Gulti as Charged

It has come to my attention that some Telugu people do not like being referred to as “gults”

Why?

I don’t know. I am just stating the popular feeling. They seem to be angry about it. Not exactly angry, maybe they find it distasteful.

Go on...

Some people also find it a little insulting. A few even go as far as raising an objection to the use of the word while others merely disapprove of it.

Thankfully no one found it to be “controversial” yet, none of the “sentiments were hurt” by the “insensitive” word and you are lucky that no one took "offense"

I still don't see what the big deal is. It’s just a silly word. Gult/Gulti (originally Golti) is a word invented by Tamilians to (sometimes condescendingly) refer to Telugu people. I learned the word in my first year of college and we have all been using it ever since.

Your foul-mouthed College is different from society. You are part of "Jana Jeevana Sravanti" now

Now, I understand why some people don’t like the G-word. I have personally seen it being used in a very insulting and disdainful way but what is the point of attacking the word? If you replace the word ‘gult’ with the word ‘splork’, it would still be equally offensive!

Yes, but still...

Words by themselves are harmless be it gult, rape, nigger or whatever. It is always the context that makes them offensive. If people have the time, they should be attacking the narrow-minded, chauvinistic, cow-belt supremacist asshole who uses the word with such contempt

Okay, if it is not a big deal then why are you so hell bent on using it?

I am not hell bent or anything. It’s just that I like the word. Gult is such a nice word. It’s a beautiful word. It has only two syllables, ends with a vowel sound, naturally fits into the English grammar, we can use it to universally refer to any Telugu speaking fellow from Srikakulam to San Fransisco and it rhymes with cult. What more do you want from a word?

Give me a worthy replacement and I’ll stop using the G-word

Why don’t you use the normal word for Telugu people?

What "normal" word for Telugu people? There are words like Mallu, Tamilian, Bengali, Gujarati, and Marathi etc for those linguistic groups. Even Kannada people have a nice word like Kannadiga going for them but there is no word for Telugu people as a whole.

How about Telugus?

It's not a very convenient word. It's like referring to North Indians as Hindis or Bihari Muslims as Urdus - doesn't make much sense. If we start calling ourselves Telugus, then Amits will start pronouncing it tel-goose (तेलगूस ) which sounds like something you'd order in an expensive Gourmet restaurant.

Example: I would like to have a Roasted Tel-goose with chickpeas and cider gravy please.

Haha... making fun of North Indian accents should be more mainstream. "People from Bhimavaram are Tel-goose from 'waste' Godavari district!"

Besides, the word is not at all compatible for use with the English language. Suppose I want to mention that a particular gult fellow speaks horrible Telugu, I have to say something like,

"This Telugu's Telugu is horrible" -- the first Telugu refers to the person and the Telugu following it refers to the language. See it is ambiguous and confusing as opposed to "This gult's Telugu is horrible" which is simple, clear and direct.

G-word: 1 – 0: Telugus

Okay, how about Andhraites? People from Chennai are called Chennaites. I don’t know if they like the word but given that Bal Thackeray has ruined the word Madrasi for everybody, we’re not left with many options.

Nah! The word Andhraite is geographically binding. What about Telugu people who do not belong to the state of Andhra Pradesh, those settled in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Orissa etc. for generations? Should we call them Andhraites too, even if they have nothing to do Andhra?

It's just a convention that people can adopt

Let's assume all the gults from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Orissa, New Delhi, New Jersey, Atlanta, Texas, California, West Indies, Fiji islands and Zambia adopt the word Andhraites, Telangana people are still going object to it. Why would they let you call them Andhraites when they are Telanganites?

These T party fellows...

If a separate Telangana happens, we'll have to use two words then -- Andhraites and Telanganites. This is going to cause mayhem among the Non-Resident Gult community that they will insist on calling Avakai-Americans on the lines of African-Americans just to avoid the confusion!

Your ability to see the worst in everything continues to amaze me.

Thank you. Even if Telanganites and Avakai-Americans wholeheartedly accept the word Andhraite, I’d still refuse to use it for the simple reason that Andhraite sounds like some cheap Aluminium ore, something Vedanta Inc. would want to dig! For example, "Southern Orissa has a lot of Andhraites while the northern districts are rich in Bauxite".

