulling one to an earlier date would not be ‘preponed’, one may argue?   The fact remains that “prepone” is a classic example of what is now being termed “Indianism” in English - an Indian way of communication in the English language, albeit incorrect in the global perspective.  The correct word apparently is ‘advanced”.  There are many incorrect words or phrases doing the rounds in our enchanting land where a “cutting tea” means half a cup of the stimulating brew and not tea produced using ‘cutting-edge’ technology by folks who may ask you for your “good name”!

“What’s your good name?” perhaps owes its popularity in the North, where one seeks to know your “Shubh Naam”, nothing less.  Thinking in our local languages and translating it into English is perhaps one of the several reasons for most of the Indianisms.  Seeming to be just fine to most of us, is perhaps what makes the wrong usage of English words or phrases qualify to being termed as ‘Indianisms’. 

“Revert to me at the earliest on this subject” is just another common phrase that seems to be a popular Indian request in emails signoffs.  Language connoisseurs would point out that “Reverting” means “returning to a former state” and perhaps that is not what one is requesting in the communication. “Reply to me…” might be the right thing to say, but hey, we’re Indians aren’t we?  And if you’re not, revert to me please –  or better still, revert back to me please!  We love to add ‘back’, when it is just not necessary.  “Reply back” we say right in front of people – and what we say “behind their backside” could be as hilarious!

So then it is time to act upon this and “do the needful”, when what we mean is “do what is needed”. But what’s wrong with doing the needful, we ask.  We can “Order for a Sandwich” when we need to just “Order a Sandwich”; we happen to “Discuss about corruption” when we ought to just “Discuss corruption”, because ‘discuss’ means ‘talk about’, doesn’t it?  In a country where PAN is PAN Number, it ought to be perfectly fine.

We insist on someone being our “real brother” to stress that he is not a “cousin brother”.  Elsewhere ‘brother’ and ‘cousin’ would do just fine.  Not in our land, where we have coined the word “Co-brother”, which happens to be just two unrelated gentlemen married to sisters.  Real sisters, of course! But just in case the alliance is yet to happen, one could be a “would-be co-brother”, perhaps?!  But at the marriage ceremony, one is certain to have a “photo-take-outing session” with the real and not-so-real brothers and sisters.   We are also said to be “out of station”, but we’re never out of ideas for newer and funnier Indianisms.  For us, ‘sleep comes’, ‘rain falls’ ‘problem-became’ and ‘what-all happens’ you’ll never imagine!

I could come up with many more Indianisms if I ‘think hardly’. What I am ‘sure about’, though is that this trend has begun many “years back” – not “years ago” as it ought to.  One never realized when even the press reporters seem to be ok with ‘years back’ these days.  Gone are the days when a stickler of a teacher would correct us saying sternly, “‘Ago’ NOT ‘Back’.”, I guess.

Several years ‘back’…er… ago, when I was just a child in early school, I seriously believed that the word “Zaa” existed in the English language. I had learnt it from my teacher only, No?  “2, 2,  ZAA 4 | 2, 3, ZAA 6|…..” . That’s how the mathematical tables went...  So one was not surprised with the Bollywood song “One Two Kaa Four” - just another mathematical expression perhaps ‘KAA’ was just a higher multiplier at play, one thought?  Until later in life, one learnt with shock, that what teacher taught us was “2 2s are 4/ 2 3s are 6”..!  Schooling for us was more about “learning by-heart” or in some parts of our country, “by-hearting” – an expression better understood by the rest of the world by the expression “learning by rote”.

In India, where “anything goes” [Sab chalta hai], we keep seeing such Indianisms around us “with our own eyes” and listen “with our own ears”, so if you do come across any interesting ones going around, please write in to me at my email id “today only”, “without fail”. But if I don’t revert to you, don’t “eat my head”!  By the way, Fun came, no?

© Gopinath Mavinkurve 2014