Sreesanth Swinging His Bat…. Dhoom Machale?!
It’s my first time, Mutineers, so be gentle. I’m a total Cricket virgin and if you’re mean to me about what is sure to be an amateurish post, I’ll be scarred forever– whether I end up a frigid fan or not is in your hopefully kind and capable hands. 😉
After hearing about Mallu hotness Sreesanth (thanks, DTK), I had to visit ye olde YouTube to find out about this right-arm fast-medium-pace bowler, who is a right-handed tailender. Apparently, excessively lippy South African Andre Nel questioned Sreesanth’s heart/courage/skillz after Sreesanth evaded something called a bouncer. Sreesanth responded by hitting Nel for a six and then performing a dance I’d normally associate with an end zone. Oh, that was just brutal to write. I can’t imagine how many men I’ve just annoyed. 😉
I may not know a damned thing about what is arguably the most popular sport in all of South Asia, but I know the art of trash talk well and if anything could get me to fall in love with this very Brown game, it’s the video I’ve posted above. Set to some probably-famous song I’ve never heard before (“Dhoom Machale”), it’s way more fun than the other YouTube clips which came up when I searched for the new object of my lecherous (he’s eight years younger) affection. Not since I was kicked off our co-ed IM team in grad school for illegal (and may I add, utterly justified and deliciously violent) tackling during a flag-football game have I been so delighted by the immaturity of declaring “in your face!”. Gopu, I heart you. 🙂
UPDATE: The Google Video seems clearer, so I swapped it.
Desishiksha +1
DM, No one is ever going to get writing one language in another (writing Malayalam in Emglish), Instead of finding fault, I think we should appreciate someone spreading some knowledge.
Why? I don’t understand this. If they make mistakes, why sneer? I just don’t get this attitude. It’s very smug and pompous.
105: Here are a few others.
Ado Santdosh, Sugamo ?
I think this attitude shows a poor understanding of the nature of language. It changes both with time and place. This isn’t true just of people who are “settled outside”, but people within the subcontinent too. For example, my grandmother speaks a very pure classical Telugu that most people don’t speak. Her husband and kids and most of the people she interacts with don’t speak that form of Telugu, but she doesn’t pick on them for their poor choice of words or less than perfect grammar. Or Hindi speakers from UP make fun of Hyderabadis for their “bad” Hindi, but I love Hyderabad Hindi–it reminds me of home.
It also makes me sad to think that if this is the prevalent attitude, my future kids won’t feel a sense of inheritance of their language. I want them to feel a connection with Malayalam and Telugu even if they can’t speak it well, but if they are ridiculed for any attempt to use either language, they won’t have that.
I grew up in India and I’m not fluent in either my “mother tongue” or “father tongue” because we spoke English at home. So my “ignorance” doesn’t stem from being “settled outside” but from being mixed in a very Indian way. Most of us who aren’t fluent in a subcontinental language (and there are lots of Indians who fall into this category without having ever left India) wish we spoke one better.
Lord!! Showing off? Daya kar de, yaar. You don’t understand jack about how things are, do you? WTF is “settled outside”? Anna is an American. She is settled “inside”, okay? She obviously has some love for Malayalam and she’s public about it. That’s the only thing she’s showing off. Had it been another kind of American, you’d be oohing and aahing about a word or two of Mallu she can speak.
It’s amazing how her enthusiasm for using some Malayalam is undamped in the face of repeated criticism like this. It’s one thing to nitpick the use of the words (a good thing, IMO and fun for all) and totally another to come up with this kind of personal snark.
If she were showing off, I’d imagine she would be seeking to impress with her Mallu. Do you really think that?
Peeples, you don’t know how cool it is when I read a few words in some of your languages. It don’t matter none that I can’t follow the language at all. Feels like you are reaching out and touching a piece of India that you find within yourself.
desishiksa, you have one Mallu and one Telugu parent?
Remember the word Kundi ?
Trust an Indian mother to sissify her son.
yes… mom, Mallu + dad, Telugu=new clothes for Ugadi and Vishu, twice in one month! 🙂
a
Yaaay! Like my kids are going to be. My wife is Telugu and I’m sortova Mallu (both my parents are). The kids are going to be butt naked on these two festivals, though, since we’re cheapos.
