Growing up in Southern California, and I’m sure Chick Pea will concur, one often grows up with an unnatural obsession with certain Disneyland rides. For me, it was always the Pirates of the Caribbean which has subsequently fostered an unnatural obsession with all things skull and crossbones. This is why it should come as no surprise that, me mateys, tis is International Talk Like Pirate Day!
At first an inside joke between two friends, the holiday gained exposure when Baur and Summers sent a letter about their invented holiday to the American syndicated humor columnist Dave Barry in 2002. Barry liked the idea and promoted the day. There have been reports that this holiday was being celebrated in the New Zealand town of Wainuiomata at least as early as 2000, after local media reported the existence of Talk Like A Pirate Day. [wiki]
Ahoy, me hearty! Today, feel liberated to say, “Avast!” and “Arrr!” and “That’s the finest pirate booty I’ve ever laid eyes on.” Go on, wear your eye patch and drink some grog at the local (desi-owned) pirate bar. Rent the Depp-makes-pirates-sexy movie of the moment, Pirates of the Caribbean, and sing along with a “Yo, ho!”
All this pirate talk made me wonder, arrrrre there South Asian pirates? Arre, matey, there arrrre…
The Mogul’s trade fleets went into the Red Sea and Persian Gulf with fabrics, ivory, and spices; attack of Mogul ship they returned with the abundant gold and silver of exchange…Topping the list were the abundant prizes of the various East Indian Company ventures, which carried off luxurious silks, ivory, jewels, and proceeds from import.With deterioration of effective naval patrol or protection, the pickings were ripe from Cochin and Calcutta in the South, through the Portuguese trade port of Goa, to Bombay and Surat farther north. Bombay became the focal point of a most successful family-run pirate enterprise as the Angria clan gained control of the surrounding area. They established their main fortress of Vijayadurg (Severndroog) as one of several island bases south of Bombay. [link]
The most infamous pirate of the Indian Ocean was Kanhoji Angre, died in 1792.
Kanhoji initially started by attacking merchant ships of the British East India Company and slowly gained notoriety and power. When Maratha Chattrapati Shahu ascended the leadership of the Maratha kingdom, he appointed Balaji Viswanath Bhatt as his Senakarta (‘Commander’), and negotiated an agreement with Angre around 1707. This was partly to appease Angre who supported the other ruler who claimed the Maratha throne, Tarabai…Kanhoji Angre stands alone in the Indian list of early freedom fighters as the one person who stood undefeated and inflicted many casualties on colonial powers. [wiki]
Arrrrr. Now that’s what I call a real mutiny. A true Sepia Mutineer to the corrrre. For more desi pirate stories, thar be 20th – century John Boysie Singh, and Gurkha repelling pirates last year. But with all this talk of accents, I wonder what a desi-accented pirate talk sounds like. Arrrr-ay?
More on Indian Pirates :
pirates of the carribean is one of my most favorite rides… after getting the caramel apple and drinking the mint juleps… aaahhhhhh…
i can ‘smell’ the ride…see the gold..and feel the fire… desipirates unite! maybe there theme was ‘macaca rumbling’…
yeah! 🙂
Yarrr! Yer a buccaneer for realz — I’m glad you posted on this subject 🙂 If anyone’s interested, check out ITLAPD and make your shipmates proud.
Awast!
There was a brown pirate in Pirates of the Caribbean 2..
true4blue,
That movie was HILARIOUS.
Cool, taz. Never heard of Angre before. There was “Kappalottiya Tamizhan” (The Tamil who ran a ship) on the Thoothukkudi -Colombo trade route who was not a pirate but still did stick it to the man at sea as part of the freedom struggle.
True4blue’s video, hee hee hee.
Normally, my workmates and I love this holiday — especially the pickup lines — and spend the morning babbling in pirate-speak, but with George the Killer speaking a handful of blocks away at the UN this morning, Talk Like a Pirate Day hits a little too close to home. Sorry for the thread hijack, y’all, but the killing of innocents and the kidnapping and torturing of innocents typically characterize pirates.
