Spying on my Neighbors and Indianisms

After sleeping off and recovering from my Singapore trip, I started noticing some changes to my next-door neighbors. The windows from my flat and from work face the same apartment building to the east. About ten feet from the entrance to my building was a small row of about seven slum shacks. Slums usually spring up where there is construction, as the families who work on the construction site move near the building for the duration of the construction. This row of slums has been here the whole time I’ve been here but I noticed one day that two of the shacks were empty. Then after returning from Singapore I noticed that the slum had been emptied out leaving behind their discarded belongings. I guess construction has finished.

One empty shack

Now they're all gone

I also noticed a lattice had been propped up against a building, and then there were two men just balancing on the horizontal beam. These guys are like thirty feet above concrete on a very flimsy plastic matrix held together with what I imagine to be strong string (twine?). And then here they are chipping away at the wall of the building, causing their support to wobble with every whack they take. I was nervous for them the whole work day as I would look over and see them climb up and down to continue hacking away at the wall. I was also thinking how this would absolutely never fly in the US. They would be breaking like hundreds of safety codes.

Chipping away at the wall

Moving to the next section of wall

Also while living here I’ve adjusted to Indian idioms in English.  These are a few of my favorites:

“Double #” Anytime there are number read off and two of the same number are in a row, like two 9’s as in my phone number, you say “double 9.” When numbers were read to me and someone would say “double #” I would begin to write down the word “double” because my brain was in strict regurgitation mode. I also noticed if I said “9, 9” then the person taking down the number would pause and convert it to “double 9” in his head. But I’m Indian now and everything is double #.

“Kindly” or “you are kindly requested to do the needful” This seems to be a vestige of British English. What is needful? Does that mean what is needed to be done? If you receive an email that requires action on your part you are “kindly requested to [action here].”  I guess that’s a very nice way of putting it, but in my American experience it’s more “please complete [action] by [date].” It almost sounds like they are asking you to RSVP for something.

“Prepone” You guessed it, prepone is the opposite of postpone, and is very logical. You can postpone a meeting but there is no equivalent word of moving up a meeting. Bravo to Indians for this one.

“I stay in [place]” In this case stay just means “live.” “I stay in Mumbai” means “I live in Mumbai.” To me “stay” as a much more temporary connotation, like you are staying somewhere for a few days, but you permanently “live” in your hometown.

“Are you leaving station?” This is asking if you are going out of town. This one really confuses me, why is your house your station? Or is station referring to your hometown? And why is it a station? I still haven’t wrapped my head around this one.

“My native place” Your native place is where you grew up. This is a reflection of the diversity of cultures and identities within India. Every state has a different language, and village culture is vastly different from urban culture. “Native” to me sounds very foundational, like at the root of your ancestral history your family is originally from [country]. But here it refers to the village or block (a form of municipal districting) where you grew up.  It’s the equivalent of saying “I stay in San Francisco, but my native place is San Diego.” To me it implies that San Diego is this completely foreign, wholly different culture and place than San Francisco (yes they are very different).

"A/C and non-AC" "Veg and non-veg" These are pretty self-explanatory. When booking a cab or a room you are asked if you want A/C or non-A/C. Predictably the A/C amenities cost more but depending on how sweltering the weather is, is totally worth it. All packaged food and menus indicate whether food is veg or non-veg (which is like a double negative for me) and the vegetarian food has a green dot while the non-vegetarian food is marked with red. Subliminal much?