Not until I received a very ahem..insightful text from a friend did I ponder over the way we have simplified the English language- or better say- Indianized the English language. The text read thus- ‘If breakfast literally means breaking fast, shouldn’t the past tense of breakfast be brokefast?’ At first I chuckled reading at such a doubt. I didn’t have an answer for that though. Instead I asked him to use the word if he wishes to but not to hold me responsible if he receives any kind of unwelcomed response from the other person.

I don’t know if it is the same for everyone but the very base for its existence is its bizarre nature. I personally find myself full of life when I am amongst my friends. Absurd lingo was one of the outcomes of such a group. One important aspect of the ‘private’ lingo is adding a –ing wherever necessary and not so necessary and some new words of our own. We strongly believe that ‘humour lies in absurdity’, which gave rise to some murky and questionable words.

Thus, internetting, facebooking, breakingfast and brokefast, recording (completimg my practical record), matching (watching a match) and millions of other such words were the new entrants to the ‘private’ dictionary.
I have gone through this stage of creating words, in other words, the neologism era. And of course its circulation is restricted among only a few friends ‘cuz out there are many people who do not possess any kind of sense of humour.

Well, that was the fun part of neologising. Is there actually a word like ‘neologising’? Or is it that my Ms-word is adapted itself to my ‘private’ lingo, as I don’t see any sort of wavy red line below the word :-/

I take a public transport vehicle to my college. Once, I overheard a conversation between two college going kids. Did I just say KIDS?! What IS wrong with me?! Alright.. Yeah, one of them said, ‘...I tried calling her so many times but she dint lift the call...’ Lift the call is a direct translation of any Indian language- Phone uthao in Hindi means pick up the phone. Since lift and pick up somewhat mean the same, the ‘kids’ preferred to use lift instead of pick up. Fair enough but not smart enough :P
Since pick is used as a substitute for lift and vice versa this is how Indian English would probably sound. Pick up-drop service=lift-drop service. Or something like - Pick a sentence from the book=lift a sentence from the book. I have to pick my dress on the way=I have to lift my dress on the way :D Alright let’s stop it there. ;)

There is one more thing that I would want to discuss about. It’s a habit of Bangaloreans (maybe in a few other parts of India as well) to address any elderly person as ‘uncle’ and ‘aunty’. It requires no blood relation with the other person-any sort of relation for that matter; you just have to be a little older than the person to be addressed as ‘uncle’ or ‘aunty’. Guess Indians strongly believe in the phrase Vasudhaiva kutumbakam (the whole world is a family) :P

This post does not necessarily mean that I’m grammatically correct always. When I am not amongst my friends I try my best that the ‘private’ lingo doesn’t get in the way of my normal English. And I frankly confess that MS-Word was sweet enough to underline words and sentences with its red and green wavy lines while I wrote this post.

Okay gotta go. My phone is ringing. I hate to lift the call when I am busy blogging or facebooking! I would rather talk when I am breakingfast ;-)