Here’s somep’n on Kapplottiya Tamizhan, VO Chidambaram.
The Brits weren’t too pleased.
OMG this is too creepy a coincidence to be one. You KNOW you watched “Wife Swap” last night and wanted to work a little pirattitude into the mutiny here.
I grew up w/ kids who considered themselves descendants of Kanhoji Angre. A fierce bunch. I remember an out of town kid getting the s**t kicked out of him for calling Angre a pirate. For these kids he was a rebel and a freedom fighter.
Maybe they have changed their opinion of pirates after watching J. Depp.
hell yearrr! he’s o sooo savvy 😉
Avast me Hearties,
BrooklynBrown, we love this day at work. Its just so much better than the regular talking days. Talking about UN(traffic has been horrible but then again nothing new), I hope Iran’s President does have a debate with Bushie, that’ll be a new leaf for reality TV
Simran,
Arrrrr— The folks on wife swap I believe are the same folks that invented the day. I don’t think thar were any coincidence herrrrre.
Oh, and I had been planning this post long before watching wife swap last night – I know, I know, I’m a geeky piratey nerd.
desi pirate,
Awast was pretty funny. Almost as good as my Arrrr- ay.…
And cuz it fit no where else…
What kind of calls do pirates make late at night?
Ninjas + Pirates
Ninjas on Pirates
I know it’s old, but how can my Ninjas be left out of this discussion?
Ahoy, me proud beauty, tis some fine internet booty you have scavenged for us. Tis a day for young sprogs to best remember, treasure maps come in treasure books, and not all loot can be surfed up in sea chests. Thems that finds it can hides it, and librarrrrry hold fine sea-jewels. Forsooth, bucanners, I be seekin’ cargo in the followin, and be most obliged to the Mutineer might have it handy!
Indian pirates: From the earliest times to the present day by Rajaram Narayan Saletore
not to mention:
Indian witchcraft by the same. Methinks First Mate Salvatorrrrrrre would a bin a fine Mutineer!
taz:
BOOTY CALLS!!
desi pirate: i, too, was cracking up at your “awast” 🙂
Sheesh. I turned him into an Italian pirate while I was at it.
I was going to say, desi pirate: AArrrr-ipa!
Angre was bad as hell. I’ve read a bit more about his life and role in early war with the British. His tactics were pretty unusual; from what I know, he used a form of naval guerrilla warfare which utilized small, fast boats with crews that could strike quickly and get out of harm’s way, which during its use was a tactic that seemed to consistently foil the firangi. There exists at least one biography of Angre which I read a long time ago…
Wonderful article, Taz my dear. You can shiver my timber anytime.
You know, this reminds me of a chat I once had with the Maharajah while we were watching one of his nautch girls delicately shaking her boo-tay in the classical Hindoostanee style.
“Huzoor”, I said, filling my glass from my secret stash of Jamaican Rum, “Whatever happened to that delightful son of yours ? The last thing I heard, the Crown Prince was on some kind of around-the-world Grand Tour with a dozen of his cousins on the way to visit Old Vilayati”.
“Ah yes,” he frowned, throwing some more dubloons at his concubine. “The rascal decided it would be a bit of a jolly jape for them to sail around in a galleon while pretending to be affiliated with those badmaash pirates from Malabar. Which was fairly harmless until they all insisted on being called Blackbeard, and you can imagine how confusing that became for everyone concerned. I nearly choked on my hookah when he finally came back and had a fake wooden leg, an eye-patch, insisted on speaking only English in that Ahoy-thaar-me-hearties accent, and refused to take off that damn stuffed dead parrot on his shoulder. The fellow had gone completely native !”
“Fo’ shizzle”, I replied, realising I’d need more than one drink. “But old chap, at least it calmed your nerves to know he was tickety-boo. In any case, some people would say that what we at the East India Company do on the subcontinent is no more than legalised piracy anyway.”
“Some people would probably be right”, he muttered darkly.
