Zapping up the Ulti Lingo*

May 20, 2009 by Sanjay.

Sifting through old papers, I ended up riffling through my thesis. Back to front. Perhaps I wanted to know how the story ended. Or perhaps in its opacity - 18 years down the road - it seems to be written in a truly foreign language, like Persian. Whatever the reason, when further paper shuffling - avoiding work is an avocation - yielded the following poem by Nissim Ezekiel, I had to laugh. It was just too appropriate to the laboriousness of my own forays in writing. (I am on week 3 stuck in a supposedly straightforward technical report…)

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Some people are not having manners
this I am always observing
For example the other day I find
I am needing Soap
for ordinary washing myself purposes
So I am going to one small shop
nearby in my lane and I am asking
for well-known brand soapThe shopman he’s giving me soap
but I am finding it defective version
So I am saying very politely –
though in Hindi I’m saying it,
and my Hindi is not so good as my English
Please to excuse me
but this is defective version of well-known brand soap
That shopman is saying
and very rudely he is saying it
What is wrong with soap?

Still I am keeping my temper
and repeating very smilingly
Please to note this defect in Soap
and still he is denying the truth
So I am getting very angry that time and with loud voice I am saying
YOU ARE BLIND OR WHAT?

Now he is shouting
you are calling me blind or what?
Come outside and I will show you

Then I am shouting
What you will show me
Which I haven’t got already?
It is a vulgar thing to say
But I am saying it.

Now small crowd is collecting
and the shopman is much bigger than me,
and I am not caring so much
for small defect in well-known brand soap
So I am saying
Alright OK Alright OK
this time I will take
but not next time

Nissim Ezekiel
from: Very Indian Poems in Indian English

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* The post title is the headline of a September 1988 article in India Today about college slang. Ulti, here a contraction of ultimate, carries a double meaning. The identically spelled Hindi word means upside down.

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