Some people in Bangalore sometimes use the word Telgite which I think is even worse!

Haemetite, Magnetite, Andhraite, Bauxite, Cryolite, Telgite, Araldite, Pidilite... *purr*

Okay, that's enough!

What about the Last Syllable Nomenclature your father uses?

Yes he has developed his own system of stereotyping people. He calls Gults as Gu-bacchas. North Indians as Di-bacchas, and Americans as Ish-bacchas etc. But that doesn't go well with English. It is meant for non-serious conversations in Telugu/Bengali only.

Another common way of naming linguistic groups is by suffixing the noun with –ese like Chinese, Japanese etc. That would make you Telugese.

Seriously? Are we still doing this?

Sigh... there is no universal word for the Telugu speaking diaspora!

No, there is a word -- The G-word. Whether you like it or not, Gulti is the best word we have to universally refer to the Telugu speaking diaspora.

To be honest, I am little disappointed that you people are still arguing about these silly words. I mean, how can we have Gultisthan without the Gulti?

Babies, Kids and their Parents!

I was out one fine Sunday evening having dinner at Subway. There was this family at the next table having their Sunday dinner. I wondered what a family is doing at Subway because Subway is the sort of a place where bachelors go to eat when they are not in the mood to eat anything! Their choice, let’s not judge that. The Small family consisted of Mom, Dad and two kids – a baby and her five year old brother. Dad went to place the order; the five-year old was visibly excited; the Baby was crying and Mom did nothing to stop the crying!

For crying out loud!

First of all, why do babies cry? What are these babies crying about? They don’t have deadlines to meet. They don’t have financial problems or any relationship issues. In fact, their lives are so awesome that they don’t even have to move to poop and they’re still crying! They are living through what they would look back as the best period of their lives and still they cry all the time. Something is wrong with humans! You don’t see kittens crying do you?

I have come to accept that we can never completely do away with babies. But the parents – parents who board flights and trains with their babies; parents whose families cause mild-to-medium inconvenience to strangers like me; parents who take their babies to the movies or other places where I might be – they ought to be blamed.

Parents, we know you act all embarrassed, sport a guilty smile and wear an expression that says, “I have no idea why babies cry” but the thing is 90% of the time you are the reason the baby is crying. You take babies to dark loud claustrophobic movie halls and to bright noisy restaurants, to crowded trains and bumpy planes. You take babies to places they don’t belong to and then you wonder why they are crying. Your game is up – we know that you are the reason your baby is crying!

Mum's the tongue

Okay back to the story. The five year old brother of the crying baby was all excited about his meal. He was animatedly yelling instructions to his Dad on how he prefers his Sub knocking out a few things on the table in the process. Mom obviously irritated with his enthusiasm barks out simple instructions like “Chintu sit – Chintu no… Chintu don’t be a bad boy… CHINTU I SAID NO!” in a loud but hushed tone.

I don’t know how it is for you people but I find parents talking to their kids in English a little weird. Especially if the kid is 4 years old and the parent is not very comfortable in English! A conversation in English is totally fine but communicating with a four-year old involves barking a lot of mono-syllabic instructions and it always reminds me of puppies being trained! No offense but where I’m from, that’s the only time people use English! What can I do? I can’t change my past!

Finding it weird is my problem not the parents’ fault. But I don’t understand is why English is forced on little children as their first language – as their language of thought! I understand fluency in English is important but just because you work in a software company where you have to do the documentation in English doesn’t mean that your mother tongue has outlived its purpose! There is tons of inherent cultural knowledge your kids are missing because you are denying them their mother tongue. So young parents, you’re basically screwing it up for your kids in a big way!

Sanitize this!

Where were we? Yeah, Dad has now brought the sandwich along with some Lays chips and bottled water. Mom takes the hand sanitizer from her purse and instantly sanitizes everyone’s hands. Are washbasins “ssooo last century” now? What’s the logic in giving only tissues in a humid place like Bombay? We always end up leaving leave the place with sticky hands don't we?

I agree that as part of an “international chain” franchisees have to maintain some sort of consistency in the way the place looks but if stuffing paneer into a sandwich is allowed I don't see why putting a couple of washbasins is difficult. May be there is a bigger reason for the absence of washbasins. May be the only reason KFC is finger licking good is because they do not have enough washbasins!