Anyway, IÂ’m afraid I must take your leave again. All this talk of rum and wenches is causing me to be in mood for…..well, rum and wenches. A gentleman can never have too much of either, you know; DaddyÂ’s got a big appetite…..
In the context of desi pirate accents, don’t forget LambaJan Chandiwala from Moor’s Last Sigh (a Rushdie novel), whose name approximately means Long John Silver in Hindi. He was one-footed and had a parrot on his shoulder. Several people in the novel tried to get the parrot to repeat “pieces-of-eight me hearty” but he would stubbornly stay silent. One day, he relents and in a harsh desi version of the phrase, says “peesay safed haathi”, which of course translates as “mashed white elephants”. Whenever something wouldn’t quite go right, the protagonist and his family would show their consternation by yelling “mashed white elepants”.
In Maharashtra if you called Kanhoji Angre a pirate, you would rapidly morph from brown to “black-and-blue”.
Aaarrrr, yaar. And what could be more in keepin’ of a piratical nature than a…“stealin’ yer brother’s wife” threadjack?
As far as parsable motervations fer such dastardly behavior against the Laws of the Sea and Man, well…all I kin say is, “Yo ho ho!…and a bottle of rum.”
P.S. “Angre” is the bestest pirate name ever. “So…how are you feeling today, Angre?”
NK (#10)
I don’t know if I should be proud or ashamed by the fact that I didn’t know anything about Kapplottiya Tamizhan until my parents made me watch the movie, which starred the one and only Sivaji Ganesan. The same can be said of my knowledge of Subramania Bharathi and Veerapandya Kattaboman.
Oy…that has to be the cheesiest line I’ve ever heard in quite some time. Kudos if you were being sarcastic. Seek help if you weren’t.
Can’t you see a Bollywood pirate movie, with a song-and-dance number aboard a Man o’ War? Shah Rukh Khan is lowered, Peter Pan style, from the main mast onto the deck, where village girls with eye patches and cutlasses in their teeth twirl about in a Farah Khan number. Cut to scenes of the principals reveling in the hold among the chests spilling pieces of eight: SRK; Rani with a parrot on her shoulder cleverly matching her gold sari; Abishek, who looks rather like a pirate anyway with his perma-stubble; and Preity, playing the fair captain’s daughter, “stolen” from another ship (but she really wanted to go anyway, since her dad wouldn’t let her have any fun). Deol and tabla players work the cannons. There is a deep-voiced interlude, resembling a work-song, wherein grog is lustily and sloppily consumed, but on closer inspection, the mugs all say Pepsi. The ship’s sails are all crimson and saffron, Abishek and Preity do one of those attempted-kiss numbers, but the sailcloth comes between them at the last moment. The climax occurs when computer-animated skeletons in lungis lip-synch in Urdu about the virtues of unspoiled maidens, soft as rosewater but beware the thorns.
Please! To call Kanhoji Angre a Pirate is an Insult. He was appointed as the Naval Chief by Shivaji Maharaj and his main task was to disrupt the british and portugese supply ships. To them, he was a Pirate. For all of the Maharashtrians, he is a great naval commander. The Indian Navy honours him by naming the western naval command situated in Mumbai as INS Angre. So, I hope that he is afforded the respect he deserves. He was definitely not a Pirate!!
lol!
What’s a pirate’s wife name?
ARRRRRlene. 😀
Yep, this is fully true. All you need to do to really get into the spirit is to live in a country where nothing actually happens 🙂
Arr arr, any holiday that gives me a chance to perve on Johnny Depp is all good with me 🙂
What’s a pirate’s favorite leafy vegetable?
Arrrlene works, but I was thinking “Peggy” you brown-bellied yaar…
I think Colonel Jai and Capt’n Preston need to make a movie together.
It’ll be a real pirate movie cuz it will be rated- RRRRRRRRR…..
Tashie:
It can also be just a job where nothing really happens. Or one where a great deal USED to happen, but where now, nothing really happens.
Speaking hypothetically, of course. er…Aaaaargh.
Aaaarggh.
No, I’m no longer imitating a pirate. That’s just how frustrated I am.
Arrrrr-ugala!
