ABC for the real Calcuttan

This is not my creation but I found it pretty interesting. I received it as a forward. Its really awesome


A is for Apish (Office). This is where the average Kolkatan goes and spends a day hard(ly) at work. If he is in the Government he will arrive at 10, wipe his forehead till 11, have a tea break at 12, throw around a few files at 12.30, break for lunch at 1, smoke an unfiltered cigarette at 2, break for tea at 3, sleep sitting down at 4 and go home at 5. It’s a hard life!

B is for Boka. Meaning phool or eedeeot, often used with an abusive rhyming attachment which means an absolute phool or eedeeot.

C is for Chappell.
This is the Bengali word for the Devil, for the worst form of evil. In the night mothers put their kids to sleep saying ‘go to bed, or Chappell will come and take you away.’

D is for Debashish.
By an ancient law every fourth Bengali Child has to be named Debashish. So you have a Debashish everywhere and trying to get creative they are also called Deb, Debu, Deba with variations like Debnath and Deboprotim thrown in.

E is for Eeesh. This is a very common Bengali exclamation made famous by Aishwarya Rai in the movie Devdas. It is estimated that on an average a Bengali uses eeesh 10,089 times every year. (That’s counting eeesh and other eeesh-ish words).

F is for Feesh. These are creatures that swim in rivers and seas and are a favourite food of the Bengalis. Despite the fact that a fish market has such strong smells, with one sniff a Bengali knows if a fish is all right. If not, he will say ‘eeesh, what feeesh is theeesh!’

G is for Good name. Every Bengali Boy will have a good name like Debashish or Deboprotim and a pet name like Shontuda, Chonti, and Dinku. While every Bengali Girl will be Paromita or Protima as well as Shampa, Champa and Buri. Basically your nickname is there to kill your good name.

H is for Harmonium. The Bengali equivalent of a rock guitar. Take four Bengalis and a Harmonium and you have the successors to The Bheatles!

I is for lleesh. This is a feeesh with 10,000 bones which would kill any ordinary person, but which the Bengalis eat with releeesh!

J is for Jamaibabu or Jhamela or Jhola. No self respecting Bengali is complete without his Jhola. It is a shapeless cloth bag where he keeps all his belongings and he fits an amazing number of things in. Even as you read this there are 2 million jholas bobbling around Kolkata- and they all look exactly the same!

K is for Kee Kando. It used to be the favourite Bengali exclamation till eeesh took over because of Aishwarya Rai (now Kee Kando’s agent is trying to hire Bipasha Basu).

L is for Ludo or Lungi. People in Kolkata manage to play football and cricket wearing it. Now there is talk of a lungi expedition to Mt. Everest. That is when they are not playing Ludo on the “roK”

M is for Minibus. These are dangerous half buses whose antics would effortlessly frighten the living daylights out of Formula 1 race drivers.

N is for Nangtoe. This is the Bengali word for Naked. It is the most interesting naked word in any language!

O is for Oil. The Bengalis believe that a touch of mustard oil will cure anything from cold (oil in the nose), to earache (oil in the ear), to cough (oil on the throat) to piles (oil you know where!)

P is for Potol and Pantua - the must haves on all Bong meals.

Q is for Queen. This really has nothing to do with the Bengalis or Kolkata, but it’s the only Q word I could think of at this moment. There’s also Quilt but they never use them in Kolkata. Queez. Every Calcuttan is crazy about it. Check the top Indian queezmasters.

R is for Robi Thakur. Many years ago Rabindranath got the Nobel Prize. This allows everyone in Kolkata to frame their acceptance speeches and walk with their head held high and look down at Delhi and Mumbai! R used to be for “Rok (rock)-bazi” - the quintessential place for sitting and watching the street idling away till a few years back.

S is for Shala: Wife’s brother or the most publicly used swear word in Kolkata.

T is for Trams. Hundred years later there are still trams in Kolkata. Of course if you are in a hurry it’s faster to walk.

U is for Ambrela. When a Bengali baby is born they are handed one.

