Toshted English

Read a very interesting article in BT this morning. Read on:

When was the last time you had a hankering for a nice, piping hot bowl of sweet corn and chikkun soop along with spicy chomin (chow mein) while driving down Marine Drive at night, or felt like grabbing a quick jain peeza or -- better still -- a tosted sendweech while on the move? Be it the peeza, chomin, soop or sendweech, there's a strange fascination for curious -- and spurious -- words. Mumbai's love affair with Bambaiyya continues to evolve.

Ram Naik, a sendweechwalla who operates in a Colaba street corner is unconcerned about the spellings he uses on his menu: "I have been doing this job for 15 years and it's mainly students from the St Anne's and Fort Convent schools who are my most loyal customers. They love the taste of my sandwiches." Clearly, if it sells, correct spellings are only a small consideration.

The mechanics of spelling seem to be evolving. You'd never guess that a shop with the sign tair punchar (as there is one such shop in Lower Parel) is actually a tyre repair shop. When asked about this mangling of the language, the owner of the shop Mahadeo grins and affirms that it wasn't he who wrote the sign. In front of his shop stands a parked truck, with the sign edibal oail (edible oil) painted in mustard yellow across the front. The driver, Charan Singh, said that spellings didn't matter as long as the meaning of the contents was conveyed clearly.

Punchared tairs and edibal oails aside, it's also apparent that street food vendors have taken matters -- as well as the traditional manchurian -- into their own hands. Almost everywhere, the word 'Chinese' has morphed by various degrees of ease into Chinease or Chines. You'll find these words painted in dodgy-looking cantonese style on the front of nearly every red food cart.

Says Rahul D'Costa, a marketing executive: "The other day I was walking down Crawford Market and I came across a stall festooned with the sign 'poplet curry with Rs 5 extra for rice plate'. I was also urged to wash down my meal with a tall, refreshing and in-season glass of mongo jooz (mango juice)."

And while there's a very slim chance these words may find their way into the English dictionary, Mumbai's craving for ubiquitous sendweech shows no signs of abating Horn OK Please?