Honest comments are appreciated, but this is too honest. But thinking about my future, I doubt if my kids will have new clothes, Now that I am not longer a kid, my parents think that a Veshti (Dothi for all you noobs and feel free to correct my spelling) is good enough for me. Damn, I miss being a kid.
ANNA, I think it’s a great title and I wouldn’t worry about quibbles in spelling… having said that, I think “achayan” is the normal transliteration, or you could use “achain”. “Achan” is used for the mallu word for priest… but of course “appan” is even better because it “who’s your daddy” and not “who’s your father”.
I think trans-literation of Indian languages is going to be a huge phenomenon: ASCII and the qwerty keyboard seem to be unbeatable… and yes it will have to evolve by trial and error, so keep on postin’!
Anyone trying to get out of his/her linguistic comfort-zone should be encouraged, not dissed. It doesn’t even have to be their ancestral language. My cousin’s French husband has a doctorate in 16th century Marathi literature. He was encouraged every step of the way. Snark has more to do with pettiness than true love of language.
Good stuff! Note Sreesanth’s perfect timing of his air hump as the offending, and now humiliated, south african bowler passed him.
The award for most memorable retaliation to sledging in cricket history has got to go to the West Indian great Viv Richards. He had swung and missed at a couple or so balls, whereupon the english bowler taunted him: “Its red and round and this big, in case you didnt know” (or words to that effect). The very next ball Viv hit one of the hugest sixes ever that cleared the stadium and then walked up to the stunned english bowler pointing in the direction the ball had flown out of the stadium and told him: “Well you know what it looks like, now go and find it!”.
Classy and classic.
http://www.quillpad.com/hindi/ Try this out, people. A friend of mine developed it. They have 12 or so other Indian languages too. Seems to work very well, although it is Windows specific, I think. On a Mac, it’s working great with Safari for me, not so much with Firefox.
Dunno, The Real McCaca… I’ve heard “Achan” used as ‘dad’ and ‘priest’. Perhaps it’s the equivalent of ‘Father’ which works both ways as well. Nice post, Anna!
Kurma, we had this debate before, and I hesitate to bring it up again, but if both your parents are Mallu, HOW CAN YOU NOT BE MALLU? Where does the ‘sortova Mallu’ come from? Granted, you may not be at all versed in Malayalee culture or language, you may never have even visited Kerala, but you’re still Mallu…it’s an ethnicity,a heritage, a background, not simply a cultural label. You can’t opt out of it, even if you deliberately choose to disregard it. That’s my opinion, anyway.
amitabh – not my battle but i couldnt but help pitch in – does the following sound familiar.
you cant be american because…
even though you directed your comment at kurma i felt compelled to jump. by stretch i could be accused of the same and so speak for myself. lest someone should bring up the obvious,.. i gravitate to this forum because in people like amardeep and kurma i see likeminded folks who are comfortable in their own selves but are equally comfortable melding into the new and the different because the desire to do so is as natural as the need to preserve one’s heritage. so the affinity to others on this forum is in the shared temperament rather than a history or cultural roots or even color.
My Malayalee Hindu best friend calls his dad “Achan”. My mom calls our priest “Achan”. I was told that Hindu kids say that while Christian kids say “Appan”. Not that I’m an expert, by any means. 😀
Neophyte that I am, this still irritated me.
In my opinion the irritation at Harsha’s comment is due to the differences between colloquial Indian English and English. For example the term “agricultural shot” is bandied about commonly whenever tailenders are hitting the ball. This shot has more power than technique in negotiating the bowler. Also, another explanation could be due to Sreesanth’s dance-action being very similar to the action of bullock cart jockeys in Tamil Nadu & Kerala. Hence, the rural nature. Anyway, Harsha Bhogle is an excellent commentator. He does not just know the game but is very insightful. Listen to his commentary if ever you get a chance.
hairy_d, I didn’t say that he can’t be Mallu and SOMETHING ELSE too…things don’t have to be mutually exclusive…and an Indian kid in the US is Indian (whether he likes it or not) AND American at the same time. Is your point that a child of two Mallu parents can somehow be NOT Mallu?
amitabh – your question is best answered by kurma. this response is my conversation with you and i speak for myself. my parents are both punjabi. i can understand the language, eat the food, wear the clothes and yes… drop me in punjab and i will fit right in. … but i am so much more than that.. and i am uncomfortable with the baggage of a descriptor – because that’s what it is – i just dont like being binned. it might be kurma’s game as well. it might not. i just felt i had to reply.
here is a floral excerpt from rushdie’s east-west short stories. it might be relevant.
this emotion is not just a sepiate angst. there are others who feel the same.
