The Fun
and the Frolic with the Family Dialect! 😊
#memoriesfromdiaries
3rd June 1997 ❤️
This particular day’s diary entry [that dates back to 26 years ago, in time], is quite interesting for a variety of reasons.
Seven to be precise! 😊
Hence this post. 😊
First, the expression, “Mr. 1-ஆம் தேதி”
For want of a better English translation, let us have it as Mr. First Day of the Month! 😊
You see, we had a very interesting character who frequented our home on the first day of every month. And hence the sobriquet!
At the stroke of nine in the morn, he would ring the calling bell, and wait for one of us to usher him in.
Then sipping a cup of tea, he would move on to enquire about everyone at home, something that I personally didn’t quite like at all.
Don’t know why!
May be because, I personally don’t go around enquiring about people or their private lives, or their families - anytime!
But a word about such enquirers is sure meet for this post I guess!
Well, these ‘enquirers’ are, in the words of Francis Bacon,
a piece of impertinent correspondence,
an odious approximation,
a haunting conscience,
a preposterous shadow,
lengthening in the noon-tide of our prosperity.
Personally, I too found it quite unnerving and highly embarrassing when he used to ask each of us about our studies, about our marks, and what we intend to do in the future, etc.
To us at least, he was a total stranger, and not of the family as well. So it is added embarrassment to talk to a total stranger about our personal lives, ain’t it?
May be also because of this embarrassment that we as kids had suffered back then, I make it a point not to ask anyone about their salaries, about their marital status, about their families, about their parents, etc, anytime!
The worst offenders are the enquirers who ask a young adult, When are you going to get married?
If I were a teenager now, I would have very strongly recommended that, those eager-beaver ‘enquirers’ who ask a young adult, ‘When are you going to get married’? be shot with the Glock 19, at point-blank range! [remember, Arnold uses it when he is followed by the guards from the mansion, in True Lies]. 😉
And these dogmatic minds don’t quite understand that, the more they enquire about another’s private life, the more they are hated and loathed and dreaded thereafter!
The same thing happened with us as well.
We three of us, children, we started dreading and hating to the core this “Mr. 1 ஆம் தேதி” for the rest of our lives.
The lesson and the moral that we three of us, children had learnt from “Mr. 1 ஆம் தேதி” is that,
‘Don’t ever enquire and probe into another person’s private life’.
Mind your business. Not theirs!
It’s none of your business to enquire into another person’s personal life! In short, it’s none of your stupid business! 😊
Some cynics always have this habit of asking youngsters,
‘Apram, (then), eppo soru poda pora? When are you going to give us your feast?
As if, this eager-beaver ‘enquirer’ has been waiting all these years to eat only in wedding feasts! What stupidity! 😊
Coming back, secondly, to the family dialect, “Mr. 1 ஆம் தேதி”
If idiolect is an individual’s unique use of language, that includes one’s vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation, dialect would then refer to the shared linguistic characteristics among a group of people!
“Mr. 1 ஆம் தேதி” then was a family dialect to us in our immediate family.
Each family, I’m sure would have their own idiosyncratic ways with the family dialect, also called, ‘kitchen-table lingo!’
Eminent linguist David Crystal observes that, these dialects consist of “private and personal word-creations that are found in every household and in every social group, but which never get into the dictionary.”
In short, family dialects are then, based on shared experiences!
Such family dialects are real fun and frolic, ain’t they?
They not only create a shared sense of belonging, but also help in building sweet bonds based on such shared dialectical experiences! Ain’t they?
Thirdly, ‘Appu bit him’ ☹ –
Just over a year ago - in the year 1996 - a neighbour in our area, was having a ferocious dog – an alsation named Appu, - the terror of the town - who was usually loosened off his leash every morning, to facilitate finishing off on his routine morning defecation stuff.
It was highly unfortunate that, on this particular day, “Mr. 1 ஆம் தேதி” was caught off guard, with Appu tailgating him on his tracks.
Not knowing what to do, he had started running helter-skelter.
Appu, by the way, sensing something ‘amiss’, started following him, and then, pouncing on him in one giant leap, bit him hard.
Luckily we had a veterinary doctor as a neighbour, who gave him the required first aid! He was recollecting the first anniversary of aggressive Appu’s atrocity on him.
Fourthly, Dad had been to the market and bought us fish – something that we relished having occasionally, during our holidays.
Interestingly, Dad is a complete vegetarian himself, but he would always go that extra mile to make us - his kids happy. Mom is a real connoisseur when it comes to cooking, especially with fish, you see! So holidays were added yummilicious for us! 😊
Fifthly, on this particular day’s evening, my best friend Thilakaramanujan came home as usual, and we went to the bicycle repair shop, and changed this particular suspension stuff under the cycle seat! 😊
Since I didn’t quite know its specific name, I simply drew it on my diary, you see! 😊
[By the way, language enthusiasts please note that, when you’re not sure of a thing’s name, or you couldn’t well recall it at that particular moment, you then call it a thingummy or a thingamabob!
Eg: I visited an antiques store at Egmore, and it was filled with thingummies from years ago!] 😊
Coming back, yes! Thilak and myself - both of us usually have our morning coffee together in a local bistro, that was our favourite morning jaunt, during the holidays.
More so, because we also got our morning newspaper at this jaunt!
Well, on this particular day, we both had our barottas together for dinner, at our favourite local eatery, with omelette and some blessed saalna for added relish!
After the fiesta comes the siesta, you see!
So yes! Soon thereafter, under the blessed moonlight, we used to listen to RADIO FM on our Philips transistor set – that played us those transient yet memorable lullabies - lulling us to sleep in the process!
Sixthly, about a neighbour of ours, who always made it a point to come home, asking for credit, promising to return it in a day’s time!
[Well, Rs.1,400/- in the year 1997 was comparatively a big amount, I guess!]
Only rider is that, the next day doesn’t turn up at least for a month or two! 😉
Finally, on the NEWS for this day –
Well, this particular day was quite a bad day for the ADMK party in Tamil Nadu.
On this day – 3rd June 1997 - the party split into two, with JJ faction and Thirunavukkarasu faction, having their separate general council meetings and expelling each other.
Interestingly, even in the past, it had become a kinda habituated routine, - at least for the ADMK - to engineer a split that was usually followed by subsequent defections in the party - the moment they lose the State Elections.
And this was the umpteenth such split - that was engineered by prominent ADMK MLA Mr. Thirunavukkarasu.
The drama then shifted to New Delhi, where both the ‘split’ groups approached the Election Commission, each vigorously claiming to be the real AIADMK and seeking the party's two-leaves symbol!
History repeats, and how!!!
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