i joined this hostel and as we were first years it was obvious we were afraid of our seniors and stories going around of different ways of ragging and things like that! so common lingo became the unifying factor and all kannadigas used to move together everywhere as we have common classed in our first year! having taken biotechnology, a seemingly uncool branch in the college (ofcourse i had a job to do to change that but then thats another story) i had a problem with communicating effectively with everyone, it was not that i didnt convey what i wanted to say but i couldnt grasp in totality what they were talking about! there are words like kada(door), baldi(bucket), kode(umbrella), jhalka(bath), taas(hour) and words like that, we use words like bagilu, "buckit", chattri, snana and gante!
there was an incident with my roomie trying to explain to me the dishes prepared at his native place and being from belgaum (northern karnataka) started naming vegetables in his vocab which was totally unheard of in mysore or bangalore! for a start he started off "ullagaddi", "batate"& "mandakki" and i was lost again! then we ended up drawing the vegetables and deciphering that it was "irulli"(onion), "alugedde"(potato) and "kadle puri"(puffed rice)! it was wonderful to observe that although we were communicating in the same language our vocabs remained woefully incomplete!
now comes the best part, my best buddy from class was a mangalorean and when he was talking to me he used to say, "nin hange andre naanu kuugbidtini"(if yu say that i will shout). i used to say all the time "hogo! kuugko! yaar keltare nodona"(go shout, we'll see who'll hear you). but then after almost one year i realised that "kuugu", what was "shout" in my vocab was actually "cry" in his! and it seems "bonnda" is tender coconut! i had no clue! we'd been to a friend's place where my friend offered us "bonda"(a south indian snack), my dear buddy misheard it as "bonnda" and ended up asking "nivu bonnda tintira? kudiyodilva?"(you eat a tender coconut? not drink it" and again we were wondering what he was talking about! then when he said that "bonnda" meant tender coconut, we were rolling over laughing! it was hilarious!
Those were the best days of my life! Laughing at all these differences and putting it behind us as we walked together in the rain to the canteen for a hot cup of tea (if yu can call two spoons of tea as a cupful)! Jolly good!
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