I would humbly submit that you are still Punjabi, but I don’t think that label negates the other multi-faceted dimensions to your identity, nor the impact and influences that your varied life experiences have given you. But I guess I see your point…maybe compared to people born/raised/still resident in Punjab, who have not experienced what you have, and for whom their natal culture and identity is by far the strongest influence in their lives, you feel ‘sortova Punjabi’. The thing about the humanities (which is what this discussion would loosely fall under) is that there’s no right or wrong answer usually, it’s largely the realm of opinion, which is why I qualified my statement by saying that it was merely my opinion.
Beautifully put. I come here for the same reasons.
Hi, guys. I started typing and then had to run out for an hour and a half and come back to find hairy_d’s replies that sound as if I’d written them myself. It’s like he were totally in my mind or something. Amazing. I’ve deleted some parts of my reply so as not to repeat anything (the Indian vs. American example, for instance). Plus he added that Rushdie quote (I don’t know it) which was just perfect.
Amitabh, perhaps I can explain a little. I grew up in Tamil Nadu where I lived for 18 years. Also spent a few years in Andhra Pradesh. Never did I live in Kerala except for annual visits to the relatives. For a long time, my friends were almost all Tamil and my relatives were, of course, all Mallu. We speak only Malayalam at home and I’m fluent in the language besides reading and writing it. But the reading and writing was no gift (heritage) from my parents. I took the efforts to learn and practice it myself when I was in high school, although they were happy to help when I asked for help. So, that was a choice, an academic interest. I’m very familiar with Kerala culture and to an external observer, I would not stand out at any Mallu occasion. However, that’s not how I feel on the inside. In my thinking, I’m no mallu and have real disagreements with the mallu cultural axioms (at least those of my parents’ village/town).
By contrast, in Tamil Nadu, I’m very comfortable culturally. I speak Tamil as well as ANNA or you might speak English. It was in the air I breathed. I watched Tamil movies and generally shouted and cursed in Tamil while playing with my friends. My parents had to constantly warn me not to use bad language in Tamil. They never had to do this with Malayalam ‘coz I never cursed in Malayalam. Who would understand if I cursed in Malayalam, anyway? I learned to read Tamil to check out the stuff that the other adolescents were secretly passing around in class, if you get my drift :-). If you woke me up in the middle of the night, it would be Tamil that I’d wake up muttering. By listening to a Mallu speak, I would only know whether they are from North, central or South Kerala, whereas I can listen to a Tamilian and name the exact city or region they are from. How can I do justice to the Tamilian in me if I call myself a Mallu?
I think that is an overly narrow view of the world Mallu. Sure, it can be all that. It can also be a legal term, one of citizenship. For instance, no matter how much we talk about culture and heritage, an ABD cannot run for Lok Sabha. Similarly, RECs (regional engineering colleges) reserve most of their seats for students from their home state. REC Kozhikode (Kerala) considered me an out-of-state candidate whereas REC Tiruchy (TN) considered me a home-state student and offered me a seat. Would this inclusion and exclusion be properly acknowledged if I called myself a Mallu?
This doesn’t mean that I’m automatically treating all influences equally and failing to recognize my mother culture. There are other influences. While I lived in AP, most of my friends were Northies and we spoke only Hindi (and my Telugu suffered instead). That and 14 years of formal education in Hindi meant that I can speak Hindi like a native speaker. But I don’t feel an organic connection to Hindi culture and would never pretend to have one. I consider myself firmly to be a Southie. Even though I interacted closely with a lot of Telugus, my Telugu is quite accented and I can’t read or write it (because of the Hindi interference during that time). So, I do not treat these languages the same as Malayalam. Malayalam does occupy a special place in relation to these languages. But Tamil trumps it given the organic manner in which I learned to speak, write and read (what I mentioned in the last comment was a joke, that wasn’t the main reason – everything was written in Tamil) it.