V is for Violence. Bengalis are the most non-violent violent people around. When an accident happens they will shout and scream and curse and abuse, but the last time someone actually hit someone was in 1979.

W is for Water. For three months of the year the city is under water and every year for the last 200 years the authorities are taken by surprise by this!

X is for X mas. It’s very big in Kolkata, with Park Street fully lit up.

Y is for Yestaarday. Which is always better than today for a Bengali.

Z is for Jeebra, Joo, Jip and Jylophone.

Comments

Anonymous said…
No hard feelings, but couldn't help responding to this. I guess that makes me a patriotic bong :)

Comments are inline.

Ever seen jack laughing at jenny, that's exactly what this mail is about. ( For those of you unaware, both jack and jenny are donkeys. One is a male and the other is a female. However, fundamentally they are both donkeys. But they are unaware of that fact, which is what makes them donkeys.)


WORTH THE LAUGHS, if you are not a patriotic bong:

There is no such thing called patriotic bong. Patriotic is nationalistic and not secular in nature.
So, that leaves us with two kinds. Bong and Bengalis. So, the correct rephrase would be

WORTH THE LAUGHS, if you are a bong and not a bengali :


ABC of Bengali


A is for Awpheesh (as in Office). This is where the average
Kolkakattan goes and spends a day hard(ly) at work. And if he works
for the "West Bengal Gawrment" he will arrive at 10, wipe his forehead
till 11, have a tea break at 12, throw around a few files at 12.30,
break for lunch at 1, smoke an unfiltered cigarette at 2, break for
tea at 3, sleep sitting down at 4 and go home at 4:30. It's a hard
life!

Part one : This doesn't capture the work ethics of a bengali, instead depicts the work culture in Indian Government office, due to lack of accountability and job security.

Part Two: Further the average bengali do not end up in Government office these days, in fact the truth of the matter is, it is much harder to get a government job, as one has to qualify and pass multiple stringent requirements and tests. On the contrary, the average ends up in private sector jobs and call-centers as they simply cannot qualify for a government job.


B is for Bhision. For some reason many Bengalis don't have good
bhision. In fact in Kolkata most people are wearing spectacles all
the time.

Bengali's do love to read ( an intellectual trait, that bongs would find hard to understand).
However as far as the above statement is concerned, it is pure B.S. It does not have any statistical base.
I find it hard to imagine, a typical bengali writing up something bogus like this, but I can easily fathom, a bong who is still confused on what he/she is, putting words to his/her distorted vision.


C is for Chappell. Currently, this is the Bengali word for the Devil,
for the worst form of evil. In the night mothers put their kids to
sleep saying, æNa ghumaley Chappell eshey dhorey niye jabeö

Wow ! Never heard of that.
The usual tradition to tell a story to put the kids to sleep and not
scare them away from bed.

D is for Debashish or any other name starting with Deb-. By an
ancient law every fourth Bengali Child has to be named Debashish. So
you have a Debashish everywhere and trying to get creative they are
also called Deb, Debu, Deba with variations like Debanik, Deboprotim,
Debojyoti, etc. thrown in at times.

Again, this is a statistically flawed statement. The Bengali's are not hybrids, and do have strong identities. These are traits not found in the typical superficial bong who thinks the literal name is the identity, hence tries to come up names which are crossed between West and anything that is phonetically funky sounding).


E is for Eeesh. This is a very common Bengali exclamation made famous
by Aishwarya Rai in the movie Devdas. It is estimated that on an
average a Bengali, especially Bengali women, use eeesh 10,089 times
every year. "Ei Morechhey" is a close second to Eeesh.

Without reference and date, the above statement does not have any credibility anyways.

At least it is more meaningful than simply substituting pause with "like' and
"if you will" in a conversation, where none of these make any sense whatsoever.
But, a bong would prefer this over Eeesh.


F is for Feeesh. These are creatures that swim in rivers and seas and
are a favourite food of the Bengalis. Despite the fact that a fish
market has such strong smells, with one sniff a Bengali knows if a
fish is all right. If not he will say 'eeesh what feeesh is theesh!'

