A talking talking cabbie

posted by Woodooz on Friday, July 01, 2005 19 comments
This post was never intended and is prompted more by the comments in my earlier post

Whenever I travel to a Hindi speaking state, I take utmost care not to expose my ignorance of the language. I either switch on the walkman to avoid any conversation or hum few Hindi tunes to just preempt any situation. So, when I had to move from the Pune bus stop to MG road in an auto, I was caught unawares by the big conversation that the driver was trying to engage me in, in Hindi. This is how it all went !!

AD : * The conversation opened in Hindi *
ME : Aahaan
AD : * It continued non-stop in the same language *
ME : Bilkul
AD : * More of Hindi was thrown at me *
ME : Acha
AD : * Hindi Hindi and Hindi was all I was hearing *
ME : Sahi sahi
AD : * Few more sentences were spoken *
ME : * Managed a nod as he was looking at me now *

And this continued for a while before he turned back and…
AD : Boliyey saar
ME : * Silence *
AD : Arey saar, boliyey
ME : Bhai saab, mujey Hindi nahin Aathi
AD : * Silence *
AD : * More silence *

Till date I have no clue as to what he was saying and was not even sure if my responses were right. And that was just to make known my experience with a talking talking cabbie.
Woodooz

19 comments:

  1. Tipsy Topsy4:12 PM, July 01, 2005

    Ab hum Somu ke saath baat kaise karenge? :(

    ReplyDelete
  2. NotFunnyNotFamous4:35 PM, July 01, 2005

    Taxi and Auto wallas talk a lot and it sometimes makes up a very grand conversation from CNG to Politics to Yana Gupta to AIDS awareness.....


    Somu ji am linking you up

    ReplyDelete
  3. NotFunnyNotFamous4:37 PM, July 01, 2005

    Taxi and Auto wallas talk a lot and it sometimes makes up a very grand conversation from CNG to Politics to Yana Gupta to AIDS awareness.....


    Somu ji am linking you up

    ReplyDelete
  4. NotFunnyNotFamous4:40 PM, July 01, 2005

    Taxi and Auto wallas talk a lot and it sometimes makes up a very grand conversation from CNG to Politics to Yana Gupta to AIDS awareness.....


    Somu ji am linking you up

    ReplyDelete
  5. NotFunnyNotFamous4:46 PM, July 01, 2005

    Taxi and Auto wallas talk a lot and it sometimes makes up a very grand conversation from CNG to Politics to Yana Gupta to AIDS awareness.....


    Somu ji am linking you up

    ReplyDelete
  6. akshay6:51 PM, July 01, 2005

    hmmm...
    I would like to point out a small technical point here. Somu used up all of his hindi vocabulary in the conversation mentioned in the post. There have ofcourse been some additions to his vast repertoire.. However they might be considrered unparlimentary in most countries.. Hence i wouldn't advocate comments in hindi.. cause i'll end up translating those for him anyway..

    ReplyDelete
  7. Sangeeta7:31 PM, July 01, 2005

    heheheh cute! u could have told him that earlier on

    ReplyDelete
  8. PreethZzZ The Original9:00 PM, July 01, 2005

    LOL, i dont even understand the Bhai saab, mujey Hindi nahin Aathi, because mujey Hindi nahin Aathi!

    ReplyDelete
  9. PreethZzZ The Original9:07 PM, July 01, 2005

    i'm blog rolling u! btw...can someone tell me wht the translation is?

    ReplyDelete
  10. Woodooz9:57 PM, July 01, 2005

    @Ganga,
    It was kinda embarrassing for me ;o) But then, coming to think of it now, it sure sounds very very funny :o)

    @Tipsy
    Aap mujse Angreyzi mey baat karenge
    Well am really really sorry if that hindi was bad !!!
    I did a very short stint in Delhi and Mumbai and to a large extent got to understand the language when spoken by someone. But when it comes to speaking, hmmm am pathetic at it.

    For the same reason, my fave hindi movie remains to be "Hum Aapke Hai kaun"... Coz the movie was full of songs and I just had to sit back and enjoy

    ReplyDelete
  11. Woodooz10:01 PM, July 01, 2005

    @Shantanu,
    Very true. But in this case, I was really not able to figure out if he was talking about politics / CNG / Aids awareness... For sure I know it was not about Yana Gupta coz she was literally non-existent at that time.

    Thanks for the link :o)

    @Smyta,
    Acha, Bilkul, Sahi Sahi, Teek hai, aahaan, Pyar tho hona hi tha, hmmm dil tho paagal hai

    ReplyDelete
  12. Woodooz10:03 PM, July 01, 2005

    @Smyta again,
    I get your point. I have come to realze that it is difficult to survive in most parts of India without knowing Hindi... I always thought I cud manage with English, but I was mistaken.

    I once had the sad experience of having to show 7 of my fingers to indicate to the autowala that I would pay only 70 bucks.

    Anyways, now I get to understand a little bit of hindi... as in thoda thoda maalum hai... But speaking the language is way out of my league !

    ReplyDelete
  13. Woodooz10:05 PM, July 01, 2005

    @Akshay,
    You were almost nearly right. However, if you read my response to Smyta's comment, I have added few more things like dil tho paagal hai and pyar tho hona hi tha ;o)

    @Sangeetha,
    True Sangeetha. But remember ? I didnt want my ignorace of the language to be out coz i feared ppl might use it to their advantage :o)

    ReplyDelete
  14. Woodooz10:08 PM, July 01, 2005

    @Preethi,
    This reminds me of a fire warden training that I attended. The trainer threw a general question to the audience. He asked how many of us do not understand Tamil. Just one guy lifted his hand. And the trainer asked him "Un per enna pa?" and immdly he said "En per Arun".

    If I remember it right, Mujey Hindi Nahin aathi is the first sentence I learnt in hindi :o)

    Thanks for the blog roll !!!

    ReplyDelete
  15. ss2:07 AM, July 02, 2005

    Yes! This one you had told me before :-)) Even I tried to speak to you in Hindi sometimes, hai na, and look everyone started calling you 'Somu jee' cho chweet!!

    ReplyDelete
  16. Art12:42 PM, July 04, 2005

    this was funny somu... Thank god i can manage with hindi AARAM SE... other wise how wuld i survive in Hyd?? I dont know Telgu... so as soon as auto fellow speaks in Telgu i tell him in Hindi "Mujhe Telgu nahi aata" and he switches to hindi :)

    And as Smy said it such a wonderful...beautiful language:)

    Infact it seems i learnt this language even before i knew my mother tongue properly..

    ReplyDelete
  17. Anonymous10:43 PM, October 17, 2006

    best

    ReplyDelete
  18. Anonymous10:43 PM, October 17, 2006

    best

    ReplyDelete
  19. Anonymous10:44 PM, October 17, 2006

    best

    ReplyDelete

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