No, I can’t. Especially not in India. Everyone, including many Tamils I know consider me a Mallu, solely on the basis of who my parents are. Nor do I want to. I just want to recognize the influences that went into my thinking and not just the ones that went into my appearance (I look like a Mallu). Anyway, what others think is one thing and what one thinks of oneself is another. Now that you know the story, would you say that I am more Mallu than Tamil?
I want to be clear that I am not ashamed in any way of Malluness. I just don’t feel like succumbing to the imposed labelling. To pick an example (sorry Razib) – Is Razib a Muslim? No. Does that mean he’s ashamed of his Muslim heritage? I don’t think so. However, unless he insists that he is an atheist, people will always ignore the fact that he’s an atheist and consider him a Muslim.
ANNA,
is a more respectful term than Appan among Christians too. For instance, I don’t know anyone who directly calls their father appan. It’s always Achan (and maybe only among Christians, also Achachan/Ichayan/Achayan). The reason the same word is used for the priest is that same as the reason why “Father” and “Padre” are used elsewhere.
Nowadays, most people want their kids to call them Pappa or Daddy. So may I recommend the term panjasaara pappa for ‘sugar daddy’? 🙂
Anna chechi, I did not want to make you feel bad. I thought ‘wince’ was an obvious exaggeration, and that comment was meant to be taken light-heartedly. I’m proud of your spirit. Keep blogging.
Anna you should replace Achan with ‘Thantha’?
No, it should be “Appachan” 😀
I think this attitude shows a poor understanding of the nature of language. It changes both with time and place. This isn’t true just of people who are “settled outside”, but people within the subcontinent too. I admit that i have much to learn about languages and you are right that it changes with time. Okay, I guess it didnt come out that well. By smirk, I didnt mean in the sense of ridicule. The reason I smirk is that I think that people who try to speak language which was initially their mother tounge but who have grown up speaking english seem to have a condescending attitude. (And here I am claiming this only on the basis of limited cases related to people of indian origin) And if they have that, then I smirk cos they are just fooling themselves. Without judging Anna, who may or may not have tried to learn to speak malayalam to the best of her ability, many people seem to enjoy speaking it that way or showing off their ignorance of their original language. Just my two penny worth, and yes daya kar deta hoon! Won’t preach any more on this issue!
Kurma,
Thank you for your great response…I do see all your points, and I would never argue that Tamil culture and identity have not played a major, if not THE major role in creating who you are. I can see why you’d feel more Tamil than Mallu. And obviously you’ve kept yourself open to all sorts of influences (Telugu, Hindi, Western) as well, which is a good trait to have. And even with all that you’ve retained a strong sense of your Mallu identity and culture…so actually I feel sorta humbled and not really in any kind of position to try and dictate identity to you. All I can say is that IN GENERAL, we all have an inherited identity, which, whether we nurture it or not, is part of us on some level…but again, I agree with everything you wrote. Thanks again.
Oh, and I would still say that as the child of two Mallus, you’re Mallu! (Tongue in cheek).
How come noone has talked about “maiden overs”?
Amitabh, I do understand where you are coming from.
Perhaps you are right. That’s the label most convenient for me and everyone else, sparing them such longwinded stories :-).
Let me mention that hairy_d’s #172 was thoughtful and beautiful. I read it so many times and I know it relates to a lot of people here. Especially the parts about baggage and ropes and angst, and this:
It’s natural that we are at first conflicted about which bin to be in. It wasn’t until my twenties that I learned that I need to try to step out of the bins instead and cut the ropes for sanity. To recognize the ropes and see that they can be anchors, but not be tethered.
Kurma, I didn’t bat an eyelid when I read that comment. I envisioned a situation exactly like you described, or that you grew up in the US around Indians of other cultures. There are a lot of people who are “sortovas” (sounds like a South Indian dynasty…the Cholas, the Pallavas, the Sortovas 🙂 ) Obviously my case is different because I am half of two things, but I grew up in Hyderabad and there are lots of people from different regions of the country who have lived there for several generations, consider themselves primarily Hyderabadis,and only give secondary importance to their regional ethnicity. There are a lot of Mallus who consider themselves equally Tamilian. I didn’t think you were denying your Mallu heritage since you said you were “sortova” one, not that you were’t one.