Once again the ignorance of the typical bong becomes explicit here. By now, we know, the typical bong never reads for the fear of Bhision problem, and having to spend the rest of his life in a government job.
Hence is unaware that these stinky creature are the most sought after delicacies in the world. Probably, the bong thinks caviar is different from fish ( just like jenny and jack ).
The bong needs to know that the whole world enjoys fish as a delicacy and in the healthy world is well known as a better source of protein. Btw, fresh water fish do not stink at all. Heavy water fish may stink if it is not fresh.



G is for Good name. Every Bengali boy will have a good name like
Debashish or Deboprotim and a pet name like Montu, Bablu, etc. While
every Bengali girls will have pet names like Tia, Tuktuki, Mishti,
Khuku, etc.

The typical bong is limited in their imagination and which is why he/she thinks he can repeat the same crap over and again.
Poor bong !


H is for Harmonium. This the Bengali equivalent of a rock guitar. Take
four Bengalis and a Harmonium and you have the successors to The
Bheatles!

Once again ignorance comes in to play. Harmonium is a musical instrument, commonly used in the music composition phase by all musicians and is not isolated to bengalis. But the bong is unaware of scale and music, and believes that a special guitar is required called rock guitar which can play rock music. Little does the bong knows that one of the Bheatles member took music lesson from a non-patriotic bong called Ravi Shankar who does not use a rock guitar.




I is for lleesh. This is a feeesh with 10,000 bones which would kill
any ordinary person, but which the Bengalis eat with releeesh!

Not a surprise that the bong is also a math genius. In his confused little world apparently people died while trying to eat Ileesh feeesh.


J is for Jhola. No self respecting Bengali is complete without his
Jhola. It is a shapeless cloth bag where he keeps all his belongings
and he fits an amazing number of things in. Even as you read this
there are 2 million jholas bobbling around Kolkata- and they all look
exactly the same! Note that 'Jhol' as in Maachher Jhol is a close
second

What an observation and interpretation ?
First of all there is no such thing as shapeless in this context. This is a vector object. You cannot sew something if there is no well defined path. So that is a wrong premise for this statement.
The jhola is more versatile than a bag which has fixed sachets that restricts the size of the contents one can put into the sachets. The jhola can folded to small piece when not used unlike a bag which because of its rigid construction. The jhola is very light and very inexpensive. This is what makes it a great bag.
It is an irony that the same bong would aspire for a Louis Vuitton jhola.

Remember when I first said that when a bong chooses a name, it is based on sound as he/she cannot go to understand the meaning of the word. No wonder he/she thinks Jhol and Jhola are siblings.
For him the everything is seen as a rasterized bitmap and not a vector.


K is for Kee Kaando !. It used to be the favourite Bengali exclamation
till eeesh took over because of Aishwarya Rai (now Kee Kando's agent
is trying to hire Bipasha Basu).

Here we see how the bong tries to come up with another bogus statement, as he tries to cope with the predicament of this stupid ABCD email.


L is for Lungi - the dress for all occasions. People in Kolkata
manage to play football and cricket wearing it not to mention the
daily trip in the morning to the local bajaar. Now there is talk of a
lungi expedition to Mt. Everest.

Firstly, the word 'Lungi' does not even sound phonetically correct. It should be Loongi. 'Lungi' sounds more like 'Fungi' with a L.
As I move further down the alphabet chain, I see that the typical bong is struggling to come up with anything funny and is moving more and more to his/her fantasy world. Honestly, it is getting boring now.


M is for Minibus. These are dangerous half buses whose antics would
effortlessly frighten the living daylights out of all James Bond
stuntmen as well as Formula 1 race car drivers.

Looks like the bong is not well traveled within India and does not know how the jats drive the white liners in Delhi.

N is for N ishchoi. This is the Bengali word for Obvious . It is the
most interesting word in any ex-pression!

The dictionary meaning of Obvious is "easily discovered, seen, or understood".
The correct english word is 'definitely'. However, in Bengali, this word is used as a synonym for 'Yes'.

