When I had first moved to Bombay in the mid-’80s I remember it had taken me quite a while to appreciate fully the local speak of taxi drivers, domestic helps and shopkeepers or vendors. By the time I left Mumbai twenty years later, I was completely at ease in Marathi, Marathi Hindi, Marathi English, Gujarati, Gujarati English or Gujarati Hindi. Having managed in an alien country, when I returned to Bengal, I was not apprehensive of any language problems. In a place where everyone spoke my mother tongue, communication surely would not be an obstacle, I had thought. What I had not bargained for at all was Bengali English.
Since I started working in textiles soon after I arrived in Santiniketan, my colleagues were mainly weavers, dyers, embroiderers, or tailors. My first hurdle was when I went to buy fabric and the shopkeeper asked me which “checked” fabric I would like. Seeing none I was confused. Till I realised that he was referring to stripes as checks. I put it down to his personal ignorance, bought what I had to and left. When I was explaining what I needed to my tailor, he also asked me whether he should place the “checks” vertically or horizontally. That’s when I realised it was the vocabulary here.
In order to show my colleagues what I needed done, I once asked for a pencil. I was told there wasn’t any in our workplace. I soon found what I was looking for and admonished my colleagues about how my intervention was required in the stupidest of things. I was then told that they didn’t realise that I was looking for a “rule”. A pencil around here is apparently a chalk pencil used for writing on black boards. Normal pencils are called “rule”. I didn’t dare ask what a ruler was called.
Then there is my tailor who when I ask for something simple as in a collar or sleeves, he always tells me “simple but gorgeous”. Although inside me I am screaming “no you idiot, just simple,” to him I turn an impassive face and say “that’s correct”.
But since I work with thread, yarn and fabric, what I am finding most difficult in adjusting to is the local names for colour shades. What I have all my life known as brown is casually referred to in these parts as “yellow”, all dark shades of maroon or violet are referred to as “chocolate”.
In fact once, when I was writing down colours for my weaver, I wrote purple or “beguni” in Bengali. He looked at me with a face of total comprehension and said “ok chocolate”. I thought their need to show off their familiarity with English was probably creating this confusion. I asked why they didn’t refer to the colour in Bengali. ‘Why are you describing a completely desi vegetable like begun in English?’ What he said then left me completely stumped. “Chocolate?” “Is that an English word? I always thought it was Bengali.”
I had gone to a local DTP operator and now a wannabe digital studio to get price tags printed for the small store that I run. I explained what I wanted and was pleasantly surprised when on the day that he had promised, I got a call from him to say that my “stags” were done. I thought I must have misheard on the phone, but even at the time of delivery he kept repeating the word “stag”.
More From This Section
I showed my shop assistant how the price tags would be attached. When I was about to leave he asked, “Should I change the old stags for all?” For a minute I couldn’t answer. Was I mispronouncing tags? Is that why I was hearing what I was. I decided not to dwell on it and left.
A few days later I got a call from my shop. It was my shop assistant who had some routine queries. At the end he said, “oh I forgot to tell you that we sold the big iron scandal stand today.”