I’d say that you, like many people, are many things. Sort of one, sort of another.
mileu,
I’ve heard this from a couple of other people who speak Malayalam very, very fluently. I grew up outside Kerala too, and I must say I hesitate to speak the language in front of such people for that very same reason – I don’t want to be smirked at. Perhaps I should try anyway, but then someone might misunderstand my attempts for showing off my lack of knowledge 😉
Well, we do know that Sreesanth has bowled at least one maiden over 🙂
Do.not.go.there. Have heard enough of that on SM already, from all possible sides of that issue.
For any linguistics geeks, minor semantic/pragmatic quibble on the title: as it stands, the sense of the title would be, “Who is your father, Nel?” Imagine a number of men standing before Nel, kind of like in a line-up. These Malayalam words would be uttered if someone is asking Nel to pick out his father.
The word order that would come closest to “Who’s your daddy, (biyotch)?” (if you think about it, there’s an implicit “I am!” inserted after) would be, “Aareda ninde achchan, Nel?”
The “-eda” ending of the first word adds some emphasis, kind of like the implied “biyotch” in the English version of the question.
Nice touch Vishy! I like it…
Apart from all the above drama, here are some important tidbits about this particular game. – Sreesanth won the “man of the match” award – i.,e he was rewarded for being the best player amongst both sides. – Sreesanth is and always been an emotional character unlike the majority of south asian players who are shy and keep their emotions in check. He was penalized not only for wearing brand logos on his sportswear, but also for making an indecent gesture to one of the south african players Hashim Amla ( who is also of south asian descent ). I personally think if the match referee were to be someone else, it might not have been a big deal, but for this game, the referee was Roshan Mahanama, an ex srilankan cricketer, he probably couldnt tolerate a fellow south asian’s excessively emotional behavior and had to teach him a lesson of sorts. Usually white cricketers can get away from making any gestures they may make but..oh no.. when a south asian does it, its untolerable. – What was accomplished in this game is one of the rarest feats for Indian cricket. India won a test match for the very first time on the South African soil, i.e., first time in 14 years ever since the ban was lifted on south africa from playing international cricket. Just a bit of history, India was the first visiting country to tour South africa after the ban was lifted, that was in 1992. I believe South Africa was originally banned for practicing apartheid. Also India was the first non white team ever to officially tour South Africa. – This particular win was even more sweet becuase Indian team won by being good at fast bowling. India usually wins test matches mostly on the strength of thier spin bowlers. But in this game, seeing Sreesanth and Zaheer Khan, the fast bowling duo wrecking south african batting line up was really a treat to watch and that too on a foreign soil. – Particularly Sreesanth’s bowling was just amazing. In the slow motion replays, one could see the SEAM of the ball ( The threading around the leather ) was just perfect during the entire flight of the ball, i.,e it was perpendicular to the ground when it left his hand and it remained in that position until it reached the batsman. For an indian bowler to achieve that kind of consistent display of seam bowling is an extremely rare accomplishment. – Also, people had already written off India after having drummed by south africa in all of the 5 one day cricket matches prior to the first test match. It was a shocker for everyone to see India bounce back and defeat south africa so convincingly.
Anyway, I cant wait to see the second test match – hopefully they can continue this impressive performance.
Anil Nair, the Managing Editor of Cricinfo-India, writes about how being a Keralite might have influenced Sreesanth’s on-field personality: http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/ci/content/current/story/273399.html
You can read his post match interview here.
This is an interesting point, Vishy. This is the kind of thing that ABDs and 1.5 gens, by no fault of their own, just can’t know. Being able to take an expression from a familiar culture and formulate its equivalent in an unfamiliar culture requires a thorough knowledge of jargon, figurative language and the multiple connotations for every word in that unfamiliar culture… and, well, if you knew all that, then it wouldn’t be unfamiliar anymore! 🙂 Those are things that you have to learn organically (hanging out with the boys after school, gossipping with the girls in the bathroom, evesdropping on the aunties at the house parties, etc). They don’t teach you that stuff in formal education, and literal translations for very specific expressions, like “Who’s your daddy?”, usually end up being insufficient or inappropriate because something is lost in translation.
In Hindi, “Who’s your daddy?” can be said in a few different ways. Let me give you two:
“Batao, tumhare pita kwon?”
“Bol, tera BAAP kwon!”