Preston, Bollywood came closest to it in a song-dance item in the movie ‘Aitraaz’. The song ‘talatum‘ was all the movie was good for (bcuz it has pirates, of course). The subtitles were pretty amusing, too …’talatum’ was translated as ‘quagmire’
It was a random yet entertaining attempt, but me thinks those scurvy bilge rats should walk the plank!
Salil, if that was a reference to Project Runway’s Tim Gunn, you’re awesome.
On that note, can you imagine if one of their challenges was to create a pirate outfit? “Make it work…”
Preston, secure the financing! We can make it happen, arrrrr.
i have imagined this in my head…any takers? i’m meeting with producers later on this evening..
preston: director desidancer: choreographer ennis: screenplay manish: publicity in india (where ths film would be a box office smash, and his mubmai office is ideal!–maybe he could conspire tubby rishi to be in it) abhi/taz: publicity in Lalala land 😉 vinod: special effects amardeep: editing anna: makeup chick pea: caterer…hummus and falafels for all
i have imagined this in my head…any takers? i’m meeting with producers later on this evening..
I am the producer and the “casting couch”
I ask for, nay, demand, a role in composing the soundtrack.
sriram: soundtrack (how could i forget? 40 lashes with pintos for me!) kush: casting director, sans the couch…. will you still take the job? ;)…we’re um putting on an ethical production here..yeah..first time for a macacaland drama…
and our production company (that i have partially invested my hard earned sprouts in) is macacawood…
HAhaha!! I used to always say “Shit, yaar!” and when my white friend picked it up by osmosis, he’d always say it in a way that made him sound like a flaming gay pirate.
ooh! i can sing the song played during opening and/or closing credits…yarrr
ARRRRRtichoke
Sorry I didn’t see the “leafy” part
NPR today had news of a new soundtrack filled with pirate songs and other songs of the sea. It features Bono and Sting.
I don’t really get Pirate humor (I’m a fob). There have been occasions when people around me break out into “arrs”, and I feel like I should find it funnier than I do. Is it a recent (as in decades-long) phenomenon ? Did it originate at any particular event in pop-culture. I associate it with the kind of humor on the Simpsons/Conan.
Sincere question.
I find it funny that you don’t find it funny when people around you break into “Arrrrr!” Anytime anyone breaks into an “Arrrr”- it’s just silly, and therfore Hi-larious. Hahaha…sigh…..
Pirates as a “culture” have been around for far more than a decade. Click through some of those wiki’s I linked above. Most ABCDs grew up with the classic movies/stories Peter Pan, of a boy that never ages and fights pirates in neverneverland. For your education – Go read peter pan, rent the movie. Then rent the movie Hook. Go on the rides at Disneyland. And that classic movie from back in the days- Swiss Family Robinson. Read Treasure Island. And of the uptmost importance for you to truly understand the humor- spend the next 48 hours ending everything you say with a ferocious “Arrrrr…” as well as saying “That be a fine pirate booty” to anyone that walks by.
You will find the humor soon enough, me matey.
Top Ten Pickup lines for use on International Talk Like a Pirate Day from here
10 . Avast, me proud beauty! Wanna know why my Roger is so Jolly?
Have ya ever met a man with a real yardarm?
Come on up and see me urchins.
Yes, that is a hornpipe in my pocket and I am happy to see you.
I’d love to drop anchor in your lagoon.
Pardon me, but would ya mind if fired me cannon through your porthole?
How’d you like to scrape the barnacles off of me rudder?
Ya know, darlinÂ’, IÂ’m 97 percent chum free.
Well blow me down?
And the number one pickup line for use on International Talk Like a Pirate Day is Â…
Thanks for the explanation Taz. Sure the “arrrs” are kinda funny but I figured there was more to the joke. Yes, I’m familiar with Peter Pan and Swiss Family Robinson and Treasure Island (and I think I had more than one of those books at home as a child in india) but I still get the feeling that there’s something being lost in cross-cultural translation here.
Find the humor or be accused of harassment perhaps ? 🙂