Disclosure: I personally don’t have a problem with babies crying next to me in a train because it takes much more than a tiny baby with a shrill voice to disturb me from my sleep! After all I do have over 85000 hours of experience!

P.S: Have you seen http://gultrage.tumblr.com lately?

It's not Che, its Cliché

“What’s in a name?” said Shakespeare, “That which we call a rose; by any other name would smell as sweet." – This has to be the most annoying cliché EVER! Everyone from editorial columnists to noob bloggers use it. I wonder why? Are they trying to prove that they are well versed with Shakespeare? Do they really think that we’d fall for such a lame quote? Here are some more clichés that really piss me off.
 
The suffix-gate scandal: Why is the Indian media trying to ape the American media? First they are naming cyclones and then they add a –gate suffix to every silly scandal! Don’t they know that the average American is considered dumb? It has been almost 35 years since Watergate scandal. The American media has moved on and we’re still giving names like Slap-gate, IPL-gate, Tweet-gate… like losers. Media people, I hate you enough already; don’t insult my intelligence. 

Think outside the box: if I get to choose one phrase that I do not have to hear again, it’d be “Thinking outside the box”. “Think outside the box” is so cliché that it is now inside the box! The box has grown bigger and it has swallowed the phrase.

Isn’t it ironical that a phrase that was invented to motivate people to think beyond clichés is now a cliché? That brings me to irony. I bet half the people I am acquainted with don’t know what irony exactly means. So learn it, and do me a favor –don’t use it.

F***: I hate it when people conceal words with stars and write them as f***. Who are they trying to protect by using all those **** and @#%^? Even a twelve year old knows what f*** means. Are they trying to look polished or something? If they really want to protect the kids from the bad words, why give away the 'F'? Just print four stars and keep them guessing. However, if you insist on using it, use it like a man!

At the end of the day: This is one my all-time favorite bullshit lines. What does it even mean? “End of the day” – End of the day what? From my personal experience, people use it when they are losing an argument and it is usually followed by the words ‘it all boils down to… ’ and they repeat the same loser argument stating them as inevitable but improvable truths. Use it only if you are a loser. 


Ballpark: If you are trying to impress people around you by using what you think are sophisticated words, get a life asshole! I know you picked up the word from the Economic Times. Why would any normal person right in his mind use the word ballpark when you can use the words ‘roughly’ or ‘approximately’?


To be (perfectly) honest with you: Was that person lying all this while? And what the hell is “perfectly honest”? It’s either honest or it’s dishonest. At this juncture you might be tempted to say, “The world is not black and white” but remember that is in the extended list of clichés I hate. 

I’d be more than happy to: Again, do they really mean it when they say it? Seriously more than happy as in delighted, blissful, ecstatic, exalted, joyous? “I’d be rolling in ecstasy to take care of your dog for the weekend” doesn’t sound right does it? There is a reason the phrase sucks. 

Literally: I have friend who literally uses literally so many times that I am beginning to think she literally. has no brains. A fly landed on her nose the other day and she said, “A fly literally landed on my nose” How can a fly non-literally land on someone’s nose? Hi honey, if you’re reading this, you can thank me by buying me a muffin. You’re welcome.

The newspapers also use it a lot. Haven’t we all heard during the election season something like, “It was literally a landslide victory”? The only scenario in which this sentence can make sense is if all the people who are planning to vote for the other guy are tragically buried alive in a landslide the day before the election. If that happens, you can hail it as a literally landslide victory. 

You should give 110%: For the last time, there is no such thing as 110%. 100% is the maximum you can give. The phrase was probably coined by a frustrated basketball coach during the half time of a match his team was about to lose. Needless to say, the frustrated coach flunked math in highschool.

And finally: It's not Che, its Cliché - 

 
This list in no way is comprehensive. I just wrote down a few I could think of. Having said that, I’d like to add that I’ll leave no stone unturned towards my campaign that seeks to end this abuse of language. If we start the campaign right away, we can still touch base and save the language in the nick of time. But I have a sneaking suspicion that, from time immemorial, intelligent people have been trying to do this but at the end of the day, I am sure that it all boils down to whether I walk the talk as well as I can talked the talk. Well some things are easier said than done. 

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