What's the good word?

The origin and journey of words across geographies is a very interesting subject. Any and all the languages in the world are infested with foreign language words and of course, words sounding similar, having same meaning and root… for example, father, pater (German) and pita (Hindi/Sanskrit) sound similar, have same meaning and have originated from the same root word.
A more interesting aspect is migration of the words – sometimes retaining their meaning, sometimes completely changing, sometimes used for a different purpose. Many a times, the pronunciation gets corrupted so much that it’s difficult to figure out that it’s a foreign word and not native to the language.

Here are a few of my favorite words from different categories –

1. Dahi – Dahi is popularly called curd or even plural curds(!) in English. If you check the dictionary meaning of curd, it does not mean dahi but rather chhena (the milk product used to make rosogulla and other sweets). In fact, if you ask for curd in a shop in the US, you would get blank stares. You need to ask for yogurt instead. The popular (Indian) notion is that yogurt is not actually dahi but a close cousin of dahi which is not really true. The fact is that curd is a distant cousin of dahi!

2. Narbhas - In Bihar and Jharkhand, rural as well urban, narbhasana is often used word which essentially means “state of confusion/fear/scare”… Pandeji narbhasa gaye, wo gaye hi nahi (Mr. Pande chickened out, he did not go). It struck me very recently that narbhas is not really a native word in Bhojpuri or any other Hindi dialect in Bihar/Jharkhand. It's nothing but "nervous" pronounced in a convoluted way. How this word made inroads into even rural Bihar is anyone’s guess.

3. Myad - In Maharashtra, myad is often used word to describe someone crazy or stupid. For a long long time, I genuinely believed that it was a native Marathi word adeptly used by my not-so-educated Aunt as well as my grandmother. Only after I started living in Pune, I realized (and that also took a while) that myad is nothing but mad, just like pyad (pad), syad (sad) and glyad (glad)!!!

4. Compromise – I used to live in a toughish neighborhood with lots of street gangs of yound people, each full of themselves and protecting their "honor" and territory. I never fell for it (and fortunately so!) and kept away from any major association though I had many “friends” in many of these groups. I used to play with many of the kids who later started carrying knives and guns (katta). I though I had nothing to learn from these guys (in terms of traditional education) till I stumbled upon the word “compromise”. A gang would compromise and change its stance when it realized that the other gang is much more powerful. The word was used in the right way and with the right pronunciation. I have no idea how this word made it to the unlikeliest crowd of people in a English starved city.

The dictionary meaning of compromise is essentially “to settle for a middle ground”… basically accept something which is not the best and may be go for the second best.
Then why funny headlines – “caught in compromising position”… oh yeah, they compromised and settled for the sex instead of watching TV since there was no power?!
Sometimes, it’s used for a totally different purpose. For example, some people compromise on a 2-bedroom house and go for 3-bedroom one!

It has other practical uses. For example, if your parents really find a really good girl for you, how do you ditch your girlfriend? Well, very easy – tell her it’s a “compromise”, you have to give in to the parents wishes and hence you can’t marry her and hence you are forced to marry the other girl (who by the way is better looking, brings in more money, is more educated, has better manners, has a better lineage, no nakharas and no scandals)… say a sweet “Oh sweetie, it’s a compromise! But for this compromise, I would have married you!!” and get out...

Btw, I realized that no one can touch Dhoni. I tried and got completely boycotted. I launched a scathing attack on Dhoni in my last posting and the result was not a single comment on the post– it hasn’t happened before!

Dhoni baba is tired

Oops! I was wrong. The poor officials turned lucky turned poor again – thanks to Monika, Gold at Beijing and Bindra’s outburst – in that order. I was expecting Bindra to take care of Mendis but he trained his gun on the officials instead! Well, looks like this chap is clear of his priorities – officials now… Mendis can be taken care of later…
Or may be Dhoni has figured out a better way to handle “Mendisis” (sounds like a disease, no?) – we won the one-day series after all… I am sure Dhoni’s idea must be costing less than 30L to BCCI… and in that case, Bindra can kiss the 30L promised by BCCI goodbye!

People and newspapers are already talking about Dhoni being the test captain as well… Poor Kumble… but does Dhoni want to play test matches?? If my memory is right, he refused to play the test series against Sri Lanka last month because he was “tired”… hmmm, that’s interesting… very very interesting! One plays some 20 IPL matches under scotching heat and does not tire and just a month after that, he is tired because of “too much of cricket”! So mister Dhoni, why did not you take a break during IPL? Why did you play each and every match?
Wait a minute – aren’t you the highest paid IPL player (Mundu endorsements extra!)? And isn’t it true that you get paid full only if you play every match? If you decide not to play a match, proportionate amount of money would be deducted from your fees? Well, that explains…
By the way, can you tell me how many ad shootings you did while you were “tired”? One Pepsi ad for sure – both Dhoni and Sri Santh missed the Sri Lanka trip and only these 2 guys are there in the given ad… and some Mundu ads for sure which have mushroomed up on TV…
Now, now, don’t tell me that ad shooting is not as tiring… I am sure all the bollywood actors are not lying when they say it’s lots of hard work!

I think Dhoni is very lucky… I see luck playing a bigger part in his success as a captain rather than some high funda strategy… The commentators go gaga over his cool demeanor… All this makes sense when things are going good. Ganguly’s aggression was his biggest “asset” when he was winning and biggest “liability” when he wasn’t!! Let things go bad (don’t start cursing me - it happens with every team and every captain), the same commentators would say – “what kind of person is he? No impact even when team is losing. He needs to show some emotions, aggression and show to the world that it matters”… and so on!

I think the issue is something else, this chap is an expressionless dud(remember Clint Eastwood?)… Can’t you figure out by watching his ads? Anyways, works well for him (at least for now)…

Btw, if you spot Dhoni and Bindra together, they would mostly be exchanging notes on “Mendisis”…