O is for Oil. The Bengalis believe that a touch of mustard oil will
cure anything from cold (oil in the nose), to earache (oil in the
ear), to cough (oil on the throat). And of course for taste (oil on
the food).

Don't see the connection here with ethnicity at all.
Cannot expect anything more lame from the bong.

P is for Phootball. This is always a phavourite phassion of the
Kolkattan. Every Bengali is born an expert in this game. The two
biggest clubs there are Mohunbagan and East Bengal and when they play
the city comes to a stop.

It seems the rest of the world is full of bengalis as they all play phootball. In any city when the local team plays,it is a big thing for that city. But this is true and applicable in any part of the world where people love sports. It is hard for the typical bong to fathom that, as he/she does not have any ability or interest in sports.


Q is for Queen. This really has nothing to do with the Bengalis or
Kolkata, but it's the only Q word I could think of at this moment.
There's also Quilt but they never use them in Kolkata.

What happened to Queen Victoria and its establishment all over Kolkata ?


R is for Robi Thakur. Many nany years ago Rabindranath got the No
bel Prize. This has given the right to all Bengalis no matter where
they are to frame their acceptance speeches as if they were directly
related to the great poet and walk with their head held high. This
also gives Bengalis the birthright to look down at Delhi and Mumbai
and of course 'all non-Bengawlees'!
Note that 'Rawshogolla' comes a close second !

As always, the pathetic bong does not even know the date when Rabindranath Thakur got his Nobel Prize.
Bengali's are proud of this great heritage in an obvious manner.


S is for Shourav. Now that they finally produced a genuine cricketer
and a captain, Bengalis think that he should be allowed to play until
he is 70 years old. Of course they will see to it that he stays in
good form by doing a little bit of "joggo" and "maanot".

He is still the best Indian captain that we had as per all statistics is concerned (See cricinfo.com). He has leadership qualities which no other captain has and does not think a prototype format.


T is for Trams. Hundred years later there are still trams in Kolkata.
Of course if you are in a hurry it's faster to walk.

Little does the bong understand about heritage to understand and appreciate tram.

U is for Aambrela. When a Bengali baby is born they are handed one.

Here goes the bong again with his wild imagination.
No bengali has seen such a tradition.

V is for Bhaayolence. Bengalis are the most non-violent violent
people around. When an accident happens they will fold up their
sleeves, shout and scream and curse and abuse, but the last time
someone actually hit someone was in 1979.

It is called protest. In civilized world, people use their words to express instead of physical abuse.
The probability of someone dying in road accident is probably less as the person would seen be taken to hospital by public people, unlike other places where bongs would simply not be bothered about who is hit, as long as he/she is not involved. This is a selfish trait commonly seen in most bongs.


W is for Water. For three months of the year the city is underwater
and every year for the last 200 years the authorities are taken by
surprise by this!

Firstly, I do not see the connection with Bengali and water as described in the above context.
The drainage clogging due to excess rain is an issue with old cities where drainage system did not scale with oversubscription of cities.
Anyone who reads news would know that it was bombay where people suffered due to this and not Kolkata.



X is for X-mas. It's very big in Kolkata, with Park Street fully lit
up and all Bengalis agreeing that they must eat cake that day.

For the ignorant, little does he/she know that Part Street has some of the oldest cake shops since the british colonial period. So, going there to celebrate is more of a rich tradition.


Y is for Yesshtaarday. Which is always better than today for a Bengali
(see R for Robi Thakur).

Hard to comprehend what the bong is trying to say here.

Z is for Jebra, Joo, Jipper and Jylophone.

Hard to find the connection with Bengali.

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--
me
100rabh™ said…
Guess you can feel patriotic about all bengalis or bongs.....But then Calcuttans are of a different nature. This whole thing is about Calcuttans and ignorant you, dont even confuse Calcuttan with Bongs. :-)

Anyways you have rights to your views and passion.
NP Bond said…
lorbo, morbo, jitbo noi re..

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