A Rational Mind

For the last 2 and a half months that I have been staying in Nashik, I have noticed quite a lot of things, especially about the different ways of talking Marathi in Nashik.

It is said that after every 12 miles in Maharashtra, the Marathi Dialect changes. Nashik has a different style of Marathi, Kolhapur has its own “ठसकेबाज नाद”, Dhule and adjoining regions have its very own “Ahirani” language, the people from Buldhana- Vidarbha region have their own “मले-तुले” style of speaking, people from Konkan have their own style of extending that last word of each sentence for greater poetic effect and of course how can one forget the unique style of Pune,बरं का?

So, as I was saying the people in Nashik talk funny.Normally if I want to say “Give me Water” in Marathi to a person I would say,

“जरा पाणी दे रे!”

In Nashik its exactly oppposite! They say, “जरा पाणी घे रे!”

Not Undeshtood?

Maybe this incident will elaborate what I want to say!

I live alone in Nashik and the lazy person that I am I outsource my cooking and the deliverables (read: food) is served in a mess. In that mess, a lot of college students and their professors from nearby colleges come to dine.

So one fine evening, as we all sat down to have dinner and were engaged in the act of stuffing ourselves one of the persons told me,

"अहो जरा भाजी घ्या!"

Surprised, I looked up and wondered why he was asking me to take some more vegetables when I already had my plate full. Moreover, I did not even know him at all. But being new to Nashik, I thought to myself maybe it is the custom here to do some “आग्रह” to make the newcomer feel at home. So I took some more vegetable and smiled at him. Then I continued eating. What I did not realize that he was staring dumbstruck at me!

"अहो जरा भाजी घ्या ना!", he said with a little frustration and confusion lacing his tone.

I looked up, befuddled. I had my plate almost overflowing and had taken more vegetables than I could eat at one sitting and here was this person persuading me to have more! I mean is he in charge of seeing that the food is not wasted or has he been entrusted with the job of seeing that there are no leftovers in the mess?

Confused I replied, “"अहो आताच घेतली की भाजी!"

"कुठे?", he replied even more confused.

"अहो ही काय!", I pointed to my overflowing bowl!

"अर्र…मी म्हटलं मला भाजी द्या!", he realized the limitation of my understanding and lowered the level of his communication!

"मग तसं म्हणा की!"

“अहो मग तसंच म्हटलं की!", he retorted.

"तुम्ही म्हणालात भाजी घ्या, मी घेतली!", I said, irritated!

"अहो भाजी घ्या म्हणजे भाजी द्या!", he explained.

“………!!” :O

Lesson learnt!

So when that day in the bus when I gave Rs.10 to the Conductor and the ticket was Rs.14 and he told me,

"जरा ४ रुपये घ्या!"

I was really,really tempted to but understanding the lack of humour of bus conductors I did not say,

"मग ४ रुपये द्या की!"

Cheers,

Pranjal Wagh

17 July 2011

This work by Pranjal A. Wagh is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License