Literally, both sentences mean exactly the same thing, word for word. It’s the striking difference in the diction that sets them apart – and that difference is apparent only to the culturally adjusted ear. The first one refers to a situation like you just described; it’s as if someone is asking you to pick out your father from a line-up, or someone sincerely asking you who your actual father is simply because he/she is curious to know.
The second sentence, however, is figurative. One scenario you might hear it in: Some guy takes a swig of his wine, heavs loudly, looks you up and down, breaks into a sleazy grin, and demands you tell him who your daddy is. It’s a rhetorical question, hence the exclamation point instead of a question mark. He wants to hear his name, not your actual father’s. This expression is also used in other – quite different – scenarios, but the one consistent thing about it is that it’s always the vulgar option. (Where I’m from, “Tera BAAP!” is the Hindi equivalent of “Yo MAMMA!”, except with “daddy” instead of “mamma”.)
So yeah… my point is, ABDs and 1.5 gens don’t just need help with their vocab, they also need help gauging the appropriateness of expressions. I’m glad you were pedagogical without being condescending.
Me:
Sorry, that was a generalization. Of course they can know, but only if they’ve had enough exposure to others who can teach them (and this may or may not happen).
Apparently, Nel got his revenge when he fed Shastri some Biltong 😀
Do you buy his political explanation for why cricket was never popular in Kerala but is becoming so now? I think there could be many other reasons…increased access to media (especially television), increased ‘indianisation’ (as opposed to regionalism), and just the fact that it takes time for things to percolate through.
Also, I’m also a complete cricket ignoramus (the only games I care about are India vs Pakistan, and that’s just because of my jingoistic streak that wants to see Pakistan lose, I don’t actually watch the matches) but I have to say…after watching the clip…the fact that ANYONE in India could criticise this kid speaks volumes about their conservative mentality that drastically needs to change and join the modern world…sports is ALL ABOUT that victory dance, and the deliberate, ‘gentlemanly’ restraint, and civilised decorum that the older generation of cricket players displayed, needs to become history. I’m proud of this kid!
Shruti, this is an excellent example of why 2nd gen people need to be a bit careful when speaking languages like Hindi, Punjabi, etc…there are polite registers and rude registers, the nuances of which are often lost on 2nd gens…but some older folks will be really upset if a youngster says ‘tera’ or ‘tu’ to them. I myself had to drill myself on that stuff A LOT so that I wouldn’t make that mistake.
Srini, Roshan Mahanama and Clive Lloyd have always been exessively harsh on Asian players. I have too much respect for their cricketing days to toss a casual “Uncle Tom” in their direction. I don’t know where they’re coming from, but it sure irritates the hell out of me.
Not complaining about Shreesanth’s fine. Just surpsised that Nel wasn’t fined for his clownish antics throughout the match.
You know, the personality of all young people in India has changed a lot in the last 10-15 years…due to western media influence, kids now are much more into partying, drinking, being assertive, demonstrative, etc (and I’m not criticising any of that!) The old self-imposed restraint is fading away. Maybe these changes help explain Sreesanth’s dance. In Delhi, I’ve even seen servants’ children who are actually quite confident and well-spoken. It’s a generational shift. Of course, there is still a lot of decorum, respect for authority, etc. which I would hate to see them lose completely (for the best examples of that, compare Indian Idol with American Idol, in terms of how differently the contestants treat each other as well as interact with the judges and vice versa).
I didn’t intend for either of them to be formal because I wanted to use two sentences that were, literally, the same. “Bataye aap…” would have been too obviously different. “Batao, tum…” and “Bol, tera…” are both informal, but if you do happen make the mistake of addressing someone older in the informal, it would still be waaaaay worse to ask them “Bol, tera baab kwon?”. Yikes!! But yeah, knowing when to use the formal and the informal is tricky. I still don’t know which one to use when I’m speaking Spanish, but because I actually grew up in a traditionally patriarchal Bihari family, I have the Hindi formal/informal thing on lock-down.
…but we’re digressing far to much here. Anna and everyone else that celebrates it, I hope you have a wonderful Christmas eve, and a very merry Christmas day! 🙂
(Ok, gotta go drive home now)
Shruti, did you ever answer my question about whether you know Bhojpuri or not? Sorry if I missed it.