Adaptations

                                                                              

      Manjunath is Bangalore’s quintessential local lad. He could be the boy next door, the milkman, auto driver, newspaper boy, executive or bank employee.  He is omnipresent in Karnataka’s landscape just as Unni is in Kerala, Murugan in Tamilnadu or Srinivas in Andhra. He is proficient in Kanglish, Bangalore’s lingua franca - a quaint melange of English and Kannada.

      Manjunath greets a fellow Bangalorean, with an opening question, “Ootta aayta or tindi aayta or coffee aaytaa”, irrespective of the time of the day. The reply he routinely hears is - “Eega jeshtu” which means he just finished oottaa  (lunch) or tindi (breakfast /snacks) or coffee.  

     His second question in all probability is, “What is your native saar”?

     Next question could well be, “Saar, own housaa, rented housaa”?

     I have never quite understood why Manjunath refers to a non-vegetarian restaurant as a "Miltry Otlu" ( Military hotel ) and a vegetarian restaurant as  a “darshini or Udupi”.

     Simp-simply, sep-separate and sing-single are expressions he translates from Kannada to English. He thinks Kannada and repeats the expression in English, to emphasize the effect.

     At times he laments about the "one to dabal" (double) price of a "gyaas-silendru", (gas cylinder) if bought in black.

     He describes a gruesome accident as “spaattu”. He means the victim died on the spot!

     When he claims he has no "habits", he actually means he is a teetotaller.

      Full marks in a Maths paper is “out of outtu” (100 out of 100), a meter is a "meettru", a scooter is a "scoottru", a dual sim mobile phone is a "dabal simmu", a branded product is "virginallu", a spurious product is"locallu" and a good looking girl, a " figurru".

     Languages have a novel way of adapting themselves to the demands of  the local milieu.

     Kanglish is a charming dialect, sometimes incomprehensible for the English speaking, non-Kannadiga populace of Bangalore.